Most overrated president

[dazzleman]

In 500 years, I'll be dead. I guess it really wouldn't matter. I just find Reagan's ignorance about things like that overwhelming. The same as I found Jimmy Carter to be utterly unfit to be President. I think though, by the time Reagn was President, the people were kidding themselves if they thought the Soviets wouldn't collapse soon.

That's only clear in retrospect.  The Soviets had serious problems, but they also had the ability to force their citizens to endure hardship in order to continue their relentless military buildup and foreign aggression.  The democratic nations of the west lacked this ability.

When Reagan took office, Soviet power was at its peak in the world.  The Soviets were arguably ahead of the US militarily, all things considered.  They were certainly ahead in conventional arms in Europe, forcing NATO to rely on the first use of nuclear weapons as a deterrent to Soviet aggression.  They had recently invaded Afghanistan and were threatening Poland, on top of all the geopolitical gains they had made in the latter half of the 1970s using surrogates like the Cubans.

It was recognized that their economy was performing poorly, but this was mitigated at the time by the fact that they could force their people to endure hardship in order to devote a much higher percentage of their economic output toward the military than the US could ever get away with.

Reagan helped hasten their collapse by forcing them into an arms race that they couldn't afford.  From the mid-1960s, Soviet arms buildups had not been met by a western response, so there was little in the way of their strategic advances, but Reagan hit them where they were weakest by forcing them to strain their faltering economy further in order to keep up, rather than helping them in their weakest areas, as Nixon did under detente, and as the Democrats did and proposed to do.

It is facetious to then apply an inevitability to collapse of the Soviet Union in order to negate Reagan's contribution.  Reagan doesn't deserve the sole credit for their collapse, but he certainly helped.

[dazzleman]

Correct answer: Andrew Jackson.  Our worst President is often regarded as top 10 because he hated the rich.  Never mind that his policies hurt the poor more than the rich, his hatred endears him to leftist historians.  JFK is second most overrated.  He is often rated too high by the public, but he actually was a decent PResident, as opposed to Jackson who was not.

Reagan was definately the most overrated. This is the same man who told schools to give kids ketchup, because he said it would provide the veggie part of the "Balanced" school lunch. That sounds really redundant.

In 500 years, what will matter more: Ketchup as a vegetable or the collapse of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact?

It is almost always the case that those who make the strongest case of hating the rich, and advancing the poor, usually hurt the poor more than anybody.  Hurting the rich is not a good way to help the poor.  It sounds great but never works.

[dazzleman]

Definately JFK

I agree that JFK has been seriously overrated.  I think he was a good president, but far from great.  If he hadn't been assassinated, he may have ended up like LBJ.

I love to see the liberals twist themselves into pretzels to explain away their hero's role in getting us into the war that they hated so much.  Some extreme liberals have even advanced the theory that he was assassinated strictly because he intended to withdraw from Vietnam.

[dazzleman]

I'd have to say Carter, especially since Maddox had to serve as Lt. Gov. under him simply because of a term limit kept him from being reelected Governor.  If it hadn't been for term limits, y'all could have had President Maddox instead of President Carter and the Democrats wouldn't be in the mess that they are today.

Carter sucked as president, but he was hardly overrated.  Even hard-core Democrats admit that he was a horrible president.

Where he has been overrated is in his post-presidential work.  He f**ked up the whole North Korea situation when he went there as Clinton's emissary and has become little more than a tiresome scold, criticizing the conduct of his successor on issues where he himself failed miserably (which is just about everything).

I'd have to say the most overrated president was JFK.  I have nothing against him, but he was president far too short a time to have accomplished anything commensurate with the ratings some have given him.  He is rated highly because of his assassination, not because of anything he did.