Labor Day speech and unemployment...

[Azred]

It isn't that I missed it; rather, I didn't care. I don't pay attention to polls ranking politicians and neither should anyone else.

Many of those polls rank politicians through the lens of history and events that were happening during that time. Consider Lincoln himself: historically, his original opinion was not of "slaves must be freed" and, in fact, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation only as a way of trying to destabilize the Confederacy. Yes, this tactic worked, but if the Civil War had not taken place he would not have issued it. Many people rank him so highly as a great President because of the Emancipation Proclamation, the fact that the armies under his command defeated the Confederacy and brought all the States back into the Union, and because he was assassinated in such a public manner. I would ask you "without resorting to the Internet, can you name 5 things Lincoln did during his Presidency that did not involve the Civil War?" but I have no way of proving that you didn't perform a search.

Similarly, consider Roosevelt. His sympathetic Congress introduced sweeping legislation and his Administration created Federal agencies that vastly increased the size and power of the Federal Government, some of which could be considered to be unconstitutional (according to strict constructionism). Some of these pieces of legislation and agencies actually helped prolong and worsen the Depression. However, the armies under his command defeated Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan; thus, his legacy is one of total victory and even the people who dislike Roosevelt acknowledge this.

I suspect that W's low ranking is the publicity of the slow disaster that was happening during the last 1.5 years of his second term. As I have noted, I am no great fan of his for a couple of reasons (Patriot Act, stimulus packages, poor use of the military against an enemy that is mostly invisible and non-centralized).

[Felix The Assassin]

Back to topic.

Jay summed it up real well last night.

Jay Leno: "New statistics show the U.S. economy added 0 jobs in August. The White House cautioned Americans not to read too much into those numbers. What numbers?"

[Chewbacca]

Wait I thought it was Bush tax cuts for millionaires that were supposed to create jobs and we all live happily ever after? Oh yeah, Obama keeps those around.

Obama's DOJ has turned out to be hardly better than the previous few. Attacking Online Poker affected me and millions of other Americans personally as well as financially. However I do not hold him personally accountable for the inherent flaws in the bloated police-state beauracracy.

Back in 08 I would of volunteered to give up choclate cake for life rather than have Sarah Palin be one beating heart away from becoming commander in chief. It's bad enough as it is.

[SpiritWarrior]

IKR could anyone in their right mind imagine her as president?

[Azred]

I don't think anyone ever really considered her as a serious contender with a decent probability of winning.

[SpiritWarrior]

Would be funny though, i'll say that.

[Timber Loftis]

Why is it so funny? We're looking at Bachmann being an actual contender, and not only is her rhetoric circa 400 years ago, she has a husband who runs a "gay fixing" operation and has benefited from her funneling federal dollars his way.

[Timber Loftis]

Originally Posted by SpiritWarrior When you get a Nobel Peace prize because the planet is happy you are not George Bush, it speaks volumes.

Wonderful quotable quote. Too bad he did not much else to get it.

As for proving his worth in 2 years - he owned Osama and saved us from a great depression.

He owned Ossama, but he saved us from nothing. To the extent he was involved, stimulus spending was like 33% of what it should have been (so much went to bailouts of companies that should have been allowed to fail under laissez faire economics), and over 50% of that was wasted. Google it up and see the number of critical infrastructure fixes this country needs -- there were plenty of FDR style shovel-ready jobs that actually needed doing, and only a fraction got money, got ideas, and got done. Those projects were the easiest way to get people employed -- the lowest hanging fruit. And, to boot they were a security issue. Why did they not get done? From levees to bridges to more mundane roads, our 2-generations-old infrastructure needs a huge overhaul, and it seems to me to be the most efficient and obvious way to boost jobs.

[Ladyzekke]

I did not watch the Obama speech. I'm at the point where it seems political speeches (no matter who it is) just tell people what they want to hear, but rarely does anything come out of it. I wish we had more presidential choices too rather than the usual 2 or 3 people we always end up with. Blah.

[Timber Loftis]

I'll vote Lincoln as the worst, though most name him the best. Yes, he was born in KY and was a lawyer in IL, so I share some trait affinity with him. But, I wholeheartedly agree with Ron Paul in that the right of freedom includes the right to secede from the union. Lincoln ruined that, for all time. I don't care if the reasons the South sought to secede were unjust, we as a nation denied states their right, and for that Lincoln was horrible.

He was great at running a war, though. He used the tons of railways the North had and the tons of telegraph lines they had to ingeniously run a fantastic war. He created the idea of a President sending directive straight to the battlefield. He shipped massive amounts of troops in days to areas where they were not expected for weeks. From the point of view of his success as a war President, he was perhaps the best ever.