Washington, Reagan and Jefferson (not the atheist one!)

Regarding Gerson’s column: why does he think it is so terrible for somebody (or a prominent somebody, at least) $$to run on a third party ticket? I am a little confused by the manner in which he sings the praises of Lincoln (whose victory resulted in the death of the Whigs), but labels Teddy a traitor for deciding not to stick with either of the main parties of his day.

Karl Rove’s hero was McKinley. Is he out of favor now?

I’m all for renaming stuff after him:

Ronald Reagan Memorial W.C.
Ronald Reagan Memorial Proctology Center
Ronald Reagan Memorial Psychiatric Hospital

and so on…

Didn’t they rename a waste treatment plant in California after George W.? or did that, sadly, fall through?

The suggestion that Reagan should replace Grant on the $50 bill (or on anything else) is repulsive and indicates the historical illiteracy of anyone making the suggestion. There’s already Reagan National Airport, the Reagan Int’l Trade Building, and probably a number of other things named for Reagan that I’m (thankfully) unaware of. Enough is enough.

“How’s the movement to name everything after Ronald Reagan coming along?”

“Excellently. The Mississsippi River is now the Mississippi Reagan.”

– The Simpsons (And I’m afraid I don’t remember exactly who the dialogue is between, but it takes place at the Republican Party HQ/Dracula’s Castle that shows up in a few episodes.)

Maybe we should start pushing to name things after Clinton. I’m not so crazy about him, though he did have his points, but it would accomplish at least two things:

1) For important things to be named after an impeached President would formalize and make permanent a rightly harsh historical judgment of the impeachment.

2) Most of the attacks on Clinton’s policies that Republicans could mount and that would have popular support would be things they themselves favored and, when not playing games, still favor: free trade, deregulation, wars of choice. It would be great to have that debate.

Grant was an incompetent president, who presided over one of most corrupt administrations in U.S. history. I think that he and Reagan should be linked together as fellow Republicans whose administrations did incalculable harm.

When everything shakes out in a few decades, I predict that Reagan will find himself close to Grant in where scholars rank his presidency.

So put him on the bill.

The pat trope whereby Grant’s administration was a notably corrupt failure was a product of a passionately motivated and famously successful Southern PR effort more than anything else- indeed, Matt Drudge has his predecessors. After the war, this unique take on the truth had Southerners depicting Grant as a ‘butcher’. Evidence?… Yea. Then he goes and becomes the Republican President during Reconstruction. Oh snap! Not the way to endear yourself to Southern hearts. Nor was all of the rights he was planning to bestow upon the Southern white men’s inferiors. Speaking of which, he is associated with all of the major civil rights legislation of his day, including much applicable to native Americans. I would say that counts as an impressive accomplishment, providing as it did the civil rights movement that came a century later with its unambiguous legal support.

Let’s put this in context- here we are talking about a people (and to be fair a terribly traumatized people) that didn’t elect a single Republican for something like 100 years- that quite frankly still burn about the ‘Yankee war of aggression’ to this day. In fact, Southerners have no love lost for Abraham Lincoln, (nor JFK for that matter), notwithstanding that he is now the ostensible father of the party the vast majority of them identify with (the ‘Party of Lincoln’ nonsense is also blatant PR, useful in the ritual duping of the libertarian/independent rubes that ceaselessly vote with the party of the white male southerner). So it’s really no accident that Republicans figure it’s Grant that gets the heave ho. I suspect they’d put Ari Fliescher’s cue ball on the 50 to get Grant off if they could.

It never ceases to amaze me how a meme can pass into the social conscious, on into history and then down through the ages, brutalizing truth as it goes. C’est la vie.

Grant was an incompetent president, who presided over one of most corrupt administrations in U.S. history

Read “corrupt” as “pro-African American” in the above sentence.

If Grant had had the “proper” attitude on the race issue you probably would not be aware of any problems with “corruption.”

