We are the party of Wilson, FDR, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter and Clinton

[Liberalboy]

Think about that for a moment.

In the last century, which of the men I listed above is not considered an excellent President (or ex-President) who stepped up and served their country with leadership and grace? They guided us through Two World Wars, a Great Depression, the Space Age, the Nuclear Age, Civil Rights and Integration. They brought us Peace Accords, and Economic Prosperity, they protected the right to choose and fought for the those who did not have a voice. These men are the epitome of the word "American" and history shows that when things need fixing, when our culture needs to move forward, when we needed determination, guidance and support it is a DEMOCRAT who gets the job done.

I know we get freaked out about the up and down of the polls, or worried about the voter intimidation and fraud, or angry at the hate and bigotry coming from the other side, but history is on our side...never forget that, or let it go far from your heart. In the 21st Century this list starts over, and let it start with Obama (and hopefully by 2099 we won't have to use the pronoun "he" anymore.)

Let's do this!

[Liberalboy]

1. self-induced kick :-)

[applegrove]

2. When you put it like that. Wow!! What a great list of names. The only great

Presidents of the 20th century.

[Spider Jerusalem]

21. Um...Theodore Roosevelt?

TR was, admittedly, a progressive Republican, but he was still a Republican.

[applegrove]

22. Okay - I'll give you that. I don't know much about Teddy with me being Canadian and all.

[SoxFan]

3. But they have Harding, Nixon, Agnew, Quayle, and the Shrub!

[Herman74]

15. Don't Forget the Depressing Herbert Hoover and Shameful Senator Joe McCarthy!! n/t

[progressive_realist]

4. Carter is not generally considered a successful President.

And Wilson had a long list of failings, including support for racial segregation, enacting the income tax, starting the war on drugs, and helping create the Federal Reserve. Whereas FDR expanded the reach of the federal government in ways that benefited most Americans, I think Wilson represented the worst tendencies of big government. Just my humble opinion. I am not a fan of Wilson at all.

[Liberalboy]

5. I don't disagree with you, but they were them men they were in that time.

I don't justify his behaviours by the ethics and values we hold today, but he was who he was at the time. On a spectrum I say he was on the low end, and FDR was on the other

[WinkyDink]

11. "I don't justify his behaviours by the ethics and values we hold today." WHAT??! Are you confusing

Carter with some other President?
He has ALWAYS been thought of as EMINENTLY ETHICAL!!!!

(Your spelling indicates you are not American.)

[LeftishBrit]

16. My guess is that the 'ethics' bit refers to Wilson, not Carter

Wilson had some important achievements, and should be commended for trying to institute a more humane post-WW1 foreign policy than many other leaders. But his attitudes to race, women's rights, etc., would not be acceptable nowadays.

[WinkyDink]

9. Yeah, too bad a bank CD would get you about 18% interest then.

And "high interest on loans" isn't a fair riposte, as not everybody then took out loans.

Inflation? By today's standards?

He was right about energy, and the oil companies retaliated (or have they made new oil since 1973?).

And with the Hostage Crisis: They all came home alive; he started no war; and he tried to rescue them, but was told lies by the CIA re: weather/desert conditions (Oliver North was a point-man).

The Camp David Accords were an enormous contribution to peace.

[JustAnotherGen]

14. I agree with you

And love your avatar. I think I worship at that guys altar! ;-)

Anyone who disagrees should read Rosewood: Like Judgment Day or Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World. It's the little tidbits on Wilson and how he ruled that makes me thankful that Truman (in spite of the bigotry in his youth) put 'those people' on notice in 1948.

[Beacool]

17. Agree with you on Carter.

Great man, lousy president.

[DefenseLawyer]

6. You can keep Wilson.

He was a vile man.

[judasdisney]

8. Agreed, Wilson was a monster who rivals Bush/Cheney's abuses

[mscuedawg]

7. One of my FAVORITE Obama quotes..

“We are the party of Roosevelt. We are the party of Kennedy. So don't tell me that Democrats won't defend this country. Don't tell me that Democrats won't keep us safe.” ~ Barack Obama

:patriot: We soo have this!!!! GOBAMA!!

