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x, by your standards of the effect of one president upon the next (Carter to Reagan), or others, stacytec is on to something here with Nixon: deserved or not, the legacy of Watergate bites and empowers the wrong people yet today.

Good point. We like to think of it as our "team" against their "team." But if one of our players screws up so badly that he gives the other team the opportunity of a lifetime, do we defend or condemn that player? Hoover deserves a lot of blame for giving Roosevelt such a great opportunity, and you could make the same point about Nixon and the Democrats of his own day. Carter was something of the Democrats Hoover, and comes in for the same sort of criticism as Hoover: he's the one who lost it for them for a generation. Those who would put Lincoln at their list of the worst have to face the same question with Pierce and especially Buchanan. They made the situation that Lincoln faced and the enviroment that he succeeded in. That they created it through inaction doesn't excuse their failing.

Of course you can take that game further -- Nixon gave us Ford and Carter, but they gave us Reagan, and the Nixon era helped kill off Rockefeller Republicanism so things worked out in the end -- but that's probably going too far. You have to look at what they were in their own time. Nixon had great opportunities. He fulfilled some of them and grossly squandered others. I don't know what history will finally make of him. It's interesting to speculate. Did Nixon's failure kill an earlier "consensus" or moderate style of politics, or was it already doomed by the polarization of the 1960s? Did his disgrace postpone a conservative age or make one possible? But when Nixon left office it was pretty clear that he'd really soured things for the country and his party.

Nicollo, what about Taft and Wilson? Is Taft responsible for Wilson's taking office with 41.8% of the popular vote? Is Roosevelt responsible for it? Did Taft's troubles give TR his opening? Or was Teddy such a force of nature that nothing could have stopped him from trying to get back into politics? Or was TR responsible to begin with for having made such bad choices earlier?

In the end, though, we have to hold Wilson, FDR, Carter and the rest for what they actually did themselves. Wilson made his own miscalculations and mistakes. All the more so, since what voters expected them to do wasn't what they actually did. But it's not just whether or not presidents agree with us that makes them good or bad.

Gross incompetence or corruption or simple inability to cope with problems make bad presidents just as much as bad ideas. The next question is whether we make a distinction between the corrupt, the incompetent and those who worked earnestly and in good faith to deal with problems that proved unsurmountable.

Good point. We like to think of it as our "team" against their "team." But if one of our players screws up so badly that he gives the other team the opportunity of a lifetime, do we defend or condemn that player? Hoover deserves a lot of blame for giving Roosevelt such a great opportunity, and you could make the same point about Nixon and the Democrats of his own day.

Carter was something of the Democrats Hoover, and comes in for the same sort of criticism as Hoover: he's the one who lost it for them for a generation. Those who would put Lincoln at their list of the worst have to face the same question with Pierce and especially Buchanan. They made the situation that Lincoln faced and the enviroment that he succeeded in. That they created it through inaction doesn't excuse their failing.

Of course you can take that game further -- Nixon gave us Ford and Carter, but they gave us Reagan, and the Nixon era helped kill off Rockefeller Republicanism so things worked out in the end -- but that's probably going too far. You have to look at what they were in their own time. Nixon had great opportunities. He fulfilled some of them and grossly squandered others.

I don't know what history will finally make of him. It's possible to speculate. Did Nixon's failure kill an earlier "consensus" or moderate style of politics, or was it already doomed by the polarization of the 1960s? Did his disgrace postpone a conservative age or make one possible? But when Nixon left office it was pretty clear that he'd really soured things for the country and his party.

Nicollo, what about Taft and Wilson? Is Taft responsible for Wilson's taking office with 41.8% of the popular vote? Is Roosevelt responsible for it? Did Taft's troubles give TR his opening? Or was Teddy such a force of nature that nothing could have stopped him from trying to get back into politics? Or was TR responsible to begin with for having made such bad choices earlier?

In the end, though, we have to hold Wilson, FDR, Carter and the rest responsible for what they actually did themselves. Wilson made his own miscalculations and mistakes. All the more so, since what voters expected them to do wasn't what they actually did. But it's not just whether or not presidents agree with us that makes them good or bad.

Gross incompetence or corruption or simple inability to cope with problems make bad presidents just as much as bad ideas. The next question is whether we make a distinction between the corrupt, the incompetent and those who worked earnestly and in good faith to deal with problems that proved unsurmountable. In that way, Nixon comes off worse than Hoover, but does that mean Carter does better than Nixon?