Score One For The Gipper - Death To America

Score One For The Gipper - Death To America

Well finally, I say. America's greatest president is getting the recognition he deserves! On this President's day we get to see who America sees as the greatest president of all time...

Americans Say Reagan Is the Greatest U.S. President
Lincoln and Clinton next on the list; Washington fifth
by Frank Newport

PRINCETON, NJ -- Ahead of Presidents Day 2011, Americans are most likely to say Ronald Reagan was the nation's greatest president -- slightly ahead of Abraham Lincoln and Bill Clinton. Reagan, Lincoln, or John F. Kennedy has been at the top of this "greatest president" list each time this question has been asked in eight surveys over the last 12 years.

Presidents Day, celebrated on the third Monday of February each year, officially commemorates the Feb. 22 birthday of George Washington. The country's first president is not regarded by Americans as the nation's greatest president, however. Gallup's Feb. 2-5 update shows that Washington comes in fifth on the list, behind Reagan, Lincoln, Clinton, and Kennedy.

In the eight times Gallup has asked this same "greatest president" question over the last 12 years, one of three presidents -- Lincoln, Reagan, and Kennedy -- has topped the list each time. Reagan was the top vote getter in 2001, 2005, and now 2011. Lincoln won in 1999, in two 2003 surveys, and in 2007. Kennedy was on top in 2000, and tied with Lincoln in November 2003.

Americans as a group have a propensity to mention recent presidents, not surprising given that the average American constantly hears about and from presidents in office during their lifetime, and comparatively little about historical presidents long dead. Four of the five most recent presidents are in the top 10 greatest presidents list this year -- Obama, George W. Bush, Clinton, and Reagan.

Reagan Tops Among Republicans, Clinton Among Democrats

Americans clearly evaluate presidents through partisan lenses -- with Democrats and Republicans each most likely to choose a greatest president within their own party. Republicans name Reagan substantially more than anyone else, followed by Washington, Lincoln, Kennedy, and then George W. Bush. Democrats are most likely to say that Clinton was the greatest U.S. president, followed by Kennedy, Barack Obama, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lincoln. Independents name Lincoln and then Reagan as top choices.


Roosevelt on Top 55 Years Ago

The results of a Gallup poll conducted some 55 years ago show how these rankings can change over time. In 1956, Gallup asked Americans to name the top three greatest presidents. The top vote getter at that time was Franklin Roosevelt, who had died only 11 years previously. Roosevelt was followed by Lincoln, Washington, and Dwight Eisenhower, the incumbent president at the time of that poll.

Implications

Americans' views on the topic of great presidents appear to have coalesced around three presidents: Lincoln, Reagan, and Kennedy. One of these three has been at the top of the list in each of eight surveys conducted since 1999.

This "greatest president" question is open-ended, meaning that respondents are asked to name a president off the top of their head. This type of measurement tends to increase the mention of recent presidents. Democrats, for example, are most likely to name Clinton -- the most recent Democratic president not currently in office -- as greatest. Republicans, in slightly different fashion, tend to skip over the two most recent Republican presidents, the two Bushes, and instead are most likely to choose Reagan.

god bless Americ...... Ah, what the fuck! I mean, really? Reagan? Not this shit again. Though, if anything this is yet another poll that has the results showing that Americans are idiots. Either that or propaganda works and I shouldn't be shocked by any of it.



He had all the faults and none of the virtues of the fascist: malice without frankness; cruelty without courage; pomp without dignity. And if all 285 million of you fools are willing to sit there and let the jerks lie about him to your face, then you deserve him. He really was your kind of man.

It just goes to show you that following him are Lincoln and Clinton. Washington doesn't come in till 5th? Ha! Ah yes, Obama and Clinto, clearly superior to Roosevelt to our dear friends the Liberal. Everyone knows that the last good president was Richard Nixon.

What? You think I'm crazy for bringing up that crook yet again? Oh, believe me, I do it every time Reagan is mentioned and for good reason. What makes Nixon a good president? Let's see:

-Saved America's environment by creating the environmental protection agency and clean air act while approving the most sweeping environmental legislation in history.

-Simultaneously reformed welfare and brought in serious new civil-rights laws and agencies for minorities, women, the handicapped and children.

-Proclaimed the first official U.S. Earth Day/Earth Week in 1971

-Totally reformed the government's relationship with Native Americans, bringing new self-determination and civil rights to U.S. tribes while saving such Indian natural wonders as Pyramid Lake - the tribe even renamed its capital "Nixon."

-Was even described as "the Abraham Lincoln of the Indian people."

-Loved those Chinese communists.

