To impeach, or not to impeach

[pbrower2a]

(11-25-2019, 04:29 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: I find it amusing that PBR can in one breath say:  " He [Trump] is as much a break with the past as was Andrew Jackson, who rates 19." And yet in the next deny my assessment that Trump is in fact the Gray Champion of the Jacksonian Type.  I've long contended that there are essentially two types of actors in American politics.  One faction is historically represented by Andrew Jackson, the other by Alexander Hamilton.

I'm also reluctant to rate serving US Presidents.  Current politics has a tendency to color perceptions for at least 25 years.  Shit man its taken that long for most people to realize that LBJ was a shitty president and Nixon was relatively decent (apart from having criminals for underlings).  And even still most Boomers, particularly Blue ones, hate Nixon with a burning passion and the man has been dead for over a quarter century now.

Much of contemporary rating is on style at the expense of substance. Eisenhower often got the derision of top intellectuals because hedid not defer to them as did prior and subsequent Presidents. If something went right with Ike, then it was pure luck. LBJ had some wondrous legislation, but he was a disaster as a wartime leader. Nixon's political agenda was unobjectionable, but

(1) his dirty-tricks campaign, of which the Watergate break-in is simply the best known of misdeeds... trying to get the therapist's files on Daniel Ellsberg exemplifies a flagrant violation of medical ethics (physicians often post warnings to the effect that any unauthorized access to patient files is a crime, and

(2) Nixon pointlessly opened the spigots on the money supply and accelerated federal spending so that he could be re-elected by a huge margin -- and from that came the stagflation that led to the defeat of his two successors. Trump is doing much the same.

Note well: inflation is back.

I remember seeing praise for Calvin Coolidge from soon after his Presidency ended. Coolidge got credit for peace and prosperity. Only later would historians find the alleged prosperity of the 1920's superficial. Coolidge sponsored the speculative boom in real estate and securities that imploded a few months after Hoover succeeded him. Economic bubbles invariably end in financial panics; wholesome economic policy does not implode. Coolidge squeezed Germany with reparations that weakened German democracy and allowed the installation of... need I go further? Peace and prosperity? Those would collapse later because of Coolidge policies.