By the way, Ed,
Your post was well-written and well-thought out, even better than your normal (very high already) output. We can likely agree on many points (mistakes have been made) and disagree on much of the editorial comment and conclusions.
But you set a very high standard, one which few presidents can reach, I'm afraid:
"I'd like someone who can motivate change by calling on our best impulses, not someone who uses fear, envy, and distrust to achieve his ends."
Of the presidents in my lifetime, only a couple have done this and only for a very short time in the office. Most have failed miserably (Johnson, Nixon, Clinton). Carter tried to call on good impulses, but his comprehension of the country and politics was so poor (I believe his view of the US's future was a kind of large France, an amorphous blob with no economic direction and little political steering) that he went down, correctly, in flames and sits in oblivion.
Kennedy tried to do the best impulses thing, but if history is ever written by anyone other than card carrying members of the Democratic elite (Schlesinger, etc.) we will find a total schizophrenia there.
Best president for the best impulses? RR, of course, to go along with his place in history beside TR and FDR. Bush I had it for a short while with the gulf coalition, but a tin ear and a tin heart for American politics and the American people. Bush II had it early on, and may emerge (we won't really know, as with Lincoln) until 20 to 30 years after the fact, whether Bush II was either a great wartime president, willing to suffer the slings and arrows etc., or deserving of all the hatred the Left heaps on him day by day by day.
Kb |
