2004 and beyond.....

[agcatter]

I am one Republican who doesn't hate FDR.  The record is mixed.  I think he was a good war leader and had a good working relationship with Churchill.  He should , however, never, ever been elected for that last term.  He was old and sick and allowed "Uncle Joe" to completely take us to the cleaners at Yalta.  His naivete about Stalin was unbelievable.  Also, his choice of Henry Wallace as VP could have been disastrous for this country had FDR died during his third term.  Imagine Henry Wallace as President of the United States.  God was truly smiling on this country when Wallace was dropped for political reasons from the ticket in 44 and replaced by Harry Truman.

[Michael Z]

I'm inclined to agree with RP. Admittedly, I agree with many Republicans that it's a myth that the New Deal alleviated the Great Depression (the statistics speak for themselves, unemployment was still above 15% as late as 1938!), but it certainly didn't make it worse either. Unemployment did go down inbetween 1932 and 1938, albeit only marginally. To suggest that the economy was worse off under FDR smacks of neocon revisionism.

But regardless, you can say what you like about his achievements on the economy, FDR is a hero for what he did in WW2.

[Sibboleth]

Stalin could run rings around anyone he wanted to (even extremly clever people like Trotsky and Bukharin)
FDR was very ill (but not very old), Churchill has no excuse though.
No one really thought that Stalin was much of a threat until it was too late
But he [Churchill] was voted out in 1945 and replaced by Clement Atlee, much to the suprise of "Uncle Joe".

[Reaganfan]

In 2008, Hillary will be 60 years old and maybe an old shadow. Rudy and Rice would be tops as well as Bill Frist. Condi Rice would get the Republican, black, and womens vote. Hillary would get the Democrat and womens. In 2008, if all holds true, I predict a President Giuliani or a President Rice. Hillary still says she will never run, but whatever the Clinton's say they won't do, they do.

[agcatter]

Perhaps, but selecting a communist apologist like Henry Wallace as VP of the US was unforgivable.

[Reaganfan]

If Rudy becomes VP in 2005, he would be up for the presidency in 2008. Same thing with Rice.

[opebo]

Perhaps, but selecting a communist apologist like Henry Wallace as VP of the US was unforgivable.

True, though the whole Democratic Party was full of Communist sympathizers at that time.  The thirties and fourties were a frightfully left-wing period.  

[agcatter]

Indeed it was full of sympothizers.  Wallace was one of the worst.  He was borderline treasonous.

[PD]

Well, for incumbant President Carter to lose to Reagan wiing only 49 votes for his re-election shows that many wanted a change.

THANK YOU!

[PD]

I hardly think I turned on you by pointing out that Reagan simply did not factually, historically, provably win the greatest landslides in history. '84 was very impressive. So was '80. But they are not what they aren't.

Acctually, Reagan won in 84 with the highest vote EV vote total in history, so technically,that would be the biggest landslide in history.

THANK YOU!

[PD]

No offense, but FDR was an idiot. I admit he did a few good things, but he was repeatedly informed of Soviet infiltration of our government and said that it could not happen. He would not believe it. He was even shown papers and proof. Well, it turned out that there were thousands of Soviet spys holding high government offices in our government. That was proved after his death. A bunch of them were his personal assistants and advisors. At one point, one of his vice presidents (not Truman, I forget his name) was a Soviet spy. Not too many people know this information because the majority of it was kept secret for a long time. He was shaking hands with Stalin and in his mind he was saying "I'm so glad that Russia and America can get along." At the exact moment, Stalin was standing there and in his head saying "Sucker." FDR would just not believe it.

He did only a few good things?  Please.  He brought the country out of the GREAT depresson, he brought down Hitler and eventually Stalin, and won four election decisively.  Reagan is nowhere near FDR.

That's garbage.  FDR sank the country deeper into the depression.  He set ridiculous price and wage controls, gave the unions power to do just about whatever they wanted, he destroyed vast amounds of crops and livestock to raise farm prices when untold millions around the country were STARVING!  This man was not a good president.  He was a complete moron who didn't know the first thing about economics.  He blamed investors for the Great Depression and continued to "punish" them with his policies throughout his time as president.  He regulated every facet of business and effectively killed any new business ventures through his meddling.  At best his policies simply made it hard for new jobs to be created, but more than likely his policies destroyed thousands, perhaps even millions of jobs.  Then of course there's FDR's constant trampling of the Constitution.  He governed by Executive Order, packed the courts with other incompetent New Deal sympathizers, and put the Japanese into internment camps.  What about this man deserves respect.  He was a fraud, a failure ("A miserable failure...) who rivals Johnson, Carter, and Nixon for the title of WORST PRESIDENT EVER!  

