BF2S Forums Who is your favourite American President of the last 50 years?

Last 50 years would include Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama IIRC.

Considering I don't remember much anything from the Clinton years I guess I would have to choose between Bush and Obama. And since Obama isn't even through yet and could go either way with it. Bush I guess.

I'm not saying Bush because 'zomg he's not a communist like Nobama!111!' but because honestly anyone 20 or under (my age group) really can't say shit about who was the best president since most of us only really experienced the last 2. (Preemptive shut the fuck up Sh1fty)

From what I have read about the other Presidents in the last 50 years I didn't experience- Ford, Carter, and Bush senior didn't have remarkable presidencies or were anything to write home about personally. Going by what I have read though, I think Nixon gets a shitty deal historically because of that whole Watergate thing. Opening up relations with China, ending the Vietnam war, and a few other great things seem to get buried under the Watergate scandal. The Eisenhower years also seems liked a pretty good time and his tenure was pretty stable aside from that whole Little Rock thing. Going back a few more years and I would have said, without a doubt, Truman. Again just going by the things I have read.

"There is an old Vulcan proverb: only Nixon could go to China." -Spock

Macbeth wrote:

Last 50 years would include Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama IIRC.

Fixed for dates.

Another memorable proverb from wise old Darth Milhous.

(e: not technically a proverb, I know )

Until Jan '61. This thread was made in Feb.

TBH, when I made this thread I was thinking of 50 years ago being 1950. I'm not sure why my brain is still stuck around it being 2000.

Mekstizzle wrote:

That's all I have to contribute in this thread cos I don't care about the rest

cya!

ontopic; i think the economy did best by clinton. nixon does get the short end historically, but Watergate is part and parcel of his legacy.

reagan was not the romantic figure today's republican's painted him out to be, if anything he introduced religion into politics in a big way.

We were already well down that path before Reagan died.

I'm telling you it really wasn't. Reagan's funeral was just another television event.

It didn't have very much of an impact on national politics, identity, or culture. Reagan had already withdrawn from public life for a good while before his death. He might as well had already been dead. The people who loved him already loved him and those who hated him already did. Nothing changed.

By the time he died though Iraq was going sour and that started the major backlash against Bush which I would say had more of an effect on national politics for the years to come.

it seems we interpret and attribute different levels of importance to a so-called 'television event'.

im of the opinion that the media and just-such examples of public 'made for tv' events are what shapes modern american values and consciousness.

what gets beamed into the average families' living-room through the tv is exactly what makes an impact on "national politics, identity and culture".

right and so the west coast's reaction to 9/11 and the extreme emotional over-response had nothing to do with the fact that fox news wouldn't stop repeating the same 10-second hollywood-movie clips for 12 months? baudrillard has had a lot to say on the exact cultural ramifications of such a cinema-like fetishisation of public events. the television is absolutely instrumental in shaping the american consciousness at the individual level.

Uzique wrote:

it seems we interpret and attribute different levels of importance to a so-called 'television event'.

im of the opinion that the media and just-such examples of public 'made for tv' events are what shapes modern american values and consciousness.

what gets beamed into the average families' living-room through the tv is exactly what makes an impact on "national politics, identity and culture".

His death really meant nothing. The myth was already well established and he was beautified by the right long before he died. People got rich in the 80s and attributed it to him even though he did little more than talk a good game.

Macbeth wrote:

I knew you were going to bring 9/11 up. 9/11 wasn't a television event. It was an event that had far reaching consequences for everyone in the country. The two tallest buildings in NYC/the world came down. A cloud of smoke descended onto NYC. Billions of dollars in pure damage was done to local buildings and real estate. There was gaping hole where one of our economic centers were located. Etc.

It wasn't a television event as much as something that directly affected a lot of people.

When Reagan died what happened? Washington DC had bad traffic for a few days.

how was 9/11 anything other than a 'television event' to americans on the west-coast with no familial/emotional ties to the atrocity? it was an event that happened in a geographically-remote area, thousands of miles away, involving people they had never met or shared any interaction with. the response of most americans to 9/11 was, frankly, viewed from the outside world as a worryingly reactionary piece of conservatism. as shocking as it was, you didn't exactly have scottish people over here reacting to 7/7 in the same way as equally-distanced americans did to the events in new york that day. the TV almost entirely shaped most people's perceptions and impressions of the event: it was their only link to the disaster.