-Spent more on social programs than defense.

-Fathered screaming ex-socialist lunatic Mojo Nixon.

See! There you have it, hippies. Nixon was more liberal than Clinton.

In fact, both Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter, America's greatest presidents, both were conquered by preening pretty boy morons after their first terms. Nixon was beaten by Kennedy, whose outstanding characteristic was that he was handsome. Carter was beaten by Reagan, whose outstanding characteristic was that people remembered him from the movie pictures.

During the televised debate between Nixon and JFK, Nixon was all sweaty and nervous looking while JFK was pretty smooth and precious looking. JFK was weasely and didn't give a shit about civil rights and was mainly concerned more with being a celebrity than being a political figure.

And then he died. Even if it's true that Nixon was one of the JFK conspirators, I actually hope that's true. JFK was total shit and if he had lived, we'd all see how awful of a president he really was. Oh wait, no. If you morons think Reagan is the best president, JFK getting us into worse problems than the bay of pigs would just cement him as an awesome prez.

So want to see what your dear favorite president was like? How about these:

10 Oct 1965 California gubernatorial candidate Ronald Reagan is quoted in the Fresno Bee as saying: "We should declare war on North Vietnam... It's silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking strips on it, and be home by Christmas."

Damn. Well, I guess that is considered a foreign policy of some kind.

20 Oct 1965 California gubernatorial candidate Ronald Reagan is quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying: "I favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it must be enforced at the point of a bayonet, if necessary."

Well, isn't that good that he was for it.....

17 Jun 1966 California gubernatorial candidate Ronald Reagan is quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying: "I would have voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964."

I thought you just said you were for it!??

16 Oct 1967 Ronald Reagan is quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying: "I have a feeling that we are doing better in the (Vietnam) war than the people have been told."

We're doing swell in the jungle, we probably should have just bombed it till it was parking lot, huh?

15 May 1969 Regarding the ongoing student protests at UC Berkeley, California governor Ronald Reagan is quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle as saying: "If there has to be a bloodbath, then let's get it over with."

..... Well then, nothing like shooting our own citizens, even if they are just protesting.

17 May 1976 Ronald Reagan tells Time magazine: "Fascism was really the basis for the New Deal. It was Mussolini's success in Italy, with his government-directed economy, that led the early New Dealers to say 'But Mussolini keeps the trains running on time.'"

And we elected him... How the fuck did that happen?

1979 Ronald Reagan: "The American Petroleum Institute filed suit against the EPA [and] charged that the agency was suppressing a scientific study for fear it might be misinterpreted... The suppressed study reveals that 80 percent of air pollution comes not from chimneys and auto exhaust pipes, but from plants and trees."

Where's the study, EPA? Where's the study!?!?

1980 During an interview with televangelist Jim Bakker on the PTL network, presidential candidate Ronald Reagan predicts that "We may be the generation that sees Armageddon."

Well duh. We have a person who is only half there with his finger on the button. This is like a sports team beating against themselves.

15 Feb 1980 Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan is quoted in the Burlington Free Press as saying: "All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk." The claim is provably false.

Oh gipper, you so crazy.

14 Apr 1980 Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan is quoted in Time magazine as saying: "History shows that when the taxes of a nation approach about 20 percent of the people's income, there begins to be a lack of respect for government... When it reaches 25 percent, there comes an increase in lawlessness." The claim is provably false.

Besides, if they do get upset and start up some lawlessness, we could always shoot them protesters. Right?

21 Apr 1980 Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan is quoted in Newsweek magazine as saying: "Because Vietnam was not a declared war, the veterans are not even eligible for the G.I. Bill of Rights with respect to education or anything." The claim is provably false.

Well then, what a dick! Hey folks, you technically didn't fight a war.. no benefits for you!

10 May 1980 Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan is quoted in the Chicago Tribune as saying: "Trains are not any more energy efficient than the average automobile, with both getting about 48 passenger miles to the gallon." The claim is provably false.

I loved how he claimed that we should have just bought everyone a limo instead of investing in trains.

10 Sep 1980 Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan is quoted in Sierra magazine as saying: "Approximately 80% of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation. So let's not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emissions standards from man-made sources." The claim is provably false.

Oct 1980 Ronald Reagan is quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying: "Growing and decaying vegetation in this land are responsible for 93% of the oxides of nitrogen." The claim is provably false.

I mean, this man really hated his vegetables, didn't he?

20 Oct 1980 Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan is quoted in Time magazine as saying: "I have flown twice over Mount St. Helens. I'm not a scientist and I don't know the figures, but I have a suspicion that one little mountain out there, in these last several months, has probably released more sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere than has been released in the last ten years of automobile driving or things of that kind." The claim is provably false.

