So much for the Bush legacy

Yeah, but they have killer shopping trolleys north of it. (Blowjobs not included.)

 

Gang, this is so much bullshit.

How can a poll like this be anything other than hole-filler or entertainment? Carter even considered? Hell, all those mentioned were contemporaries. If you're going to do a best president ever comparison, it has to be all-inclusive. Unfortunately, not many people in this country know the states that border theirs, much less presidents beyond Reagan.
And that's only because many remember his funeral.

 

That's a really good point. How many people would even know who Warren Harding is, much less be able to assess his presidency?

Also -- the political divisiveness started in '92-93, not in 2000. It's been building ever since.

 

Take the South and the points, but look for them to win outright

 

While all polls are generally filler for slow news days, I think each one brings something interesting to light.

I can't see the point of this poll being all-inclusive. Even Spirited wasn't around when George Washington took his oath. This is a poll that while it appears to be about one thing, illustrates an interesting point about how divided this country has become politically. When you have Republicans giving G.W.B higher marks than Clinton, that to me is interesting.

Sure, a lot of this is influenced by rose-tinted glasses, but that some say this president is better than his predecessor is an eye-opener for me.

 

As much an eye-opener as Dems putting Carter ahead of Reagan, I trust.

 

Oh, absolutely, but that was covered in an earlier post.

 

Yeah, I don't know what to make of it all. I don't think the 24-hour news cycle helps. They have to fill the time with something, so it's a lot of "us-vs-them" stuff that just makes polarization even more acute.

 

There's been a civil war of ideas in this country for 35 years.

 

One of the historians, maybe Doris Kearns Goodwin, had an article about how we all think that the polarization is a recent occurence, when, it in fact, extends back to the days of the Founding Fathers. It was one of the reasons why George Washington was so opposed to the two-party system.
We may be more aware of it now because of the news cycle, but I don't think it is any worse now, than it was 50 or 100 years ago.
If you think about it, slavery was decisive issue for the first 85 years or so. Then how to reconstruct the South and the handling of the westward expansion. Then internal political scandals, then Europe gets into a major war, America's involvement with it. The rise of communism, the Great Depression, WWII, more communism, civil rights, more communism. Terrorism and on and on it goes.

 

That's precisely the kind of war to which I was referring. I guess my question is, how does it play out? Seriously.

 

The country's really not that divided. There's a "purpling" effect everywhere except the very deep Bible Belt, which is marginalizing itself to a great extent. In the last election, the D's won state houses in places like Montana. There's a rhetorical divide, to be sure, but as far as the actual politics go, there's a wider center than there was, largely because there's more of it on the left than there used to be. I think LJB's right, but I think the civil war of ideas is about over.