How we judge Presidents!

Jarod

Jarod

Well-known member
Contributor
The operation to kill Osama Bin Ladden could very likely had gone badly. Simply by the grace of God, some chance could have resulted in a Carter rescueing the hostages in Iran style trajety.

We would be sitting here discussing how awfull Obama is and how pittafull of a leader his is. The attacks on him would be relentless.

I do not belive President Obama and others should be judged solely on the success or failure of the actions, but on the decisions themselves. So we should not be so in love with him simply because this mission was a success, and we should not hate Carter simply because his mission was not. Instead we should respect the gutsy acton taken regardless of the results.... Or we should dislike the risky illresponsable decision they made, regardless of the result.

Often, the correct decision will, due to chance or grace, simply go badly.

This logic is why I belive for example, Attempted Murder should have the same punishment as Murder. Its the planning, and decision making that matters, not so much the result.

I have lost trials that I felt great about because I did a great job. I have won trials that I felt terrable about, because I did not do my best. Lets try to judge our presidents and ourselves more on the substance than the result.

I am proud of President Obama for the gutsy decision he made and for the way I hear it went down. I understand the President took imput from a vast variety of experts, he heard many options and opinions, he slept on it, came in the next day and anounced his decision.

I like to belive that had that decision resulted in a catrostophy instead of success I would not change my position on the presidents actions.

Certantly sometimes hopefully often good results come from good decisions, but chance has something to do with it and we should account for that.
 
Put simply - if it had turned out to be a disaster Obama would have been forever remembered, by his opponents, as a terrible President who messed everything up rather than a terrible President who got one decision correct and fucked everything else up.
 
Most presidents need a war to get recognized. My top two are Washington and Monroe, the latter of which presided over the "Era of Good Feelings." Also in my Top 10 are Taft, who was a peacetime president and would have kept us out of WWI had we let him, and Eisenhower, who got us out of Korea.
 
nutjobs base on party, evidence above.
Fucking ah Obama gets huge credit, see Carter's failure for precident.
Will it alone get him re-elected? NO If you think it has no impact you need to get your nose out of Trump's crotch.
 
The biggest part of the problem with Carter's rescue attempt was that we were clueless about fighting in a desert setting. We've had a little practice since then.

Also, this time we let the professionals do their jobs instead of trying to micromanage it.
 
WinterBorn said:
The biggest part of the problem with Carter's rescue attempt was that we were clueless about fighting in a desert setting. We've had a little practice since then.

Also, this time we let the professionals do their jobs instead of trying to micromanage it.
Click to expand...

The overall point is not a bad one, though. Carter's legacy would certainly been different if that rescue had taken place (though it still wouldn't be great), and Obama would have been villified for awhile if this one went awry.

So much of life, and not just the Presidency, is execution. Peyton Manning can throw a decent game-winning pass, but if his receiver muffs it, he's still a choker to many...
 
WinterBorn said:
The biggest part of the problem with Carter's rescue attempt was that we were clueless about fighting in a desert setting. We've had a little practice since then.

Also, this time we let the professionals do their jobs instead of trying to micromanage it.
Click to expand...

Yea, Jimmy should have kept up on his helicopter flying skills.
 
Onceler said:
The overall point is not a bad one, though. Carter's legacy would certainly been different if that rescue had taken place (though it still wouldn't be great), and Obama would have been villified for awhile if this one went awry.

So much of life, and not just the Presidency, is execution. Peyton Manning can throw a decent game-winning pass, but if his receiver muffs it, he's still a choker to many...
Click to expand...

And Reagan is never vilified for undermining the President of the United States and negotiating with the enemy.
 
Jarod said:
The operation to kill Osama Bin Ladden could very likely had gone badly. Simply by the grace of God, some chance could have resulted in a Carter rescueing the hostages in Iran style trajety.

We would be sitting here discussing how awfull Obama is and how pittafull of a leader his is. The attacks on him would be relentless.

I do not belive President Obama and others should be judged solely on the success or failure of the actions, but on the decisions themselves. So we should not be so in love with him simply because this mission was a success, and we should not hate Carter simply because his mission was not. Instead we should respect the gutsy acton taken regardless of the results.... Or we should dislike the risky illresponsable decision they made, regardless of the result.

Often, the correct decision will, due to chance or grace, simply go badly.

This logic is why I belive for example, Attempted Murder should have the same punishment as Murder. Its the planning, and decision making that matters, not so much the result.

