Posted on 03/13/2010 3:24:42 AM PST by Scanian
Since the end of World War II, our country has had three great presidents: Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan.
Their politics varied, but these giants stand in sharp contrast to our last three presidents, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and now Barack Obama. The first two presided over gravely flawed presidencies; the third is on his way to outright failure.
What makes these two presidential trios so different? A recent visit to the Truman Museum and Library in Independence, Mo., made me ask what made those great presidents great.
The answer is character. The three greats were men of great character; the three recents, men of great ambition -- driven, in their different ways, by a fateful sense of entitlement.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Wouldn't it be a fine thing to have another president whose first serious taste of failure didn't come in the Oval Office?
We don't need presidents with exclusive academic credentials. We need presidents who know what it's like to work for a living. We need presidents who understand average Americans. We need presidents for whom the White House isn't just the ultimate résumé entry.
Truman, Eisenhower and Reagan had different visions of what was right for America -- but their concern was America, not themselves.
These profoundly different men had two other things in common: They weren't lawyers, and they had the courage to make tough decisions, from dropping the first atomic bombs to telling the chieftain of an evil empire to tear down a wall.
Our post-modern presidents can't even decide what to do with blood-soaked terrorists. I don't think that would've been a problem for Harry, Ike or the Gipper.
exactly right
Ralph Peters’ new book: “Endless War: Middle-Eastern Islam vs. Western Civilization”
http://www.amazon.com/Endless-War-Middle-Eastern-Western-Civilization/dp/0811705501
Perhaps there are some who perceieve them as succeeding rather then failing and that they are the ones who really matter.
I think the words “Post Modern” in the title pretty much sums things up.
What makes these two presidential trios so different?
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Not for nuthin’, but all three of the most recent potuses experimented with drug use. If their presidencies have one common thread, it is that “Mmmmmm, drugs are bad”.
“The answer is character.” Always is!
Character is what you are when nobodys around.
Yes, Her name is Sarah and she is from Alaska
NO!
The author betrays his, and unfortunately, most of his audience’s “post-modern” view of history, by making the all too common assumption, that the way we do things today is somehow different, solely because we have somehow changed from our ancestors.
The truth is, while we have changed the language of our arguments, it is only a cosmetic change. Half of our countrymen, by definition, remain “below average”. And there is no way around that.
Idealistic fools, much like today’s socialists, lived in America even before the word “socialist” was coined. And their hair-brained schemes were just as pestiferous then, or even more so, than they are now.
This “proto-socialism” was used to justify the ethnic cleansing of the Indian tribes, slavery, terrible abuse of federal power, and economic malfeasance resulting in painful national depressions.
It was always backed by the very worst in humanity: hate, greed, sloth, bigotry, superstition, misogyny, imperialism and worse.
The times it came to the fore often accompanied or precipitated disasters to our nation. And the people never learned from their mistakes.
Somehow, we got by. But over the course of more than 200 years, these people have built up so much garbage in Washington, that we cannot see our capital for the detritus.
King obuma has character, but it’s not good character. I’d characterize him as a simpering, lying, two-faced egomaniacal psychotic.
And that's on one of his good days.
Anybody who ever had dirt under their fingernails and who hasn't spent the past 20 years speaking in well-scripted platitudes and giving "educated" non-answers on "Meet The Press" need not apply.
We have become conditioned to only accept well-coiffed, smooth, oily, telegenic politicians who memorize talking points and never had an original thought in their lives.
Everybody else, we will make fun of and ridicule, should they ever dare run for public office. We will brand them as "unqualified", "inexperienced" and "unfit" to hold public office. We shall chortle along with the Dave Lettermans and Jay Lenos of the world as they trash these upstarts on their late-night shows and we shall accept whatever cardboard cut-outs they want to shove down our throats.
I usually agree with most everything that Ralph Peters says, but I believe that George W. Bush was and still is a man of character. I thank God that he was POTUS during and after 9-11 and that he had the courage of his convictions to do what had to be done to keep us safe throughout the remainder of his presidency. Even though I did not agree with all of his policies, his policies have nothing to do with a lack of character or personal integrity.
I agree. In fact, that to my mind is exactly why he suffered in polling, the fact that he had core principles that he was not willing to compromise for political expediency.
Also take note of the fact that the author names Harry S Truman as a president with character. He was reviled during his tenure.
Character is what you are when nobodys around.
Peters could have extended his argument to include glancing shots at Nixon, LBJ and Carter but I guess he didn't want to beat a dead horse.
Character is always revealing and, in the case of a presidency, foreshadows what's to follow. I look at the Bushes with a mixed point of view: both grew up extremely privileged and with a great safety net. But Bush 41 paid his dues in WWII and was a good public servant in various capacities before running for the Presidency. But you could see that he was far from being a Reaganesque character. W also had the privileged upbringing but there was certainly more character there than Clinton or Obama, especially after W's bout with alcoholism.
I never thought of GWB as ambitious. And I don’t get what makes Truman great.
And didn’t Ike give us a very liberal SCOTUS?
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