ZGram - 10/17/2004 - "Pat Buchanan: Rating the Presidents"

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny:  Now more than ever!

October 17. 2004

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

Revisionism, Buchanan-style:

START]

Rating the Presidents

by Patrick J. Buchanan

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/buchanan1.html

With the passing of President Reagan, historians, scholars and 
journalists have again taken to rating our presidents.

Invariably, greatness is ascribed to only three: Washington, Lincoln 
and FDR. Which reveals as much about American historians, scholars 
and journalists as it does about American presidents.

Certainly, Washington is our greatest president, the father of our 
country and the captain who set our course. But Lincoln is great only 
if one believes that preventing South Carolina, Georgia and the Gulf 
states from peacefully seceding justified the suspension of the 
Constitution, a dictatorship, 600,000 dead and a resort to a total 
war that ravaged the South for generations.

As for FDR, he was the greatest politician of the 20th century. But 
why call a president great whose government was honeycombed with 
spies and traitors, and whose war diplomacy lead to the loss of 10 
Christian countries of Eastern Europe to a Muscovite despot whose 
terrorist regime was the greatest enemy of human freedom in modern 
history?

FDR restored the nation's confidence in his first term and won a 
46-state landslide to a second. But by 1937, the Depression was back 
and we were rescued only by the vast expenditures of World War II 
into which, even admirers now admit, FDR lied his country. The man 
talked peace as he plotted war.

None of the historians, scholars or journalists rate Reagan a great 
president. Yet his leadership led to the peaceful liberation of a 
hundred million children and grandchildren of the people FDR sold 
down the river at Teheran and Yalta, as well as of the 300 million 
people of the Soviet Union.

And why are Wilson and Truman always listed among the "near great" presidents?

While our entry into World War I ensured Allied victory, Wilson 
brought home from Versailles a vindictive peace that betrayed his 
principles, his 14 Points and his solemn word to the German 
government when it agreed to an armistice. That treaty tore Germany 
apart and led directly to Hitler and a horrific war of revenge 20 
years later. Moreover, Wilson's stubborn refusal to accept any 
compromise language to protect U.S. sovereignty led to Senate 
rejection of both his treaty and the League of Nations. Why, then, is 
this obdurate man "near great"?

As for Truman, he dropped two atom bombs on defenseless cities, sent 
back 2 million Russian dissidents and POWs to his "Uncle Joe," death 
and the Gulag, offered to send the USS Missouri to Russia to bring 
Stalin over to give him equal time to answer Churchill's "Iron 
Curtain" speech, lost China to communism, fired Gen. MacArthur for 
demanding victory in Korea, presided over a corrupt administration, 
left us mired down in a "no-win war" and left office with 23 percent 
approval.

What is near great about that? Why is Eisenhower, who ended the 
Korean War in six months, restored America's military might and 
presided over eight years of secure peace not the greater man?

Now consider one of the men whom all the raters judge a "failure" and 
among our worst presidents, Warren G. Harding.

Harding served five months less than JFK, before dying in office in 
1923. Yet his diplomatic and economic triumphs were of the first 
order. He negotiated the greatest disarmament treaty of the century, 
the Washington Naval Agreement, which gave the United States 
superiority in battleships and left us and Great Britain with 
capital-ship strength more than three times as great as Japan's. Even 
Tokyo conceded a U.S. diplomatic victory.

With Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, Harding cut Wilson's wartime 
income tax rates, which had gone as high as 63 percent, to 25 
percent, ended the stagflation of the Wilson presidency and set off 
the greatest boom of the century, the Roaring Twenties. When Harding 
took his oath, unemployment was at 12 percent. When he died, 29 
months later, it was at 3 percent. This is a failure?

If it is because of Harding's White House dalliance with Nan Britton, 
why does not JFK's White House dalliance with Judith Exner make him a 
failure? And if Teapot Dome, which broke after Harding's death – and 
in which he was not involved – makes him a failure, why does not the 
Monica Lewinsky scandal that led to his impeachment make Clinton a 
failure? Of the seven Democratic presidents in the 20th century, only 
Truman and Carter did not have lady friends in the White House.

Harding's vice president, Calvin Coolidge, succeeded him, won one of 
the great landslides in U.S. history and was, as Jude Wanniski 
writes, an inspiration for Ronald Reagan, who considered Silent Cal a 
role model and put his portrait up in the Cabinet Room as a mark of 
respect.

  Harding, Coolidge, Eisenhower and Reagan were men who kept us out of 
war and presided over times of peace, security and often of soaring 
prosperity. Yet, the 20th century presidents who took us into war and 
who lost the fruits of war – Wilson, FDR, Truman – are "great" or 
"near great." These ratings tell us less about presidents than they 
do about historians, scholars and journalists.

[END]

To which an anonymous reader replied, taking the words right out of my mouth:

  Pat, you goofed re Eisenhower. He was Baruch's puppet. IKE defied 
the Geneva Convention leading to the murder of about 15 million 
German civilians, prisoners of war, and anti-Communists immediately 
following WWII. IKE was a MASS MURDERER !