Originally posted by Kennelly
3.Kennedy (he saved the world in October 1962)
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he didnt really save the WORLD. the only real threatened nation was the USA because of Cuba's proximity to it - a nuke launched from there could reach Chicago in just 5 minutes (or less? im not sure). u cant really look at things like that - making it seem that if the USA falls, then the whole world will go to hell, too
. there will always be one or more benevolent countries to pick up the pieces and start rebuilding all the good stuff again. i would probably put him on my list of top five presidents of the USA, but he saved the
USA not the
ENTIRE WORLD
if u look at things like that, then u sort of dont appreciate the good things some other countries have done and/or stand for.
my list
1. Washington - first leader of the USA
2. JFK - saved the
USA (very close-call, however)
3. FDR - basically revived USA's economy through his welfare state and New Deal programs, one of the people i view as the "political heroes" of WW2 - he, along w/ Churchill and Stalin, defeated Nazi Germany
4. Lincoln - supposedly kept the Union together (actually it was: the Northern armies + the fact that the Confederate economy was really bad and that its own constituent states had so much autonomy that the central gov't was virtually powerless, only acting at the whim of the Confederate constituents) - he was ready to decide to allow slavery if the Confederacy would rejoin the Union
5. i only think there are only 4. i wouldnt consider George W Bush as a qualifying president - i think he's too much of a warmonger right now. i mean yea he did successfully lead the USA after 9/11, and ousted the Taliban, but lets face it - he can defeat and install friendly, humanitarian gov'ts in all three countries of the so-called "axis of evil" and every other oppressive, terrorist-friendly country in the world, but there will still b some terrorists in hiding, waiting to strike with a surprise. there will always be some guerillas trying to get rid of the kinds of gov't he wants to put at the helm of those countries. and why does he call them axis of evil? at least up to now the USA had at least some below-average level of good relations with N. Korea and Iran. now i wouldnt be surprised if those countries would attack a USA ally just to spite him.
and thats basically my view of things
Reaganomics simply doesn't work. The economic boom in the 1990's came from the openning of new area's of industry and busness (the dotcoms). Clinton did far more to spread around the prosparity and help the common man than most republicans would like us to realize. So what if he used his position to get sex? It's not like that's anything new! As long as he was doing a great job running the country it didn't realy matter. The bottom line is that clinton came into office with one of the largest budget deficts in American history and 8 years later he had turned it into the largest SURPLUS in American history. Doesn't sound like something a corrupt politician could pull off. A Republican could have done the same you say? Ask "president" Bush about what happened to the surrplus. If there's one thing republicans know how to do it's waste lots of money on the uber-rich at the expense of the rest of us! The tax cut of 2001 (~40% of which went to the top 1 % of Americans) wasted the surplus and did nothing for the economy. I've never understood what conservatives have against Clinton. Maybe it' just that he was able to come through on the empty promises that republicans had been handing out for years. Clinton is certainly one of the best presidents of the 20th century and of all american history. 
) and his work there would not be enough to put him into the top 5 in my opinion.
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