Your whole case rests on a series of counterfactuals. testimonium paupertatis.
Shane Mage
"Thunderbolt steers all things."
Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 64
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Justin Schwartz" <jkschw at hotmail.com>
>>I am talking about the policies they did in fact
>>enact or advocate. I don't much care what politicians want, just what they
>>do.
>
>Which would make sense as a standard if the Presidency was a dictatorship.
>
>But the policies advocated or enacted are dependent on a Presidenct's
>opponents in Congress. Essentially, you are judging Nixon highly on the
>environment because he faced pro-environment legislator Edmund Muskie and
>trashing Clinton because he faced Ted Stevens and his ilk.
>
>As I noted, the only standard should be not advocacy or results, but the
>results if you subtract the President in question from the political equation
>of their day. If subtracting Nixon and giving Congress a free hand would
>have made the country a more progressive place, then he is objectively a
>rightwing influence on history. Contrary wise, subtracting Clinton and
>giving Congress a free hand would probably have prevented NAFTA (assuming
>there was no GOP President to push passage as Bush has with fast track) and
>caused absolute devastion to every other progressive policy.
>
>On that basis, Clinton is a progressive figure. And the rightwing and many
>of the poorest folks, especially african-americans, understand this and
>either hate or admire him for that fact.
>
>-- Nathan Newman
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