THANK YOU! MY POINT EXACTLY! Though I do like Nixon.

[PD]

Please do NOT attack FDR like that... I realise that he was left wing and that certain Republicans hate for that but please be serious.
He did NOT drag America deeper into the Depression, and although the New Deal did not end the Depression, it made it hurt less and did a lot to help poor people.
I wish we had it over here and not the uncaring incompetence of the National Government.

I've never been a fan of revisionist history, it's more about selling more books than actually informing people about the past. Not that I'm a big fan of Whig or Marxist interpretations either...
Post-Revisionism can be good though

With the way you attack our people, we will attack FDR anyway we please.

[PD]

Perhaps, but selecting a communist apologist like Henry Wallace as VP of the US was unforgivable.

True, though the whole Democratic Party was full of Communist sympathizers at that time.  The thirties and fourties were a frightfully left-wing period.  

The whole democratic party is still full of communist sympathizers, if not communists themselves. This is still a frightfully left-wing period. The only difference is that they have gotten worse.

[Reaganfan]

We've never had what I'd call a DEAN-LIBERAL President.

[Harry]

Perhaps, but selecting a communist apologist like Henry Wallace as VP of the US was unforgivable.

True, though the whole Democratic Party was full of Communist sympathizers at that time.  The thirties and fourties were a frightfully left-wing period.  

The whole democratic party is still full of communist sympathizers, if not communists themselves. This is still a frightfully left-wing period. The only difference is that they have gotten worse.

You ruin any of your credibilty by saying ridiculous things like that.

[Reaganfan]

By DEAN-LIBERAL I mean a true left-wing. Remember Clinton ran moderate in 1992 and then turned out to be more liberal than we all thought.

[© Tweed the Younger]

By DEAN-LIBERAL I mean a true left-wing. Remember Clinton ran moderate in 1992 and then turned out to be more liberal than we all thought.

Clinton ran as a centrist, went left form 93-94, saw that the Dems had their collective ass handed to them in 1994 and went back to the center for the rest of his tenure.

[Michael Z]

We've never had what I'd call a DEAN-LIBERAL President. By DEAN-LIBERAL I mean a true left-wing.

Hmmm, Teddy Roosevelt was about as left-wing as they come... at least in terms of domestic policy.

Oh by the way, I didn't get the chance to welcome you to the forum yet. Hi.

[12th Doctor]

By DEAN-LIBERAL I mean a true left-wing. Remember Clinton ran moderate in 1992 and then turned out to be more liberal than we all thought.

Clinton ran as a centrist, went left form 93-94, saw that the Dems had their collective ass handed to them in 1994 and went back to the center for the rest of his tenure.

Alright, finally a Democrat who will admit that.

[Reaganfan]

Hi, I'm new. But, I like to post...

[Gustaf]

I'm gonna make a few points on FDR and Reagan. First off, M is compeltely right that the percentage of EVs is the thing to look at, anything else is ridiculous. That's like saying that Nader is much more popular than Washington was, b/c Nader recieved more popular votes. And the highest EV-percentage since pre-civil war era IS FDR, in 1936.

One of the left-wingers in these times were Ronald Reagan, btw, who supported freedom of speech for Communists, one of the things that makes him great in my opinion. Just a little reminder, PD. There was not thousands of spies everywhere, I thought McCarthy was well buried, but I guess I was wrong.

To RP: I am pretty sure that Churchill did what he could to fight Stalin, but was betrayed by FDR and Britan was too weak to go on it's own. FDR and Eisenhower, like most Americans of that time, failed to see the Communist threat in time, which put much of Eastern Europe into Soviet hands.

[12th Doctor]

I'm gonna make a few points on FDR and Reagan. First off, M is compeltely right that the percentage of EVs is the thing to look at, anything else is ridiculous. That's like saying that Nader is much more popular than Washington was, b/c Nader recieved more popular votes. And the highest EV-percentage since pre-civil war era IS FDR, in 1936.

