--- On Wed, 1/7/09, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> Subject: [lbo-talk] libertarian rates the presidents
> To: "lbo-talk" <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
> Date: Wednesday, January 7, 2009, 9:53 AM
> [Bill Clinton more conservative than Ronald Reagan!]
>
>
> PRESS CONTACT:
> xxx
>
> Should Mt. Rushmore Be Recarved?
> New book says we should reconsider how we rate our
> presidents.
>
> Who were the best and worst U.S. presidents, and what
> criteria should be used to make a meaningful comparison?
> Presidents are often judged by their personal charisma,
> intellect, oratory skills or management style-but are these
> traits the most important ones for a president to possess?
> Couldn't a very intelligent, well-spoken, charming
> taskmaster, who served during a time of national crisis,
> also be a lousy president if his policies undermined
> freedom, hampered economic progress, and made the country
> less safe? Conversely, couldn't a boring president with
> average intellect and unexceptional skills excel in the Oval
> Office if he also possessed other qualities in abundance,
> such as a firm commitment to the principles behind the
> Constitution?
>
> RECARVING RUSHMORE: RANKING THE PRESIDENTS ON PEACE,
> PROSPERITY, AND LIBERTY (The Independent Institute, January
> 2009, hardcover) takes a distinctly new approach to
> evaluating the presidents. While academics and pundits have
> often paid natural respect to "war heroes" and to
> those who have expanded presidential power, Ivan Eland,
> Senior Fellow at The Independent Institute, cuts through
> bias and political rhetoric to deliver the first no-nonsense
> presidential ranking system based purely on what they did.
> Profiling every president from George Washington to George
> W. Bush, Eland analyzes each man's policy decisions and
> ranks them based on the core principles of peace,
> prosperity, liberty, and adherence to the Constitution's
> limitations on presidential powers.
>
> Eland is available for interview. Here's just some of
> what he can discuss:
>
> · THE PEACE, PROSPERITY & LIBERTY RANKING
> Eland does a thorough investigation into each of the forty
> presidents' contribution to peace, prosperity and
> liberty and assigns each man a ranking from 1 to 40 with 1
> reflecting the most positive contribution.
>
> · THE SURPRISING TRUTH ABOUT SOME OF OUR MOST
> BELOVED PRESIDENTS
> Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Delano
> Roosevelt are some of our most revered presidents, yet
> according to Eland their reputations are less than deserved.
> Jefferson rates a PPL ranking of 26, putting him the
> category of bad presidents. "...as president, Jefferson
> often used the government to do just what he railed against:
> abscond with people's rights," says Eland. Lincoln,
> whose PPL ranking is 29, "managed the civil war in an
> incompetent, brutal, and dictatorial way." While the
> war ended slavery, for many decades African Americans still
> suffered unremitting oppression. Eland suggests that
> peaceful alternatives to Lincoln's policies might have
> achieved better results more quickly. With a PPL ranking of
> 31 FDR too falls within the bad president category. Eland
> charges that he lied the U.S. into World War II and did too
> little to protect Jews from Hitler's genocide. Eland
> also has a surprising take on John F. Kennedy (PPL: 35;
> "Almost incinerated the world so as not to appear
> weak"); Harry S. Truman (PPL: 39; "The first
> imperial president"); and Woodrow Wilson (PPL: 40,
> "Made the world safe for war, autocracy, and
> colonialism").
>
> · "GEORGE W. BUSH'S PRESIDENCY WAS ONE OF THE
> WORST OF ALL TIME.".
> "Bush's presidency was one of the worst of all
> time. The most obvious reason is that he invaded another
> country for no legitimate reason and enmeshed the U.S. in a
> costly militaristic quagmire and civil war," says
> Eland. Yet, in Eland's estimation George W. Bush's
> failures extend beyond the disastrous war in Iraq.
> "...Bush tried to expand the powers of an already
> imperial presidency to a breathtaking extent-severely
> undermining the balance of power among the branches of
> government enshrined in the Constitution and riding
> roughshod over the civil liberties of American citizens and
> foreign nationals alike." According to Eland federal
> spending also ballooned under George W. Bush, whose PPL
> ranking is 36.
