These two are the very antithesis of Carter/Obama.
Posted on 08/21/2010 6:44:06 AM PDT by big black dog
Glenn Beck, bless him, has opened the gate for American conservatives to finally appreciate and learn from a man who should have been one of their greatest heroes; President Obama needs to learn from that great man too.
I am of course referring not to the vastly overrated Theodore Roosevelt (If he’d been President in 1914, at least 2 million American boys would have been sent to useless deaths in World War I - but more on that another time.), but to the sainted Warren G. Harding.
American conservatives revere Calvin Coolidge, but are embarrassed by his predecessor. Yet Coolidge literally Did Nothing — nothing good at all. He inherited a booming economy from his far greater predecessor, and then he didn’t raise a finger to cool it down when speculation reached dangerous levels in 1927-28.
Harding, by contrast inherited a series of crises from the appalling Woodrow Wilson that were as serious as the Great Depression. America was in the middle of the worst depression in its history in 1920. Harding had full prosperity back and roaring within less than a year.
It took Franklin Roosevelt eight years of failed and bungled big government policies before he finally gave up and let the industrial demand of World War II and the restored confidence of Big Business rescue him in 1940-42.
Harding inherited race riots in American cities. He inherited a Department of Justice that under the infernal Woodrow Wilson had thrown the Bill of Rights and due process out the window. Harding restored those old fashioned standards.
American soldiers were bogged down in weird, nation-building activities in Siberia and Wilson even wanted them to create an independent Armenia, a policy that would have set off a major war in the Middle East with Turkey and lots of other people. Harding pulled the plug on that too.
He also defended the civil rights of black Americans more robustly than any other president between Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight D. Eisenhower — and of course they were conservative Republicans too.
Warren Harding could show Barack Obama how to create millions of jobs. He could show him how to restore business confidence. He could show him how to make the investors of the world flock back to America. He could show him how to make Wall Street boom.
But of course, Obama will never stoop to learn anything from President Harding. Failure will continue to sneer at Success. After all, what can Obama possibly learn from a man who only brought peace and prosperity to the American people? Warren Harding never went to Harvard Law School.
Teddy Roosevelt was a progressive and a fan of eugenics.
Even back then a scandal would destroy a Republican president while it would be just business as usual for a Democrat.
Actually, Coolidge “doing nothing” is what made him so good. Of course slashing income taxes 4 times wasn’t exactly doing nothing. The per capita income rose some 30% while he was in office.
Not trying to diminish Harding in any way but he had one seriously corrupt cabinet (Which Coolidge kept mostly intact)
On the other hand, Coolidge did give farm subsidies and impose some estate taxes. I see no point in estate taxes but at the time some farm subsidies were probably needed to keep those farms going till the greater economy got on its feet again. It should also be noted that farm subsidies of that time meant that the government bought crops and sold them elsewhere in the world.
As always, we need to try looking at the world through the lens of that time rather than our own.
Until a couple of years ago, I had no idea that Wilson & TR were so destructive.
The TR eugenics letter. “Inferior” people should be removed from the gene pool according to Teddy.
http://a.imageshack.us/img408/33/capture03082010173211.jpg
You’re kidding, right? Warren Harding, leader of what is arguably the most corrupt administration in US History? Warren Harding who makes Bill Clinton look like an amateur when it came to White House Affairs? Nan Britton, anyone? Oh yeah, what about the other affair with a German WWI sympathizer whom blackmailed Harding until the Republican Party paid her off?
If you must post something with Harding and Obama in one article, how about making the point Obama is in over his head more than any President since Harding! At least Harding admitted it! (you can look that up)
PS: As far as the criticisms of TR, read Edmund Morris’ biography and see if you have the same opinion. No one is beyond criticism, but many of the criticisms are ginned up by liberal writers who want to tear down any of our GREAT Presidents who were Republican. They are then repeated without attribution and grow.
I’ll end with a question. The three most popular Republican Presidents are Lincoln, TR and Reagan. Have any three Presidents had more written about them with the expressed intent of tearing down their reputations?
These two are the very antithesis of Carter/Obama.
Keep Cool with Coolidge; And Keep Nothing with Obama.
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