He is also on Patrick Buchanans list of underrated Presidents (he mentioned it on McLaughlin a few months back)
Yes I agree with you, this one is a bit over the top. My attitude about him probably is enough to keep him out of the "underrated" category but as a history major myself, I will be forever curious about how this country would have developed had he been allowed to finish his term. Not only did we lose a great, visionary leader, we got stuck with one of the worst presidents in our history when Lincoln died. I just think it is important that we remember some of these great Americans after they are gone. In this case, we probably do well enough.
For quick reference, here is the White House page with brief biographies of all the US presidents: http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/
Hey I'll stick up for Hoover. Great track record before presidency: food aid programs in post WWI to prevent Europe from starving. Then organized the first "big government" program, the Tennessee Valley Authority, which became the model for increased federal intervention (so he should be a bugaboo to conservatives). The Depression wasn't his fault: he inherited a falsely galloping economy and the impact of drastically cutting the money supply wasn't understood then. Then FDR basically adopted or expanded a lot of his economic stimulus programs and got credit for them. Not unlike the way Reagan put Jimmy Carter's airport controller plan into action and got credit for that. The lesson here: engineers don't make the best presidents!
Some notes: Carter sucked. Everyone knew it at the time. The case for Hoover is that he did more to combat the depression than any any president had ever done to combat an economic downturn, and that his his actions would have solved most of them. He just happened to be in the worst one ever. aBut his tariff policy and his doggedness toward a balanced budget had something to do with that. Both Grant and Nixon have gone up in estimation in recent years. Nixon unjustly, IMO. Not jsut Watergate. Wage and price controls as well. Polk is so commonly accepted as an underrated president that it's hard to say he's underrated, if that makes sense. He's going to be in or near the top ten on most historian lists, except for real lefty anti-imperialists who abhor Manifest Destiny. Personally, i think he was incredibly successful in getting things done, and among the best. In that sense, he may be somewhat underrated.
In four short years he met his every goal He seized the whole southwest from Mexico Made sure the tarriffs fell And made the English sell the Oregon territory He built an independent treasury Having done all this he sought no second term But precious few have mourned the passing of Mister James K. Polk, our eleventh president Young Hickory, Napoleon of the Stump Final verse of James K. Polk by TMBG Ghost has a point about "when everyone thinks you're underrated, you're not" though.
The concept of "Manifest Destiny" was used as rationale for that whole Indian-genocide deal that followed. Is that something that only "real lefty anti-imperialists" abhor? For real?
To me, Watergate wasn't the worst (nor the least) of his sins. His fingerprints are all over things that I hate about today's politics, namely, politicization of matters that shouldn't be politicized. He commissioned studies on marijuana and indecency, only to ignore them and commission more studies until he got the findings he wanted. You can thank him in part for the War on Drugs, overpopulated prisons and disregard for science. He propped up Charles Keating, who gave us the Savings & Loans scandal, and John O'Neill, who gave us the Swifties. Recognizing mainland China was great and all, but that basically amounts to a garbage time touchdown in a blowout loss.
Just because parts of the implementation of Manifest Destiny are abhorrent doesn't make the whole doctrine so. The American self determination movement resulted in a preservation of slavery. Does that mean the whole Revolutionary war was abhorrent?
I think most people's point is that Grant was considerably drunker than the average President. And a hell of a lot drunker than your average bear.
The prewar US Army was very small and gossipy, and everybody knew everything about everybody else. And one of the things that they all knew was that when Grant had been transferred West to a small post in the desert, where his wife and son couldn't go, he did what a lot of young, bored and lonely guys did (and do): he drank. A lot. And apparently he didn't ever do it very well. He finally got out, but like most ex-West Pointers found himself in demand when the war started and ended up winning some battles and getting some fame. This didn't sit very well with some of his contemporaries, particularly his immediate superior, William Rosecrans, who started a whispering campaign with his pals in Washington. To make a long story short, there's only one incident during the war that people say he may have had a drink, and that's highly disputed. Afterwards, when he was back with his wife Julia, he never, ever had a sip of booze. ANYWAY: the point about Grant is that yes indeed his administration was absolutely rife with "corruption", he himself was the most honest of men and even his worst enemy never accused him of personally doing anything even remotely shady. All his old buddies were busy stuffing their pockets with bribes and shady insider deals, but Grant himself was never touched by scandal. And the fact is that none of it mattered. The newspapers had a field day writing about all the slime, but the country had never been as prosperous. About the worst thing he did was send his old pal Phil Sheridan out to slaughter indians, which we see now as absolutely reprehensible but anyone else back then would have done the same thing. He was an excellent administrator and a very bright guy, he just had a blind spot for his freinds.
No one's saying Grant was venal. However, Carter was a great guy too. Didn't help him to be a good President. OK, but can you really point to anything positive that Grant did? Specifically? The economy was pretty prosperous under Calvin Coolidge, too. Most of his foreign affairs successes are directly attributable to Fish, and his hairbrained scheme to annex the Dominican Republic would have failed badly. I don't think you can really credit him too much with the US economy in the same way I don't really blame Van Buren for the economic panic during his tenure as President. Grant remains a very good general, but an ineffective President with remarkably venal friends.
Do explain what you mean by Manifest Destiny here. If you mean merely westward expansion, I'm on board. If you mean the belief in the racial inevitability of White America to take land from Mexico and from Native American tribes to put it to good use, well then, I'm not. And Eisenhower is underrated. Federal highway system changed the spatial orientation of postwar America.
Martin Van Buren fought the annexation of Texas tooth and nail. Would that America had heeded his sage advice.
Once again, by "country" I assume you mean half of the country. Reconstruction is generally not recorded around here as The Time of Great Prosperity.
And don't forget ARPA, which was founded under his watch, eventually led to the development of the internet. Without it, we would be posting on BigSoccer with pen and paper. Combine that with his creation of NASA, he has a trifecta security-minded programs that ended up benefitting civilian life. But while I appreciate that he was vigorous on security, the Dulles brothers providing the one-two punch as Sec of State and CIA Chief, he loses major points for the overthrow of Mossadegh in Iran. That came back to bite US in the ass, to say the least.
I understand your comment, but I think that most of the time history only remembers things like "he was impeached" in the long term. Not saying it's right or wrong, but economics tends to get forgotten (unless you preside over an outright depression) and deficits and surpluses disappear in the longer view. Part of it is our societal obsession with one-liner analysis. I also think that the reasons for the impeachment will be forgotten or over-simplified over time.
I'll be open minded about what you are saying, although I would like a link. Having lived through him, I know there was a general feeling that something was wrong and we were helpless to stop it. Interest rates were out of control, we spent a long time in gas lines, and a bunch of losers masquerading as students were allowed to hold Americans captive in violation of international law for 444 days. That, my good friend, is a disaster. All that aside, Carter is a man who walks his talk and trys to do right by others. I admire the man, but he was an awful president.
For this reason, Carter is a close second to Hoover as my favouritest President ever. Two great guys for whom the presidency was actually a bad career move.