[PretzelWarrior]

10. Johnson? Kind of a mixed bag

civil rights? KUDOS

escalating the Vietnam war? BADDDDD

[Herman74]

12. AND GORE!!! And with Gore, the list has 3 Nobel Peace Prize Winners:

Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, and Al Gore.

[Herman74]

13. Should be poined out that Truman's Secretary of State, George Marshall, also won...

...the Nobel Peace Prize. Of course, FDR was one of the runners-up (to A. Einstein no less) for Time's Person of the 20th Century

[Beacool]

18. Better than the Republican roster,

but Carter was an ineffective president and FDR's actions over the St. Louis and the antisemitism of his administration tempered my admiration of the man. It wasn't just the German people who pretended to ignore the existence of the death camps during the war. My one beef with Truman was his authorization to drop the H bomb on civilians. As one of my professors once pointed out, we would have never dropped it on the Germans. Despite the Nazi's crimes they were after all white and the world would have condemned us for obliterating German civilians, but the Japanese were viewed far differently. As for JFK, who knows how he would be viewed now if he had lived to finish his two terms? The Vietnam war was in the making during the end of his administration and Johnson got stuck with the rotten mess.

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/SS-St.-Louis

[onager]

19. We certainly would have nuked the Nazis.

As one of my professors once pointed out, we would have never dropped it on the Germans.

That tiresome old canard again, that racism was behind Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This must have been your professor of Historical Revisionism.

The whole Manhattan Project was STARTED because of German progress in nuclear research. Because of that progress, in 1939 Albert Einstein wrote his famous letter to FDR about the threat of a nuclear-armed Nazi Germany.

Just how seriously the Allies took that threat can be determined by one of the most bizarre missions of WWII. In 1944, German physicist Werner Heisenberg gave a lecture in Zurich, Switzerland. The OSS (ancestor of the CIA) sent an agent to Zurich with orders to stand up and shoot Heisenberg immediately if he mentioned an atomic bomb. The potential assassin was the fascinating character Mo Berg: pro baseball pitcher, graduate of Columbia Law School and fluent German speaker.

As a side note, even the aircraft that dropped the first atomic bomb, the B-29, was developed to use against Germany. With war looming for America in 1940 and the battle of Britan far from certain, the U.S. had to design aircraft capable of bombing Europe directly from America. That was the impetus for the B-29 (and its lesser-known sister, the B-32 Dominator).

By 1944, Germany's V-1 and V-2 missiles were devastating London, and Hitler was ranting daily about even better "miracle weapons" to come. The Allies had to assume one of those weapons might be nuclear. The absolute nightmare was a V-2 missile with a nuclear warhead.

And on that subject, there's this fascinating historical note. The British wanted to threaten Hitler with a nuclear weapon almost a year before it even existed:

One of Britain's most senior intelligence officers wanted the wartime leader, Winston Churchill, to threaten to drop atomic bombs on Nazi Germany a year before they were first used on Japan.

The scheme was seriously intended to be urged on the US president, Franklin Roosevelt, as a retaliation if V2 rockets were fired on British cities.

The call came from MI5's chief spycatcher, Guy Liddell, and revealed in his 12-volume private diaries, disclosed today by the public record office under the 60 year rule...

The idea of a nuclear threat figures in an entry on August 22, 1944. It was in response to warnings from agents that Germany was about to start attacking London with V2s, the most dreaded weapon used against civilians in the war. Britain had known the V2 was under development since 1942.

Liddell wrote: "I told about the plan for threatening the Germans with the uranium bomb if they threatened to use the V2".

On August 25, he saw the MI5 head, Sir Stewart Menzies, about the issue...

In advocating a nuclear threat, Liddell and Menzies were either apparently urging a policy based on sheer bluff - or were unaware that work to develop a uranium-based bomb was nowhere near ready. Liddell believed it was far advanced. But the first test explosion was not carried out till nearly 11 months later, in Los Alamos, New Mexico.

http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/12-2-2002-31409.asp

[Dem_4_Life]

20. Let's do it! Yes we can!