Posted on 06/27/2005 6:42:03 AM PDT by gopwinsin04
Former US President Ronald Wilson Reagan has been nominated the 'Greatest American' ever.
Reagan received 24 precent of the vote beating fellow Republican Abraham Lincoln, who recieved 23.56 percent and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, with 19.7 percent of the vote.
President George Washington was voted the fourth most popular American with 17.7 percent of the nominations. Ben Franklin came in fifth with 14.9 percent of the votes.
George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Elvis Presely, Oprah Winfrey and Franklin D. Roosevelt rounded out the top ten.
The vote was sponsored by America Online and broadcast live by the Discovery Channel. US Citizens were able to cast votes by phone or the Internet. In total, 2,400,000 votes were submitted.
(Excerpt) Read more at 999today.com ...
Clinton was the "Do Monica" President.
Gee,this is the kind of information that could actually induce a heart attack in Bill Clinton.
This is worse than Ohio! Demand a recount!!
It's obvious........
Oprah and Elvis cheated!! :-)
How I wish that could be true!!
It has to be that damned right wing conspiracy again!!
"He was a far more complex and devious man than most people realized, and I mean that in the best sense of those words."
-Richard M. Nixon, Six Crises
Ike said he would go to Korea and see for himself what was happening. He flew over the front in a light plane, took note of the new helicopter evac of the wounded and observed, "Except for sporadic artillery fire and sniping there was little action at the moment, but in view of the strength of the positions the enemy had developed, it was obvious that any frontal assault would present great difficulties."
One look had decided what was arguably the greatest military planner of the 20th century to fold the war.
When the Lebanese government was collapsing and Ike sent in the Marines, he had them occupy only Beirut and the adjacent airport. He said, "If the Lebanese army were unable to subdue the rebels when we had secured their capital and protected their government, I felt, we were backing up a government with so little popular support that we probably shouldn't be there."
Ike warned the French not to garrison 10,000 troops at Dien Bien Phu: The French know military history," I said. "They are smart enough to know the outcome of becoming firmly emplaced and then besieged in an exposed position with poor means of supply and reinforcements."
I guess not, eh?
When the U2 crashed and F.G. Powers and the plane survived, against all expectations and design Ike at first stuck with the pre-arranged "cover story, but when Khrushchev produced the proof (Powers and the plane), Ike ordered a full confession, explaining "In the diplomatic field it was routine practice to deny responsibility for an embarrassing occurrence when there is even a one percent chance of being believed, but when the world can entertain not the slightest doubt of the facts, there is no point in trying to evade the issue."
Both Nixon and the StainMaster could have taken that advise to heart.
As Murray Kempton, the late Liberaltarian said after meeting Eisenhower, "I was too dumb to understand him then. It would take ten years before I looked at his picture and realized that the smile was always a grin."
Jackie Robinson got beaten out by Pee Wee Herman and Madonna
<< Without Washinton, Reagan would have been a British subject. >>
Beg to differ.
Without General Washington the Hand that guided the building of our beloved FRaternal Republic's Foundations would have inspired another of the Great Men of that era to step up.
Our nation was never Britain's to tax, let alone to own.
I voted 12 times myself, something I learned from the Democrats...
I don't think it was so riduculous seeing as how at least a couple of generations have not been taught just who and how great our founding fathers really are.
In that same vein, boxer Jack Johnson, who became the first black world heavyweight champion, or Joe Louis who fought two wars in the ring with Max Schmeling.
You know, considering how central sports are to our culture, the breaking of racial barriers in baseball, or boxing as you point out, probably did as much for race relations as anything that was done politically.
I think Louis defeating Schmeling did more for race relations than King and Ali combined. Even whites were rooting for Lewis.
getting in a bit late, here - but I think its mostly because the vast majority of americans don't have a clue about history and can only remember the past 20-25 years. Every contest like this ends up heavily weighted towards those people who the voters remember clearly. Look at baseball polls on the greatest players. The top vote-getters typically are the modern-day players with a few historical players people can remember thrown in. People have very short-term memories in general...
Personally, I think its ridiculous that RWR won. Not to say necessarily he shouldn't have been in the list or among the finalists, but the "greatest"?
Should have gone to Franklin, IMHO. Is there anything he didn't do? He invented the lightning rod, Franklin stove, bifocals (and many other inventions). He co-founded the 1st hospital in the US. He helped introduced several crops to the US. He started the first fire insurance company (mutual). He helped found two colleges. He was the first postmaster, started the 1st circulating library, was a noted journalist and philosopher, started the 1st police department and 1st fire department in the US, invented a musical instrument, was an ambassador, governor, and colonel in the militia, fought for lighting, cleaning and paving of streets, ran several businessses, and the list goes on.
Oh, and did I mention he wrote parts of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution? That and he got the very much needed assistance from France. Oh, and he was the only person to sign the DoI, the Constitution, the Treaty of Alliance with France, AND the peace treaty ending the revolution.
That and (in contrast to many of his contemporaries - not to demean them) he fought for the abolition of slavery and for native americans rights.
Seems to me thats an incredible list of accomplishments (yet he never seemed to be power-hungry, either)... Sorry, but IMHO Reagan couldn't hold a candle to Franklin...
Agree on every point and can add a few of my own!
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