Really, in the context of a History that includes the “ethnically cleansing” a continent, the enslavement of millions, and the theft of 2/3 of Mexico you want to pretent to be upset about some scandals that not one in a hundred modern day folks could name?

Has anyone published a paper about the significance of the names given to US navy ships? A handful of the battle fleet carriers are named after presidents – who decides if they are worthy of the honour? And do some lesser ships also carry presidential labels, or is it the case that you get either a carrier or nothing? Is there a USS Carter barge carrying garbage around somewhere?

Do it the way Ronnie would have liked: sell the naming rights to the highest bidder.

The converse would also work: raise money by selling the naming rights to Reagan. Then whenever the GOPers tried to refer to him they would have to refer to Doritos Reagan. The effect would be cumulative of course, so Washington Reagan airport would become Staples Washington Doritos Reagan Airport.

One of the UK’s finer moments was the decision to put Charles Darwin’s face on the £5 note. I’d love to arrange to have new plates with Darwin on the $5 slipped into the various US mints, and then sit back with a pint and watch the resulting show.

And what about Andrew Johnson ? OK so he was a Democrat before he was a Republican, but he fought for white supremacy (and said so). Best of all, had no formal schooling whatsoever (his wife taught him how to read).

Now that’s a symbol for the modern Republican party.

Also, how the hell do you know about US presidents ? I can name Australian prime ministers. To be specific I can name 2 or 3 (Kevin Rudd, Michael Howard, Gaugh Whitlam and someone named either Ali or Frazier) only if I get partial credit for misspelled names.

Judging by number of dollar coin designs, Grover Cleveland is twice as great as every other President.

There’s a couple of Australian Prime Ministers I can name only because they used their names for the various libraries at ANU.

John:

Taft-Hartley was President Taft’s son, Senator from Ohio.

And I have to say that Ohio and Pennsylvania gave us some terrible presidents. Not a knock on the states or the fine people living there, but it’s an awful track record.

Has anyone published a paper about the significance of the names given to US navy ships? A handful of the battle fleet carriers are named after presidents – who decides if they are worthy of the honour?

There’s no clear pattern: Eisenhower, Teddy Roosevelt, Kennedy, Washington, Lincoln, Truman, Reagan and George Bush I get carriers. So, lots of wartime or navy-linked presidents (but not FDR at the moment; decommissioned in the seventies). As do famous segregationists with budgetary muscle: John Stennis and Carl Vinson. As does a famous admiral: Nimitz.
Carter gets a submarine, Johnson and Nixon don’t get anything as far as I know. (Obvious reasons why not in both cases.)

Isn’t Gerald Ford getting the next carrier?

Pr Q said:

Looking back at Republican presidents, nobody is really keen to remember Bush I and II, Ford or Nixon,

I am keen to remember Nixon.

Once upon a time I used to hate Nixon. Its indicative of the diminished stature of modern leaders that nowadays I feel that he was pretty decent President. Although still flawed he had some greatness within him. As Col Brennan, his chief-of-staff said:

BRENNAN
Drone on? Jesus Christ. Where’s your respect?
Remember who you’re talking about. You media people, you’re so goddamn smug and selfrighteous.
You know as well as I do, that sixty percent of what Nixon did in office was right, and thirty per cent might have ended up wrong, but he thought it was right at the time.
FROST
That still leaves ten percent where he was doing the wrong thing, and knew it.

We live in an era of small men with shallow visions. So its not surprising that there is chronic nostalgia for our lost greatness, even if the Republicans characteristically mess even that up.

Most contemporary financial, political and cultural elites, for that matter (especially), are pygmies relative to the giants of yesteryear. Compare JP Morgan and Carnegie to Fuld or Salomon. Compare Keynes, Hayek or Samuelson to Leavitt, Fish or even Krugman. Compare De Gaulle, Thatcher or Whitlam to Rudd, Blair or Bush.