British Expatriate Network

Been a President of the USA that has done a terrible job while in office, as far as the world/nation thinks/views, but when looked upon historically come out to have actually done a very good job?

I understand that it is not known how a US President has done until a long time after he has finished in office. Due to their limit of time in office, and how long it takes for policies to pass through the houses, the President who puts a policy through may not actually get to see it work or put into practice.

With some (well only one so far) being upset by the 'idiot' comment regarding Bush, I'm just wondering if there has ever been a case where the current feeling about a president has been wrong. I only have a limited knowledge of presidents but what I have learnt so far the only president where there is a question over his success is Wilson but it has been shown through medical advances that the man was extremely ill in his last years in office and therefore some of his actions are being put down to this. However, could the same be said for this president? I can't see it somehow because his actions so far have been very consistant, unlike that of Wilson.

Also, the President also represents a party which this time has the majority in both houses (I think he has now hasn't he?) and therefore whatever his actions/policies, will be passed through both houses without a problem. this, as I see it, means that whatever actions the President takes, will happen and therefore will reflect on him directly straight away. this, to me, says that if a President isn't doing a good job while in office, he won't be shown later on to have done a good job either because of the party standing within the houses.

And does the reflection of how good/bad a president has been come only from national feeling or international too. With Teddy Roosevelt, he was looked up to internationally. As I see it, this has reflected in his standing now, historically, that he did a good job as president and shouldn't have stepped down when he could have run for office again.

With the state of the economy, the lack of trust from abroad, and the people with two or more brain cells to rub together feeling that this president is one of the worst in history, are we to presume that this feeling will always be the case, or will we be shocked to find out in 50 years time that actually he did a good job and is in the top 5 of the best presidents for the USA wink

I think there were always some big question marks over the presidencies of Coolidge and Grant....I seem to remember hearing that they were pretty ineffective as presidents.

Were they any good while in office? Is it only after being in office that there are questions about their ability?

Sure, nobody gave a toss about the early Presidents at the time. Most people had little htought of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison etc.
people like Abraham Lincoln didn't really get their kudos till much later. He was nominated thinking he'd avoid war, and many at the time feared he was a true nut. While the awful people prior to him, like Filmore, Pierce, and the truly dire Buchanon, weren't considered to be as awful until later too. Actually John F Kennedy's time in office was going down the toilet in many respects till his assasination. Yet despite some truly horrendous moments some consider him one of the finer Presidents.

I think about it in British terms too - at the time Chamberlain told reporters that he'd met Hitler and told them all to go home "and have a nice sleep" everyone loved him. Now not so much. Not as many people seem to revere Prime Ministers the way some Americans do their Presidents. Personally I think the reverence is a bit weird.

I suppose you can take anyone and argue the case. Plenty of people dislike Reagan and Thatcher, but they were multiple termers who the voters seemed to like. Nixon won 49 states before his huge cock-up. Republicans hate Carter and Clinton, but whereas IMHO Carter was just innefective, Clinton was very dynamic and had a very succesful two terms. And now, whereas half the nation and half the world despises GWBush, others adore him.

Don't really see it myself.

I think he will be looked back upon as a wtf? Give it 20 years and he will be a Nixon, hated and reviled.

I hope so because I really believe that. I also think it's weird how people tend to hold the president as some kind of god in a way. It seems far more natural for me to look critically at someone in a position of power because they should be the most accountable.

Harry Truman is now considered one of the better presidents in the last 100 years. But when he left office he was hugely unpopular.

I think that a lot of Republicans still like Nixon and think he was unfairly treated :roll: - indeed there is an argument that the whole farago of investigations in the Clinton administration was payback.

I think much of the opinions that swim around are irrational and dependant upon personal politics. I've heard Republicans come close to admitting what a total diaster Bush II is - but if he does some of the things they really desparately want - Supreme Court nominees, enacting some form of anti-choice legislation etc - they will support him regardless.

I agree with Gavin, Kenedy's place in history is much more the result of his assassination than anything else - if he had lived history would probably not have been so kind.

Carter was in many ways an accidental President and seemed unable to deal with the many crisis that hit the world in the late 70s (the Callaghan administration in Britain had the same problems, but it is difficult to see how much better reagan or Thatcher would have done if they had taken office 4 years earlier).

For my money reagan was a terrible President - particularly on foreign affairs. His impact on the cold war is grossly exagerated - the deaths of the old guard and elevation of a new generation in Moscow was much more influential. Also Reagan is in many ways the root cause of the current terrorism crisis and even the intervention in Iraq.

Following attacks on US Marines in Beruit Reagan disengaged from the middle east and let Israel have a free hand. He also pick Iraq over Iran rather than being genuinely neutral - allowing Saddam a free hand to gas his opponents and allowing him to develop so called WMDs. Indeed, it was the slight contradiction in these policies that prevented Saddam going Nuclear - Israel bombed his research site.

Saddam thought he could do pretty much anything so long as he didn't threaten Israel and though he could invade Kuwait with impunity.

Reagan's economic policies nearly bankrupted the country and (as with Thatcher) he blinkered attitude to deregulation and privatization had a corrosive impact on public services, utilities, banking.... America's poor health, shorter lives and appalling poverty rates can all be pinned on reagan's watch - although the vommiting plonker who followed didn't help :lol:

Yet many Americans, Red and Blue, want to deify him.

By any objective standard Bush II is an abject failure as a president as he was as a governor, business man, ANG pilot and Yale student - but I suspect in the wierd hysteria that is popular history he will be a hero - if only because he was leader on 9/11.