The Very Worst President of the United States

Enter Stage Right ^ | Aug. 11, 2003 | Bruce Walker

[JohnGalt]

This post does a serious discredit to your position.

First of all, Max Boot calls himself a neoconservative, but I suggest your case is that he is lying?

Second, you asked for evidence, which provided, sent you in to Know Nothing Mode. Quietly disagree and say nothing is one thing, knee jerk denialism is silly.

[bassmaner]

There is one more you are leaving out, but I don't wish to play the role of Neanderthal sexist today...but maybe tomorrow...

LOL!

[Rider on the Rain]

For me, no way could Wilson have been worse than the treasonous Clinton.

It may sound silly, but I honestly believe Bubba to be ten thousand times worse than the worst of the worst.

[William McKinley]

Max Boot does not call himself neoconservative: "There's no "neo" in my conservatism.". So I suggest not that he is lying, but rather that you are mistaken, and did not even read the article you sent to me in "Know Nothing Mode" (perhaps that is the only mode you know?)

[Gritty]

Had Hughes won, a hundred million or so lives would have been saved.

A future historian might possibly say the same thing about George Herbert Walker Bush in 80 years. The legacy of clinton is yet to be finally written in blood, much of it probably American.

[r9etb]

What I'm wondering is:

1. Why don't these facts appear in the mainstream textbooks, even as an "Alternate Point of View";

2. And why is it that a bunch of conservative Internet renegades (some Canadian) seem to be the only ones bringing these things up?

Maybe because they're not really as "factual" as this author would have us believe? Not that Wilson was any great shakes -- his mistakes are well documented -- but this "analysis" is far too simplistic.

The article is also misinformed: Japan was not a "one of the major allied powers." They sent a very modest number of troops to Europe, a few ships to the Mediterranean, and harassed the Germans in China.

Why would the author make such a claim? Apparently to lay the blame for Pearl Harbor at Wilson's feet -- a rather arrogant assumption that excludes Japanese imperialism. (Unless the author would like to blame Japan's invasion of China on Wilson, too....)

[GunnyHartman]

I'M SORRY BUT THIS GUY WAS THE WORST!

 

[JohnGalt]

That's a fair point of semantics and an oversight on my part. When you are dealing with a group of folks who say there are no neoconservatives, it can get confusing.

But I am not following you. You are saying that Max Boot is a conservative who likes Wilson?

Fine, then lets move on to who are 'friends' of Max Boot and who secures his speaking fees:

http://www.benadorassociates.com/speakers.php

[William McKinley]

By the way...

Like Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, "hard Wilsonians" want to use American might to promote American ideals.

Your argument was that since Boot said that Wolfowitz and Cheney support a 'hard Wilsonian' view of projecting American influence, this is evidence that the Neocons look at Wilson as a hero.

I have challenged you to provide any evidence that Reagan considered Wilson a hero; obviously if the argument you posited works for 'hard Wilsonians' Cheney and Wolfowitz, it works for 'hard Wilsonians' like Ronald Reagan.

I suppose it would also work for a 'hard Wilsonian' like Theodore Roosevelt too-- although that is somewhat hard to fathom, being that 1) Roosevelt preceded Wilson, and 2) Roosevelt ran against Wilson (although admittedly in doing he enabled Wilson to be elected).

There are neoconservatives, no doubt. They are a small percentage. Some seem to want to make the term meaningless by applying it to anyone they want to put on the defensive-- and in so doing they end up defining 'neoconservative' to include 99% of all conservatives. They just hope no one notices.

I've noticed.

[r9etb]

Had Hughes won, a hundred million or so lives would have been saved.

Bullsh!t. It's likely that we'd have ended up in WWI regardless of who won in 1916. And it's also likely that American post-war foreign policy wouldn't have been too much different from what it turned out to be (i.e., isolationist).

And of course, there's the fallacious reasoning that only American influences led to the rise of Nazism, Fascism, Communism, and Japanese Imperialism, and the second World War that resulted from these expansionist regimes.

[William McKinley]

I am saying that Boot used a term 'hard Wilsonian' that does not do what you stated it does, namely imply some sort of admiration for the man, some sort of pedastal for his Presidency, some sort of hero designation.

There is no evidence that Cheney admires Wilson. No evidence Reagan admired Wilson. No evidence Wolfowitz admired Wilson.

