And yet we're [my college] looking back on the Bush years as some bygone era that we should be glad to see the back of, and Obama is still some wonderful thing.
Someone needs to poor a bucket of water on us. The time for enthusiasm was some time ago. Barack may mean "blessed," but Jesus Christ (Christos: Good news)! Wake up!
Looking back on history, we've only rarely had presidents who can unite us in any meaningful way (Roosevelt after the New Deal, Eisenhower). Furthermore, a magical Super Man is almost unheard of in history. Look at our supposed heroes!
Washington: Rare. Like, really rare. Besides, can anyone of us name something he did while president?
Roosevelt: A great man, if flawed. His New Deal hit it well for a while, especially with the poor over the grumbles of the rich. Then he tried to pack the courts and smashed his popularity, as the 1938 campaign demonstrated (he tried to run rebel candidates against conservative Democrats. They failed).
John F. Kennedy: The King of Camelot didn't ascend to his throne until his postmortem. Cuban Missiles and Nasa aside, he authorized and botched the Bay of Pigs, failed to get most of his program through, pumped up our Vietnam presence, and ignored Civil Rights until late in his presidency. Third year to be specific.
Ronald Wilson Reagan (6 letters each!): For some reason the right has siezed on this man as the Saint of Conservatism. Really? His massive tax cut in 1981 was reversed by 2 massive tax increases in 1982 and 83. Mondale in 84 said that Reagan would increase taxes again (his point? "I will raise taxes. My opponent won't tell you. I just did."). In 1985 Mondale was proven right.
As for everything else? Reagan did little for abortionists (Sandra Day O'Connor and Kennedy were centrists, with Scalia as the lone "true" conservative of his picks). He helped bring down Communism, but he had help (and ran huge deficits for "victory" in a nuclear war at that.). To be honest, I tend to do better in noting his successor's achievements than RWR (you know, greenery, a limited war with Iraq, etc)
Oh, and Teddy Roosevelt, the posterboy for American Greatness, Trust Busting, and Imperialism. He's awesome and may well be one our very best, but he was also a mistake and why VPs tend to be filled these days by, apparently, idiots and old wannabes these days. Just ask Qualye and Cheney. Or Mondale. Or Bensten. Or...Actually, I think the idiot thing was a recent Republican phenomenon, apart from Andrew Johnson.
Well, how about foreign leaders? This is called "A view on the World," right?
Most of those, such as Frederick the Great, Peter the Great, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Maria Theresa and Joseph II of Austria and their ilk are rare dictators that we would no longer stomach. Some, like Peter I and Joseph II had problems satisfying their base (especially Joe, who actually ennobled Jews).
What about politicians? If picking presidents of our country was hard, who could compete?
Charles De Gaulle, who revived French pride and gave them an overlarge view of themselves
Tony Blair, who will be remembered for devolution, Saving Northern Rya-Ireland, and following Bush into a war that destroyed his popularity (why did he win the following election? The conservatives would've done it too!)?
Some Spanish guy I must be forgetting?
Otto Von Bismarck, who put the words "trickery, deciet, and Blood and Iron" in diplomacy and pretty much master-minded much of international politics?
Junichiro Koizumi, who privatized the Post Office, did some other stuff that I can't remember, and has The Best Hair Ever (see above)?
...
Okay, Obama? If you want to prove your mettle, you need a new hairdo. We need more people with awesome hair.
Still, we need to temper our expectations. He may well be an improvement on Bush, but we won't know for some time, okay? He'll do something, and it might even be good, like in the days of Johnson (Please ignore Vietnam), Nixon (Please ignore his crookedness), and Clinton (please excuse the political skill of the man who destroyed Universal Health Care in america for two decades and somehow let his last years get dominated by his more frivolous undertakings until he finally touched on Israel and Palestine. And we want our White House dishes back.)
And suddenly I'm hoping that Koizumi takes over Japan again. And TR comes back with a new haircut. Can you believe that look with a stache? Sigh...
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