Obama '08?

You are partially correct, djjd62 but not where it counts.

You are correct that many partisans ( either strong Democrats or strong Republicans) will oppose any President who is not of their party but, that is not the important point.

I urge you to go to any good site on the Internet and look at the survey made by Presidential Historians. Now, some idiots like Sentantu don't believe the findings of Presidential Historians. They do know, however, far far more than he does since the study of the Presidency is their profession. These people are among the best Historians acknowledged by their peers, not a person like Setantu from a jerkwater college who thinks, that because he read two or three books, he knows it all.

Here is an example from C-SPAN


Historians Survey Results Category

Total Scores/Overall Ranking
President's Name 2009 Final Score Overall Ranking
2009 2000
Abraham Lincoln 902 1 1
George Washington 854 2 3
Franklin D. Roosevelt 837 3 2
Theodore Roosevelt 781 4 4
Harry S. Truman 708 5 5
John F. Kennedy 701 6 8
Thomas Jefferson 698 7 7
Dwight D. Eisenhower 689 8 9
Woodrow Wilson 683 9 6
Ronald Reagan 671 10 11
Lyndon B. Johnson 641 11 10
James K. Polk 606 12 12
Andrew Jackson 606 13 13
James Monroe 605 14 14
Bill Clinton 605 15 21
William McKinley 599 16 15
John Adams 545 17 16
George H. W. Bush 542 18 20
John Quincy Adams 542 19 19
James Madison 535 20 18
Grover Cleveland 523 21 17
Gerald R. Ford 509 22 23
Ulysses S. Grant 490 23 33
William Howard Taft 485 24 24
Jimmy Carter 474 25 22
Calvin Coolidge 469 26 27
Richard M. Nixon 450 27 25
James A. Garfield 445 28 29
Zachary Taylor 443 29 28
Benjamin Harrison 442 30 31
Martin Van Buren 435 31 30
Chester A. Arthur 420 32 32
Rutherford B. Hayes 409 33 26
Herbert Hoover 389 34 34
John Tyler 372 35 36
George W. Bush 362 36 NA
Millard Fillmore 351 37 35
Warren G. Harding 327 38 38
William Henry Harrison 324 39 37
Franklin D. Pierce 287 40 39
Andrew Johnson 258 41 40
James Buchanan 227 42 41

Notice that Ronald Reagan ranks tenth. Most left wingers would not agree, but it is the truth. Notice that Harry Truman ranks fifth--that brave President who decided to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki and saved millions of American lives. The pacifist left wing Democrats hate him but the Presidential Historians know how great he was.

It is only partisans thinkers like Setanta who write off great presidents like Reagan and Truman. The Presidential Historians don't.

interesting, i wonder why i never read a presidential history before

I didn't either until fifteen years ago when I became involved in an argument with an acquaintance who insisted that President Reagan ruined the US economy. I was happy to find that learned Historians agreed with me.

I must admit I fear Possum R Fartbubble, he is a very wise soul.

i was joking actually, you hadn't posted anything when i responded

as for what historians think about presidents, eh, i could care less, it's all speculation, i mean there's facts and then there's opinions

history has some absolutes, dates and times, even motives, but determining a popularity contest is just that, not any kind of exact science

i have no argument with truman, reagan will always be a fave cause he fired the air traffic controllers, as for anything else he did, could care less

i liked clinton cause he was smug son of a bitch, hated george bush for the exact same reason, go figure

liked nixon cause he was creep

polls and ratings, mean little to me

Of course, it is not an EXACT SCIENCE, but do you argue with the placement of Lincoln as Number One?

The Presidential Historians do base their opinions on facts. The facts of the job done by a president at a certain time under certain conditions. Since the placement of Presidents in these rankings is done by over a hundred Presidential Historians who know far far more about the specifics of a President's tenure than you and I do and the rankings are part of a consensus, i am confident that the rankings are fairly accurate.

You may have a point about polls meaning little to you.

De Gustibus Non Es Disputandum.

