I'm more a Polk man myself

[Todd]

An actual infographic from Vanity Fair:




Got it, the Gipper vs FDR.  Why, though, was Old Tippecanoe included in the list of names?  A rather odd choice. 

[mc ukrneal]

Strange they didn't put Eisenhower in to sort of balance the question more (unless this is the answer they wanted)....

[Karl Henning]

Good to see Jefferson put in his place, of course. [ ←  sarcasm! ]

[snyprrr]

Andrew Jackson, the Bank Killer, please.

[mc ukrneal]

Andrew Jackson, the Bank Killer, please.

Oh yeah- party in the WH...

[Sergeant Rock]

Good to see Jefferson put in his place, of course.

I thought Republicans and Tea Partiers were big on the Founding Fathers. They do go on about those radicals. Apparently I was wrong 

Sarge

[The new erato]

I thought this was about loudspeakers, not about loud speakers.

[Brian]

Actually, three of the choices are totally bizarre. Why Truman? Why Jefferson? Why WHH?

Are you sure this isn't a joke?

By the way, although I love James K Polk, I'd go with Theodore.

[bwv 1080]

At least Reagan did not pimp out 16 year old  boys to entrap and prosecute suspected homosexuals in the military (FDR really did this before he got elected)

[Todd]

At least Reagan did not pimp out 16 year old  boys to entrap and prosecute suspected homosexuals in the military (FDR really did this before he got elected)

And that's still much better than how he treated Japanese Americans.

[Karl Henning]

At least Reagan did not pimp out 16 year old  boys to entrap and prosecute suspected homosexuals in the military (FDR really did this before he got elected)

You make this sound like a special vice of FDR's. Had Reagan lived at that time (or rather, had Reagan reigned served as President at that time), would he really not have, do you believe?

[Karl Henning]

And that's still much better than how he treated Japanese Americans.

Again, are we singling out an individual for flaws of the greater commonality?  Even if not quite so harshly and spectacularly, German-Americans suffered persecutions (or, Anglicized their names in order to avoid such unpleasantness) during the first world war. I don't say that FDR was any better than he ought to have been, but this exchange seems like criticizing Elizabeth I for not bathing more frequently.

[Wendell_E]

I just went to the poll (and voted), and FDR's now in the lead, 43% to Reagan's 36% (though if you don't vote, you don't see the most recent results!  You'd think Reagan's still in the lead).  The others are still in the same order, with 13%, 5%, and 2%.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-20127232/60-minutes-vanity-fair-poll-november-edition/?pageNum=7&tag=contentMain;contentBody

Not that I think the results of such a poll are of any importance at all.

[Todd]

Again, are we singling out an individual for flaws of the greater commonality?

Yes, for you see FDR was the President, and one with enormous war powers, not just an individual.   It's amusing to see apologies for egregious acts, especially when they include comparisons to bathing.  There's a rather wide gulf between personal hygiene and sending an entire population to internment camps, don't you think?

Not that I think the results of such a poll are of any importance at all.

Of course they're not, but they are fun.  Still perplexed about Harrison.

[Karl Henning]

Yes, for you see FDR was the President, and one with enormous war powers, not just an individual.   It's amusing to see apologies for egregious acts, especially when they include comparisons to bathing.  There's a rather wide gulf between personal hygiene and sending an entire population to internment camps, don't you think?

Very wide, indeed.

Wider than the distinction between my post and "apologies for egregious acts," but let that pass.

[bwv 1080]

You make this sound like a special vice of FDR's. Had Reagan lived at that time (or rather, had Reagan reigned served as President at that time), would he really not have, do you believe?

As Assistant Sec of the Navy, FDR set up questionable entrapment methods (i.e. pimping out 16 YO boys) to purge homosexuals out of the Naval base at Newport RI.  Not content with his success among military personnel, he personally ordered Naval Intelligence to turn the same tactics on the civilian population of Newport, ensnaring among others the Episcopal Bishop of Rhode Island.  These actions were outrageous even for the time (1919-1920), earning him a rebuke by congress

[mc ukrneal]

... as President presided over a revification of traditional - i.e. biblical - morality; ...

This is simply not true.

[chasmaniac]

These actions were outrageous even for the time (1919-1920), earning him a rebuke by congress

They did what to him? 

[mc ukrneal]

Why do you say things like this?! For better or for worse, it is a matter of fact that the sixties cultural movement ceased being the preminent one during the 1980's and that Reagan's appeals to the so-called silent majority (and the not so silent Moral Majority) contributed to this change of mood.

My, since then even France of all countries has become more moralistic, with the writer Gabriel Matzneff for instance encurring an amount of insult that would not have been conceivable during his youth, when the writer Henry de Montherlant advised him - rightly - the time was ripe for more openness on certain issues.

Of course you can bring me plently of examples of freedom from said morality in our times; but then they no more change the general picture than the pornographic literature of the Victorian Era, or the libertism in the age of Cromwell and Puritanism, or the epicurism and atheism in existence in Paris during the Middle Ages.

It is far more complicated than this. The bigger event is the end of the Vietnam War, which cannot be attributed to him for sure. Did he play his part in the changes of that time, sure - all Presidents do. He was also very good at bringing pride in America back, which was sorely lacking after Vietnam, Watergate, Iran hostage issue, etc. But he is merely one of many cogs at that time.

[71 dB]

I thought this was about loudspeakers, not about loud speakers.

Same here.