>
> · WHY BILL CLINTON WAS MORE CONSERVATIVE THAN RONALD
> REAGAN OR GEORGE W. BUSH
> "In economic and even some social policies,
> Clinton's actual policies were more conservative than
> those of George W. Bush," says Eland. He points to
> Clinton's much-touted welfare reform and the passing of
> the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which scrapped the
> Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, allowing brokerage firms, banks,
> and insurance companies to merge, and dramatically loosened
> financial industry regulations. In addition, Clinton, whose
> PPL ranking is 11, supported international trade policies
> that were "more conservative and less protectionist
> than those of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush." On the
> peace front Clinton's military debacles may not have
> been on the scale of some other presidents, but they're
> distinctive nonetheless. "Clinton is the post-World War
> II champion for getting the United States enmeshed in the
> greatest number of ill-advised foreign military
> adventures-although Truman, LBJ, and George W. Bush share an
> even bigger trophy for entrapping the Unites Stages in the
> largest military foreign quagmires..." says Eland.
>
> · BORING PRESIDENTS WANTED
> John Tyler wasn't known for his charisma. No one ever
> said Martin Van Buren could electrify a crowed. Calvin
> Coolidge was far from a great communicator and Jimmy Carter,
> whom Eland calls "our best modern president,"
> wasn't a commanding figure. Yet, these are the very
> presidents who did the most for peace, prosperity, and
> liberty and strayed the least from the mandates of the
> Constitution, according to Eland. "Most of the
> 'excellent' presidents are remembered as bland men
> with gray personalities, but they largely respected the
> Constitution's intention of limiting government and
> restraining executive power, especially in regard to making
> war," he says. He continues, "They realized that
> America is great not because of its government's
> activism at home and abroad, but because of the hard work
> and great ideas of private American citizens living in
> freedom. In other words, they realized that peace,
> prosperity, and liberty are best achieved by the
> framers' notion of restricting government power."
>
> ABOUT IVAN ELAND & PRAISE FOR HIS BOOK
> Ivan Eland is Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on
> Peace & Liberty at The Independent Institute. Dr. Eland
> is a graduate of Iowa State University and received an
> M.B.A. in applied economics and a Ph.D. in Public Policy
> from George Washington University. He has been Director of
> Defense Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, and he spent
> 15 years working for Congress on national security issues,
> including stints as an investigator for the House Foreign
> Affairs Committee and Principal Defense Analyst at the
> Congressional Budget Office. He also has served as
> Evaluator-in-Charge (national security and intelligence) for
> the U.S. General Accounting Office (now the Government
> Accountability Office), and has testified on the military
> and financial aspects of NATO expansion before the Senate
> Foreign Relations Committee, on CIA oversight before the
> House Government Reform Committee, and on the creation of
> the Department of Homeland Security before the Senate
> Judiciary Committee. Dr. Eland is the author of Recarving
> Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity, and
> Liberty, The Empire Has No Clothes: U.S. Foreign Policy
> Exposed and Putting "Defense" Back into U.S.
> Defense Policy, as well as The Efficacy of Economic
> Sanctions as a Foreign Policy Tool. He is a contributor to
> numerous volumes and the author of 45 in-depth studies on
> national security issues.
>
> "In the intriguing book, Recarving Rushmore, Ivan
> Eland reassesses the record of all U.S. Presidents based on
> the constitutional principles that each swore to uphold.
> While conventional accounts glorify the flagrant misdeeds of
> the 'Imperial Presidency,' this insightful and
> crucial book provides an inspiring vision for both
> conservatives and liberals on the crucial need to rein in
> White House power and restore peace, prosperity and
> liberty."
> -Ron Paul, U. S. Congressman
>
> "Recarving Rushmore is colorful, entertaining, and
> profound. Ivan Eland shatters the grand illusion that great
> presidents are those who wage war or deprive people of their
> liberty, either here or abroad. The new 'gold
> standard' for measuring presidential performance, this
> book upends what we 'know' about 'Great'
> presidents and will challenge your view of political
> history, one president at a time."
> -Jonathan Bean, Professor of History, Southern Illinois
> University
>
> "Eland engagingly shows why the conventional wisdom on
> the American presidency is all wrong and why presidents like
> Van Buren, Arthur, and Harding in fact ably advanced the
> nation's interest, while iconic names like Lincoln, the
> two Roosevelts, and Wilson caused serious harm. Recarving
> Rushmore is must reading."
> -Richard K. Vedder, Distinguished Professor of Economics
> and Faculty Associate, Contemporary History Institute, Ohio
> University
>
> "Judging presidents by a deceptively simple
> metric-their impact on peace, prosperity, and liberty-leads
> Ivan Eland in to reach radical conclusions about the
> rankings of presidents. Whether you agree that Coolidge was
> a good president and FDR a bad one, you'll never again
> glibly think to yourself that it's obvious which
> presidents are good and bad. It isn't-and Eland shows us
> why."
> -Richard Shenkman, Editor, History News Network; author,
> Presidential Ambition and Legends, Lies, and Cherished Myths
> of American History
>
>
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