I have lost trials that I felt great about because I did a great job. I have won trials that I felt terrable about, because I did not do my best. Lets try to judge our presidents and ourselves more on the substance than the result.

I am proud of President Obama for the gutsy decision he made and for the way I hear it went down. I understand the President took imput from a vast variety of experts, he heard many options and opinions, he slept on it, came in the next day and anounced his decision.

I like to belive that had that decision resulted in a catrostophy instead of success I would not change my position on the presidents actions.

Certantly sometimes hopefully often good results come from good decisions, but chance has something to do with it and we should account for that.
Click to expand...

I have to ask this Jarod, Who do you specifically mean by "We"?

What I mean by that question is that how one evaluates a President is more then likely a reflection of ones own personal values.
 
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King of Kings said:
Most presidents need a war to get recognized. My top two are Washington and Monroe, the latter of which presided over the "Era of Good Feelings." Also in my Top 10 are Taft, who was a peacetime president and would have kept us out of WWI had we let him, and Eisenhower, who got us out of Korea.
Click to expand...
Taft? Are you fucking kidding me? Taft? Hell I'm from Ohio and I'm a shirt tail relative of his wife and Taft, to be generous, was a mediocre President and you're an idiotic isolationist if you don't think the US shouldn't have been involved in WWI. Now if you're talking about Chief Justices of SCOTUS, Taft was one of the very best and served his nation far better in that role then as Chief Executive. Taft had neither the energy, charisma, leadership, temperment or communications skills to be a great President but he was an outstanding and brilliant legal scholar and jurist and served his nation well indeed as Chief Justice of SCOTUS.
 
WinterBorn said:
The biggest part of the problem with Carter's rescue attempt was that we were clueless about fighting in a desert setting. We've had a little practice since then.

Also, this time we let the professionals do their jobs instead of trying to micromanage it.
Click to expand...
That's not true. I'm reasonably sure that none of our Presidents since Carter are professionals at dessert war fare. Carter pulled the trigger on a decision to rescue the hostages. The mission failed and it cost him dearly politically. The success or failure of the mission had little, if anything, to do with Carter but with the military commanders who ran the operation. The same is true with Obama. He pulled the trigger on a very risky decision, just like Carter did, but his commanders pulled the mission off. Had this mission failed, Obama would have paid huge political price for it too.
 
Jarod said:
My point is that this should not guarantee the election for Obama.
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It won't....but it don't hurt his chances either. On the other hand...had the mission failed, it probably would have cost him re-election. So he took a huge political gamble by authorizing this mission. With 20:20 hindsight, he obviously made the right decision.
 
Onceler said:
The overall point is not a bad one, though. Carter's legacy would certainly been different if that rescue had taken place (though it still wouldn't be great), and Obama would have been villified for awhile if this one went awry.

So much of life, and not just the Presidency, is execution. Peyton Manning can throw a decent game-winning pass, but if his receiver muffs it, he's still a choker to many...
Click to expand...

Exactly.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Taft? Are you fucking kidding me? Taft? Hell I'm from Ohio and I'm a shirt tail relative of his wife and Taft, to be generous, was a mediocre President and you're an idiotic isolationist if you don't think the US shouldn't have been involved in WWI. Now if you're talking about Chief Justices of SCOTUS, Taft was one of the very best and served his nation far better in that role then as Chief Executive. Taft had neither the energy, charisma, leadership, temperment or communications skills to be a great President but he was an outstanding and brilliant legal scholar and jurist and served his nation well indeed as Chief Justice of SCOTUS.
Click to expand...

I'm talking about Taft, the president who passed through more progressive initiatives than either his predecessor or his successor did in twice the amount of time that he had to get stuff done in. That Taft. If you think WWII, the rise of Communism, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf Wars, and the modern War on Terror were worth the price of making the world safe for democracy in WWI, then I guess there's a lot to be said for isolationism.

I guess the proles deserve nutjobs like TR and ideologues like Wilson running our government, so that we can have the satisfaction of endless wars and spending.
 
He gets the huge balls card to play in the race.
Repukes can't play the soft on defense or the no foreign policy card.
Obama just bitch slapped those widestance faggots.
 
Topspin said:
He gets the huge balls card to play in the race.
Repukes can't play the soft on defense or the no foreign policy card.
Obama just bitch slapped those widestance faggots.
Click to expand...

Its certainly a better argument than JFK's "missile gap" and "bomber gap" argument against Nixon.
 
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