Best President since WW2?

[Serconea]

If you think Bush Sr or Clinton, post here.

I've omitted the current President because:
1. He's still President, so we can't make a proper judgement on him.
2. There's already threads on him.
3. I don't want this to turn into a Bush bash.

Any votes for the current President will be ignored.

[Perugio]

Reagan: he restored America's belief in itself and his administration won the Cold War.

Not bad, really.

I feel that Kennedy is just hype: he served less than 3 years. If he'd had to face all the problems that LBJ did (and he did a fine job) then I'm positive that our opinions of him would be radically different, and, of course, he wouldn't have been assassinated.

Worst president - Carter. An inept administration, lacking in realism.

[Perugio]

Who voted for LBJ?

My second choice!

[Riddimach]

Kennedy wasn't the best. I don't even think he deserves top five, maybe top ten.

Regan. If you think about it, he's the one who finished the very objectives of WWII, anyway.

[Serconea]

I've said Truman for the following reasons:
1. His amazing 1948 re-election
2. Stepping down when he realised Korea became too much for him.
3. Defining US foreign policy for the next 50+ years with this gem:

"It must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures."

Which, in some ways, the US has been doing ever since.

I think, with most polls, the strong support for JFK is owing to the fact he was assassinated. Mind you, his performance with Cuba was simply masterful. Shame about his private life...
(plug: I'm doing a Cuban Missile Crisis RP on the NS forum)

[Down under there]

LBJ. He made very important steps with legislation improving the lives of everyday americans, including the Civil Rights Act. Kennedy is overrated because he died young and handsome.

[Sheynat]

Reagan just finished the work of every other president on this list. He just sat there while the work of Presidents Truman through Carter brought the thing down. By 1980, we were close enough to victory that any halfway skilled statesman could have brought them down; if they didn't bring themselves down. I agree with Perugio on Kennedy, though; he got his brain ventilated before he could really do much to deserve his reputation, and the fact that he got whacked is really where most of his legend comes from. Me, I'm going to call the greatest Prez a tie between Johnson and Truman, with Clinton and Bush Sr close behind.

[RichfieldMN]

Just a wee comment,

Reagan did NOT win the cold war. The cold war was not won it ended due to a combination of events mostly involving the most courageous Soviet leader Gorbachev.

Gorbachev initiated arms control, Gorbachev did not send in the tanks when people power iniated the fall of the Eastern regimes.

Gorbachev did not intervene when Germany wanted to unite.

Without Gorbachev their would have been massive bloodshed in the eastern regimes.

Don't believe the hype that Reagan had anything to do with it.

[Perugio]

The policies of the Reagan Administration brought Gorbachev into power in the first place.

In the early 1980s the Soviets realised that they'd lost the Cold War. The Americans were simply outspending them. Star Wars also really frightened them. This was proved at the Reykjavik Summit in 1986. Gorbachev didn't know which way to turn. Basically, nuclear weapons can't be disinvented. He knew that and his idealism got the better of him. Reagan and Shultz's stubbornness on this issue won the day.

Gorbachev did not end the Cold War. Ronald Reagan did, more than any other person in the world. His administration created the possibilities for the happenings in Eastern Europe in the late 80s: from East Berlin through to the accession of Yeltsin in 1991.

[Serconea]

I think that Reagan and Gorbachev both helped end the Cold War. Remember it was Reagan that armed the muhjahadeen (sp?) that made the Sov's life in Afghanistan so difficult and Gorbachev that started glasnost and perestroika.

Remember Gorby did send tanks into Lithuania in 1991.

[Sheynat]

I believe it was more his administration than Reagan himself. (I wasn't there, so keep in mind that I'm not calling this fact; just my impression.) The Reagan Administration seems to me, like many other administrations, to basically have been an extremely telegenic puppet who basically sat around in the Oval Office while his advisers actually ran things. I think the younger Bush is like that too; and I'd lay money Kennedy was like that. (A small amount of money, mind you. I'm not totally convinced of Kennedy.) I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing, mind you; I just believe Reagan is being credited for the work of the men who really ran things.

[Serconea]

Wasn't Kennedy the one who had Addison's disease and had to take loads of drugs?

I think Carter was probably the most noble of the POTUSes. Unfortunately nobility does not equal success, especially when one deals with the Soviet Union.

[Sheynat]

Yep. He had Addison's, as did his son. Addison's being a disease of the adrenal glands, I believe the result of the disease is an inability to feel fear, anger or any of the functions of adrenaline. That killed JFK Jr; he didn't know when to be scared. It may also have something to do with Kennedy forcing his counterpart to back down during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He didn't know to back down, because he had no adrenaline production to tell him that he was being an idiot.

[RichfieldMN]

Reagan did not play a role in ending the cold war. The arms race was a cost factor for the Soviet Union and they wanted to end it so they could concentrate on the homeland not wasting resources on military nuclear weapons.

Gorbachev was not brought to power as a result of Reagan. This is a very Americo-centric view of the cold war and does not take into account the conditions existing in the Soviet Union.

The collapse of the "Communist" regimes was a result of the reforms of Gorbachev combined with people power. Gorbachev needed to introduce the reforms due to internal problems which were eating away at the Soviet system and this was one of the leading reasons that the end of "Communism" happened.

The Soviet Union and the Eastern Satellites would have collapsed without Reagan. In fact they were helped by the US to continue to exist because of the Cold War.

Reformist moves in the USSR started long before Reagan came to power. They peaked with the appointment of Gorbachev to leader who introduced very bravely Glasnost and Perestroika.

Don't forget that when the uprisings in the satellites began he could have sent in the troops and tanks but did not which helped end the Cold War.

The US is still spending massively on defense even though the USSR has long gone. The defense industry needs to make more and more money at the expense of health care and education and welfare.

[Serconea]

I'd have hardly called Brezhnev a reformist. Remember he sent Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia in 1968.

The Soviets had to reform their economy because the arms race which Reagan accelerated and also because of Afghanistan.

Remember nuclear weapons were reduced with Reagan's agreement and Carter realised he'd never get SALT II ratified.

[Chelodia]

Kennedy, one of the only American presidnets with a reasonable foreign policy.