Even if one says that they share the same aggressive pursuit of American interests abroad that Wilson did, it does not show any support by them of Wilson. I am sure Hitler loved his mother at one time, and I am equally sure this does not mean that anyone who loved their mother at one time considers Hitler a hero. Similarly, even if one were to share a particular policy view as Wilson it does not mean they consider him a hero. It isn't even evidence in that direction. Reducto ad Wilsionium.

[JohnGalt]

I think Max Boot is an idiot and used his own essay to prove my point and you have strengthed that point of view with your post here.

The onus is on Max Boot to make the connection between RR and Woodrow Wilson, not me.

The problem with your point of view is that its a near complete rejection of Russell Kirk's view of conservatism, so whatever you might be, its hard to communicate with you on any ideological ground.

I suggest turning off Fox News for a month and reading books, but if you are taking time out of your day to defend Max Boot, than its safe to say, its after the fact.

[Blood of Tyrants]

I thought of it but didn't mention it.

[thulldud]

One commentator put it this way, "Clinton is not the worst president, but he is the worst person to be president." Forget who it was, but it seems a fair statement. Time will tell.

[ZULU]

"What I'm wondering is:

Why don't these facts appear in the mainstream textbooks, even as an "Alternate Point of View";
And why is it that a bunch of conservative Internet renegades (some Canadian) seem to be the only ones bringing these things up?"

These things never show up because the liberal left has created an historical fiction of the U.S. and Wilson, that racist, elitist naive lying idiot, is, like FDR, one of their icons.

The reason these facts appear on the Internet is because it takes a certain level of intelligence, sophistication and personal success to be able to use the internet, and also because the internet is refreshingly free of control by the liberal mind-police who run the main stream media.

[William McKinley]

Feel free to think you got the better of this exchange.

Have a good one.

[JohnGalt]

If Max Boot uses the term Wilsonianism as if it were anything but the most cynical approach to foreign affairs that it was, than he has legitimized that Wilson actually had a defensible position-- he did not.

I agree, Boot is an idiot and I wish the whole lot of the Bendaro Associates lots of neoconservatives were kicked out of the party.

I am using hero in the classical sense, not hero in the modern liberal sense, that everyone who gets out of bed in the morning is a hero.

[CatoRenasci]

I agree that calling Japan one of the major belligerents in WWI is a stretch, but the Brits were certainly eager to have them in the war. Their participation certainly fueled Japanese imperialism, and the did seized the German concessions in China. Given the growth of the Japanese fleet, there were in a position by the Washington Naval Conference in 1922 to ask for parity with the British and Americans. Forced to settle for 3/5 of what the Americans and Brits were each allowed, the Japanese still were allotted a fleet almost as large as France and Italy compbined (ratios: 1.75 each for France and Germany, 3.5 total to Japan's 3 to our and the Brits 5 each). The Japanese did well enough at Versailles, but were humiliated at the Washington Conference and by the Alien Exclusion Acts in the US.

[dighton]

George Will.

"Clinton is not the worst president the republic has had, but he is the worst person ever to have been president."

[William McKinley]

I see. So let's summarize.

You say that neocons consider Wilson a hero.

You are challenged to provide evidence of this, and come up with an article by Max Boot, who you call a self-described neocon.

The article you provide features Boot saying there is no neo in his conservatism.

The evidence that neocons consider Wilson a hero that you quote is Boot suggesting that Cheney and Wolfowitz advocate a type of 'hard Wilsonian' foreign policy. In your eyes, this is evidence that the neocons love Wilson.

But Boot continues to say that other advocates of a 'hard Wilsonian' approach are Ronald Reagan and Theodore Roosevelt.

So Boot's assertion is proof that Cheney, Wolfowitz and 'neocons' love Wilson, in your eyes, but Boot's assertion that Reagan is also in this category merits a reply of "The onus is on Max Boot to make the connection between RR and Woodrow Wilson, not me."

Fair enough. But the onus is on him to make a connection between the neocons and Wilson too then. In other words, you just disavowed your own proof.

As for me, I have never accepted most of Kirk's isolationism. I also have never considered Kirk's isolationism to be his defining characteristic. Nor do I consider conservatism to be homogeneous. I think that if you put Adams, Burke, Calhoun, Toqueville and others who Kirk touched upon in "The Conservative Mind" together, you would find considerable agreement and considerable disagreement. Reagan and Goldwater diverged greatly. Some so-called conservatives would go apoplectic at much of Goldwater's acceptance speech, where he talked about creating free trade zones for all of North America.