One of the left-wingers in these times were Ronald Reagan, btw, who supported freedom of speech for Communists, one of the things that makes him great in my opinion. Just a little reminder, PD. There was not thousands of spies everywhere, I thought McCarthy was well buried, but I guess I was wrong.

To RP: I am pretty sure that Churchill did what he could to fight Stalin, but was betrayed by FDR and Britan was too weak to go on it's own. FDR and Eisenhower, like most Americans of that time, failed to see the Communist threat in time, which put much of Eastern Europe into Soviet hands.

There were a lot of spies and communist sympathisers in the FDR administration.  Alger Hiss and Henry Wallace to name a couple (Wallace wasn't a spy, but he was a sympathiser.  What you said about Reagan is true, he always supported freedom of speech, just not subversive communism.  BIG difference.

Also, you were right about FDR and Churchill except I would say that FDR was more compliant with Soviet demands than what you can attribute to nievity about the Soviets.  I think that FDR let the entire world down when he AT LEAST failed to stop Soviet control of Eastern Europe.  Patton had the right idea.  We should have kicked the Soviets butts back into Russia, where they belonged.

[Gustaf]

I'm gonna make a few points on FDR and Reagan. First off, M is compeltely right that the percentage of EVs is the thing to look at, anything else is ridiculous. That's like saying that Nader is much more popular than Washington was, b/c Nader recieved more popular votes. And the highest EV-percentage since pre-civil war era IS FDR, in 1936.

One of the left-wingers in these times were Ronald Reagan, btw, who supported freedom of speech for Communists, one of the things that makes him great in my opinion. Just a little reminder, PD. There was not thousands of spies everywhere, I thought McCarthy was well buried, but I guess I was wrong.

To RP: I am pretty sure that Churchill did what he could to fight Stalin, but was betrayed by FDR and Britan was too weak to go on it's own. FDR and Eisenhower, like most Americans of that time, failed to see the Communist threat in time, which put much of Eastern Europe into Soviet hands.

There were a lot of spies and communist sympathisers in the FDR administration.  Alger Hiss and Henry Wallace to name a couple (Wallace wasn't a spy, but he was a sympathiser.  What you said about Reagan is true, he always supported freedom of speech, just not subversive communism.  BIG difference.

Also, you were right about FDR and Churchill except I would say that FDR was more compliant with Soviet demands than what you can attribute to nievity about the Soviets.  I think that FDR let the entire world down when he AT LEAST failed to stop Soviet control of Eastern Europe.  Patton had the right idea.  We should have kicked the Soviets butts back into Russia, where they belonged.

I don't think that there was a grand conspiracy of thousands working in the administration, that's all. I know a descendant of Henry Wallace, I'll ask about the Communist thing next time I see him. I never meant to suggest that Reagan supported Communists, but he was a left-winger. PD has said that Communism should be made illegal, so I thought he might be interested in Reagan's position. I believe he left the Actor's Guild b/c he couldn't stand all the Communists in it.

I don't know if a war would have been good, but an effort could have been made at grabbing as much of the East as possible and no caving in to the Soviets. You have to remember the state Europe was in, a prolonged war would ahve been disastrous.

[Sibboleth]

Alger Hiss was probably an innocent scapegoat and his name was cleared by a very respected Russian historian (Volkogonov) when the Soviet archives were opened.

[opebo]

I'm gonna make a few points on FDR and Reagan. First off, M is compeltely right that the percentage of EVs is the thing to look at, anything else is ridiculous. That's like saying that Nader is much more popular than Washington was, b/c Nader recieved more popular votes. And the highest EV-percentage since pre-civil war era IS FDR, in 1936.

One of the left-wingers in these times were Ronald Reagan, btw, who supported freedom of speech for Communists, one of the things that makes him great in my opinion. Just a little reminder, PD. There was not thousands of spies everywhere, I thought McCarthy was well buried, but I guess I was wrong.

To RP: I am pretty sure that Churchill did what he could to fight Stalin, but was betrayed by FDR and Britan was too weak to go on it's own. FDR and Eisenhower, like most Americans of that time, failed to see the Communist threat in time, which put much of Eastern Europe into Soviet hands.

McCarthy has gotten an unfairly negative appraisal - after all, history is written by the winners.