By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Ed.
Question #1: 232 scholars think the President is rocking the Presidency. What about the other 188, or 523 scholars who don't?
It's true only these four Presidents we're elected twice with majorities. And it's awesome BHO is on the list. Yes, he has taken a substantial political and PR shellacking while racking up some great accomplishments. But so did the other three on this list (the shellackings anyhow).
RWR in particular was run through the mill--rightfully--his last two years in office, in addition to being portrayed as lazy and at times bizarre (e.g., consulting an astrologist regularly, seeing a UFO in 1974), on top of using drug money to arm the Anti-Sandinista Rebels, and the other clandestine acts of the Ollie North era.
Plenty of people called FDR treasonous after the Yalta meetings, and before.
Ike was often considered out of touch. He was pretty bland. He was smart, but too blind to race. He could have jump started the discussion. But he did not. He said a lot of smart things about the military and the munitions and war machine.
If BHO could communicate as passionately as he did when he was.a first term candidate, I think he would be on a lot steadier footing. That's never been my problem with him. Mine has been the hesitation, not waffling really, but kind of a Hamlet-like or Prufrockian pondering instead of acting.
Via Occupy Democrats - "OBAMA RATED BEST PRESIDENT IN PAST 50 YEARS, but you wouldn't know it. — Presidential scholars rank President Obama as the best president in the past 50 years, and Bush as the worst. Obama even bests the GOPper's sacrosanct cowboy, President Reagan. In fact, in the past 100 years only four presidents have been ranked better than Obama. Why then, do people question his achievements, ESPECIALLY in light of GOP obstruction bordering on sedition, and unprecedented voter suppression and extreme gerrymandering, along with Citizens United dollars? Eventually his rank will move higher on this list as Bush's moves toward the bottom of the barrel. But back to the premise of this image I created. Can there be any reason other than race that causes such widespread denial of presidential accomplishment and success? I conclude it can ONLY be about race. Millions of Americans will not give President Obama the respect he deserves not only as president but as a human being. The corporate owned media are among the worst sources for spreading these lies about the president's citizenship, academic accomplishment, presidential success, etc. These same deep rooted feelings of racial animus fuel the fear and hate that contributed to the killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. Racism has been institutionalized into our corporate hierarchies, into our prison and court systems and even into our police forces which are seven times as likely to kill black men as white men. Hopefully this image and the questions it raises, help put into perspective the deeply rooted racial undertones that guide our daily paths like the roads on which we drive, paths that dictate our sense of direction and our decisions, many of which are subliminal, yet have far reaching consequences, like police officer Darren Wilson wondering, "Can I legally kill this man?" Americans need to increase the intensity of this dialogue, to question their own conscious and unconscious decisions regarding race and its role in our lives. The future of our nation depends on this introspection, reflection and national conversation. Please share this image. Thank you. {Allow me to answer those of you who wonder about President Clinton's victories. You'll recall that H. Ross Perot mucked things up a bit, with Clinton winning but getting only 43% and 49% of the popular vote in 1992 and 1996 respectively." - Tracy Knauss
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