But, if you are correct, and there is no way to discriminate between political leaders then, of course, Stalin was a much greater and better leader than Winston Churchill. I don't believe that and I am sure you do not believe it either. Based on the events of HISTORY, Stalin was a merciless killer and Churchill helped save the West.

but to their respective followers each was great

much like the back and forth pissing matches that go on here

now i agree, in the context of history ( and general good guyness) churchill trumps stalin

as for lincoln, did a great thing, but history had as much to do with that as anything, time marching on, the south wins and he's a whole different president

where as truman, for better or worse had a direct influence in the outcome of his legacy

There was a theory promoted by Carlyle, I believe, that said that History advanced because of the presence of Great Men. Some called it the Great Man theory. Subsequent Historians showed that was not correct. However, we cannot say that leaders are not necessary. It is, and most Historians do agree and combination of finding the right man at the right time in History. Some leaders are so overwhelmed by events that despite their obvious leadership qualities, they do not win( Robert E. Lee is a good example).

You said "The south wins and he's a whole different president".

Of c ourse, but the south did not win and the Presidential Historians have given at least part of the credit for the North's v ictory to Lincoln.

THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT!!!!

Diest must have struck a vein. You are being downright crude, which exposes you as the POS that you really are.

massagat has shown up periodially under different guises and is always entertaining. He has his favorites he likes to attack and usually, given enough rope, hangs himself and gets banned. then like syphillis or herpes lays dormant and returns at a later date.

I've always found him/her/it amusing.

MASSA has no vein or brain. He contributes nothing on a2k; just insults with no contribution. He's a loser who makes a lot of claims without backing them up with "evidence" or "facts."

The Rasmussen Poll on President Obama's approval ratings are out for today. The numbers show him as being at the lowest level in his term.
He is at -19 (Strongly Approve minus Strongly Disapprove).

Doing the numbers comparing 12/13 vs 11/9 when he was doing better:
12/13: Strongly Approve {SA}: 23% Strongly Disapprove {SD}: 42% = -19
11/9: SA: 32%% SD: 40 = -8

12/13: (Generally) Approve {A}: 46% Disapprove {D}: 53%
11/9: A: 49% D: 50%

The erosion, it seems to me comes from within his own party...probably due to his commitment to remain in Afghanistan for another year and a half or so at a minimum.
But I may be mis-reading this.
And I know many of yall get your jollies from hurling what, in your minds, are clever insults at each other that others have to wade through. Carry on.

rjb, I also believe his decision to expand our involvement in Afghanistan has also doomed his presidency. Our country is tired of wars, and the sacrifice we must make half way around the world for benefits that seems too distant to appreciate.

Even his health care reform is being seen as a boondoggle when just a few months ago, the majority of Americans wanted to see reform. That has changed dramatically, and we must blame not only Obama, but the health care industry, insurance companies, the conservatives, and the democrats who fight over minor issues that took away from the primary issue of reducing cost.

I believe Obama is going to be a one-term president, and he's going to have more battles during his last three years, because the conservatives and democrats will fight him all the way.

It's the economy, stupid! People want jobs; not bailouts for more companies and wall street.

i'm telling you, the conservatives through the election, they didn't want to deal with the economy, the end of iraq and the debacle of afghanistan

obama is the perfect scapegoat, he's got too many plans that regardless of what you think of them, require money that isn't there in this economy, so he's gonna disappoint and he's gonna fail

paving the way for a shining white (no pun intended) knight to sweep in, in 2012 to save the day

that's if the conservatives can find such a person, either way there likely going to win, so even if one dislikes them, better start hoping that they can pick a decent candidate

That's our only hope now; the conservatives must find a good candidate for our president who will a) reduce the deficit, b) help our economy, and c) get out of Iraq and Afghanistan (No new wars).

the monied interests corrupted the process, we see this over and over again in America. So long as use of money equals free speech accoring to the SCOTUS this does not get fixed. It is another brick in the wall of the citizenry's lack of faith in the political process.

This, folks, is how radicals like me get born.

Greed always wins no matter whether it's about business or politics. People's souls are for sale as soon as they see $$$$$$$$ (millions).

An interesting thing from the Rasmussen poll re President Obama from 12/13:
The Approval Index (Strongly Approve minus Strongly Disapprove) is -2 for folks aged 30 or under.
Amongst "Senior Citizens" -which Rasmussen doesn't define that I could find- the Approval Index is -29.
The overall Approval Index is -19.
I think I was surprised by that.

rjb, How did you find that surprising? I think that reflects how the health care reform plan is 'progressing.' I would have thought the numbers for seniors would have been much higher.

I have no idea what you're talking about. Please translate.