From a letter to a friend:
Reagan: Presided over the S&L collapse, the flash crash and several embarrassing forays into midget countries like Nicaragua and Granada. Made the unforgivable error of believing the democrats when they agreed to cut spending with the tax cut, causing a rise in the deficit that soon became institutionalized.
Bush: Somehow rescued Kuwait with a believable coalition. But raised taxes after promising not to and was defeated by the mysterious Clinton-Perot coalition.
Clinton: Lied under oath. Presided over an astonishing number of international disasters like Bosnia, Rwanda, Somalia. If Reagan was overaggressive in protecting foreigners, Clinton was completely disinterested. There will always be debate over whether the Americans should have rescued those people. A lot died. Saved from much potential financial problems by the Gingrich House revolution. Every single adult male in the country would have gone to jail for what Clinton did per routine--and with vocal support.
Bush: Had the misfortune of being in office when the loonies hit the Towers. Believed his intel and went to war without the funding, raising our debt precipitously. Warned about the sub-prime problem but did not have the political strength to fight it. Ergo, the 2008 collapse. Another example of spending without funding, epidemic among these guys.
Obama: Red lines in the sands, Libya, Arab Springs, the laughable Egypt adventure, IRS investigating political opponents, substituting the bureaucracy for the legislature, drone assassinations, treaties without ratification--my bet is that nonetheless he is well regarded but that is an impressive litany of failure and centralization of power that people see in Trump.
Trump: The child of them all.
We are not in trouble; we have been in trouble for a long time.
The difference that Trump brings to the office is not philosophical; the others were as arrogant and inept, but they were more smooth.
Kennedy had a personal sexual life that was as pathological as you could get. When Hirsch interviewed the Secret Service guys about it, they cried. The Secret Service guys wept. (Asphyxiation was apparently one of his interests.) One of his girls was a mobster's girl. A mobster's girl in the Lincoln bedroom. His invasion of Cuba has got to be one of the dumbest things in American history and it led to a confrontation with Russia that almost ended the world. Over Cuba. (The argument for the first strike on Russia was that we, the Americans, would lose no more than 30 million people. That was the argument for.) Undeterred by his nuclear near miss, he invaded Vietnam. He was handsome and smooth, his wife was gorgeous and multi-lingual, but he was a disaster.
He was followed by Lyndon Johnson of Gulf of Tonkin Resolution fame. He fraudulently manipulated the Kennedy mistake into a full blown nightmare that the generation at the time has still never escaped. It singlehandedly did more damage to the American psyche than any Russian oligarch could dream of. And he expanded the welfare state with no method of funding it. That plane has yet to land--but it will at some time and will not be pretty. Many--particularly those conned into being helped by it--will suffer--again from the policies of a guy who did not live long enough to be blamed for them.
Next? Nixon. Price controls and shortages, deficits, criminal behavior--sort of all of the above.
Ford? Not in office long enough or with enough support to do much damage. Generally my kind of guy.
Carter: Feckless and his enemies knew it so Iran took the diplomats hostage. Economic decline and inflation with interest rates as high as 14%. Caused the crash in the S&L industry in the next five years. Capped his genius administration off with the almost comic invasion of Iran except good guys--as usual, not the precipitators-- died. Major accomplishment was to scold the citizenry for their high expectations.
Bush: Somehow rescued Kuwait with a believable coalition. But raised taxes after promising not to and was defeated by the mysterious Clinton-Perot coalition.
Clinton: Lied under oath. Presided over an astonishing number of international disasters like Bosnia, Rwanda, Somalia. If Reagan was overaggressive in protecting foreigners, Clinton was completely disinterested. There will always be debate over whether the Americans should have rescued those people. A lot died. Saved from much potential financial problems by the Gingrich House revolution. Every single adult male in the country would have gone to jail for what Clinton did per routine--and with vocal support.
Bush: Had the misfortune of being in office when the loonies hit the Towers. Believed his intel and went to war without the funding, raising our debt precipitously. Warned about the sub-prime problem but did not have the political strength to fight it. Ergo, the 2008 collapse. Another example of spending without funding, epidemic among these guys.
Obama: Red lines in the sands, Libya, Arab Springs, the laughable Egypt adventure, IRS investigating political opponents, substituting the bureaucracy for the legislature, drone assassinations, treaties without ratification--my bet is that nonetheless he is well regarded but that is an impressive litany of failure and centralization of power that people see in Trump.
Trump: The child of them all.
We are not in trouble; we have been in trouble for a long time.
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