I suspect that that is one of the time invariant opinions, much like “kids these days have no respect for their elders”…

Put me in the pro-Cooledge camp as well, and also in the “if anyone should be coming off of the currency, it should be Jackson a thousand times before getting near to Grant” one…

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.

Failure to name a carrier after a naval person like FDR sends a pretty obvious signal about the political orientation of the USN, doesn’t it? They must still be annoyed at the ‘Good Neighbor’ policy.

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.)

Mark Twain
John Muir
Louis Armstrong
Edgar Allan Poe

I’ve always admired countries that put artists on their money instead of politicians or royalty. (I include John Muir as an artist because he wrote many essays.)

My thoughts are that you would have to pick people who are well-known to the general public and have been dead long enough to be considered classic. Also they need to have made a major impact on their artform. I put Poe in to have a non-political southerner; perhaps Faulkner might do as well. I’d add a Jewish musician like Irving Berlin or Gershwin (but George or Ira?). I picked Louis Armstrong as the greatest African-American musician, but there are plenty more just behind him.

Frank Lloyd Wright for architecture, what about other visual arts? Georgia O’Keefe? Whistler? Albert Pinkham Ryder? Probably should be pre-WWII so as not to be too controversial.

Poets: Whitman, Longfellow, Sandburg, Frost, Dickinson? Ginsberg and more modern too controversial.

Film directors: John Ford, Busby Berkeley …

Include some women … great singers like Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday … Laura Ingalls Wilder … Dorothy Parker … Dorothy Fields … Rachel Carson

It would be good to include some Native Americans but the only one I can think of at the moment that fits in the general theme of creative work is Sequoyah.

This might seem to be more people than the available number of currency units. However, we have 50 different quarters for the 50 states. Why not 50 different $20 bills for 50 great American artists? I pick the $20 bill because a.) that’s what you get from ATMs, so it’s the most seen b.) I’m not an admirer of Andrew Jackson.

Great scientists, engineers and inventors would be another series to look into.

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.

You did pretty well on your Oz PMs, misspelling Whitlam’s name and getting the wrong Howard (Michael is UK Opposition leader, ours was John). You got the current PM right, and the other one was Fraser.

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.