liberalman

Harding said it best:

Harding is often ranked as one of the least successful U.S. presidents, despite his immense popularity while in office. Indeed, Harding himself is quoted as saying "I am not fit for this office and never should have been here."[1]


As to the count you forgot Reagan's cowardice in Beirut which painted us as paper tigers to terrorists....that puts it at three three...


Ike talked about the miltary industrial complex did nothing setting us up for the boondoggle of today...which puts us at four three.


Vietnam was started by JOhnson but it was Nixon who lied to the public and expanded the war and then tainted the office almost as badly as Harding.....huge failures on both fronts that makes it 6 to three dems.

Albinonewt

If you're going to count that then you have to include President Clinton's "black hawk down" withdrawal that emboldened Bin Laden into thinking that the United States would back down after losing a dozen or so soliders in a fight.

Caltex

I brought it down to major failures, which led to failures in the defense of the nation. I left out plenty of the smaller Democratic failures similar to the Republican small ones you countered with. (Clinton's massive downsizing of the military, etc.)

Obviously Nixon had failures, but they were domestic, and personal issues. Vietnam ended under his administration after being handed off a quagmire, and he established diplomacy with China.

I've never seen any reason to believe Eisenhower corrupted the military industrial construct.

Reagan did not lead to any major military failure, or weakening. Leaving Beruit was a smart move, it likely saved the lives of many American soldiers. You don't fight in wars that you don't have to, that just gets people killed.

You cannot compare the foreign policy failures of Reagan, Eisenhower and Nixon to those of Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and George W. Bush.

Wilson, Bush and Johnson got thousands of Americans killed unnecessarily. Hoover helped result in economic downturn which hurt our ability to defend the nation. Carters mistakes are light compared to the others, I'll admit that, but he was very weak on defense.

__________________

liberalman

I could give you that....however, it was Reagan's cowardice that defined us not CLinton's. His came later and by then the damage was already done thanks to Reagan.

liberalman

Reagan did not lead to any major military failure, or weakening. Leaving Beruit was a smart move, it likely saved the lives of many American soldiers. You don't fight in wars that you don't have to, that just gets people killed.


Actually, leaving Beirut with our tails between our legs was one of the worst moves in modern history. It gave credence to the propaganda that was being spewed by the terrorists and thusly weakened the perception of the US as a superpower and in the end emboldened the terrorists to new heights of terrorist shenaningans.

As to not fighting in a war you do not have to...I will give you that. However, when your military is bombed you either fight or admit defeat. Reagan admitted defeat and then tried to cover his arse by attacking Granada.

Albinonewt

Not according to Bin Laden. He specifically notes Somolia when he talks about why he thought he could get away with 9/11.

Probably because Regan's pullback from Lebanon came before we rolled all over Saddam in Dessert Storm. It just wasn't as relevant after a half million man stomp fest in the dessert. Sure, Reagan pulled back troops. But Bush sent the whole army into the dessert to stomp an invading army flat. After Clinton pulled out of Somalia there wasn't a corresponding "tough guy" act to counterbalance that.

liberalman

That is because of its place in the timeline my friend....not the importance but rather the fact that his blunder was still fresh. Reagan's was not....however it was Reagans that started the ball rolling of "if we attack the US they will run"....


As to a corresponding tough guy act:

Bosnia 1995....Somalia action ended 1994.

Albinonewt

And that refutes your notion that it was Beirut and not Somolia that "defines us". For whatever reason, fairly or unfairly, it is not Beirut that our enemy judged us by, but Somolia.


An entirely bloodless (on our part) air campaign. It unfortunately did nothing to contradict the notion that we run everytime a dozen guy get killed because nobody was killed (the latter part was fortunate).

liberalman

Again wrong....what I said was that Bin Laden went with CLinton because people in the west remembered well since it was such a recent event. The Reagan event is ballyhooed to this day by the terrorists but is not used for western consumption for the simple reason that thanks to the cult of Reagan it is not as well remembered in the west.... Bin Laden is if anything a savvy propagandist and for such methods to work you go with the thing most recent in the short memory that we have in the west. TO plan an attack and claim that it was because of Reagan when you have a vitriolic rightwing here in the states ready to crucify Clinton for anything and everything would be a tactical blunder and given his track record I would say that Bin Laden is if anything careful and artful in his plans.

As to Bosnia being entirely bloodless I beg to differ. Granted it was an air war but that in no way means it was bloodless or less a success. Are you trying to say that the attack of Granada was some kind of wunder mission?

Albinonewt

On what do you base that assertion?

Or, because that’s not what motivates Bin Laden’s thinking

Or, while planning 9/11 during the Clinton administration he was gauging Ameriac’s reaction to the plan based on how the Clinton Administration reacted to casualties just a few years earlier.

I think that’s absurd assertion based on nothing.

Bin Laden planned his attacks during the Clinton era, launched his attacks during the Clinton era, and as such gauged the reaction to those attacks based on the Clinton Era’s responses. To think that he ignored the sitting President’s reactions when planning attacks and instead focused on the reactions of a President from more then a decade past is absurd.

It is an assertion based on nothing.

I didn’t say it wasn’t a success, I said we incurred no blood in fighting an aerial war, and we didn’t. One of the big reasons we engaged in an aerial war was in order to avoid taking casualties, adding further to the theory that in the 90’s we were primarily driven by a fear of casualties. And we were.