And I guess mountains as well.

24 Oct 1980 During a nationally-televised campaign speech, Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan declares: "Mr. Carter is acting as if he hasn't been in charge for the past three and a half years; as if someone else was responsible for the largest deficit in American history." (Carter's total deficit: $252 billion; Reagan's: $1.4 trillion)

And yet we don't give Carter ANY respect? Hell, Carter put up solar panels on the roof of the white house. Reagan's first move was to say "Mr. Roofer, TEAR DOWN THOSE PANELS!"

6 Mar 1981 Ronald Reagan's second press conference held, in which names of reporters are drawn out of a jellybean jar. Those not chosen (including Associated Press and two of the Big Three TV networks) mostly boycott the conference in disgust.

The man sure loved his fucking Jellybeans.

23 Nov 1981 After President Reagan vetoes an emergency spending bill which would have prevented a shutdown of the federal government, House Speaker Tip O'Neill tells a reporter: "He knows less about the budget than any president in my lifetime. He can't even carry on a conversation about the budget. It's an absolute and utter disgrace."

Pretty much sums his experience up there.

May 1982 President Ronald Reagan declares: "In England, if a criminal carried a gun, even though he didn't use it, he was tried for first-degree murder and hung if he was found guilty."

7 Mar 1983 President Ronald Reagan tells a group of ultraconservatives that "this country is compelled by scripture and the Lord Jesus Christ to oppose Russia with all military and political means."

How the hell did this man win with the gun nuts in this country? I mean, seriously. Yeah, thank goodness we're not in England. Otherwise we wouldn't have won the revolution if we maintained their laws.

21 Sep 1983 Ronald Reagan's Secretary of the Interior, James Watt, describes his staff's racial diversity to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce: "We have every mixture you can have. I have a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple. And we have talent." Watt is forced to resign 18 days later over these comments.

The cripple he was referring to was Reagan.

31 Jan 1984 President Ronald Reagan tells Good Morning America: "What we have found in this country, and maybe we're more aware of it now, is one problem that we've had, even in the best of times, and that is the people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless who are homeless, you might say, by choice."

Yeah, they sleep their by choice. Mainly because you kicked them out of the mental hospitals and wards by closing them all down.

30 Apr 1984 When a student at Shanghai's University of Fudan asks which life experiences best prepared him for being President of the United States, Ronald Reagan replies: "You'd be surprised how much being a good actor pays off."

Yes, act like you're one of them. Fool them some more.

17 Feb 1987 Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev reveals Reagan's preoccupation with space aliens: "At our meeting in Geneva, the U.S. President said that if the earth faced an invasion by extraterrestials, the United States and the Soviet Union would join forces to repel such an invasion. I shall not dispute the hypothesis, though I think it's early yet to worry about such an intrusion..."

Star Wars program finally explained. Either that or we could blame Lucas for this waste of tax dollars.

May 1987 According to his authorized biography (published in 2000), Reagan wonders aloud about the AIDS pandemic: "Maybe the Lord brought down this plague... [because] illicit sex is against the Ten Commandments." [Dutch, p. 458]

And since the lord brought down this plague, it's every reason for Reagan NOT to do shit about the epidemic

15 Sep 1987 During a luncheon with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnatze in the White House, President Reagan once again wondered what would happen if the Earth were under attack from an external threat: "Don't you think the United States and the Soviet Union would be together?"

Soon after, he brought down the Russian bastards. I guess he figured he could take those alien fuckers out himself.

4 May 1988 During a question-and-answer session in Chicago, President Reagan revisits his 'invaders from space' notion: "I've often wondered, what if all of us in the world discovered that we were threatened by an outer -- a power from outer space, from another planet. Wouldn't we all of a sudden find that we didn't have any differences between us at all, we were all human beings, citizens of the world, and wouldn't we come together to fight that particular threat?"

Reagan really was pretty hardcore about these Aliens, wasn't he? I guess it would give conspiracy theorist something to run with if it wasn't for the fact that Reagan was mentally checked out.

But maybe all this does show that Reagan was clearly a great president whether I agree with his policies or not. I mean, the function of the American president isn't "good policy" or sound thinking, it's the ability to absorb, reflect and materialize the character of the people. To be their representative to the world. And lord knows Americans as a whole are generally fucking stupid.

Over all he made people feel good about themselves, optimistic and free about the shitty times happening around him. The results of polls like this just speak for themselves in terms of the view point of the people.

Maybe it's just that I need to stop giving a fuck about the opinion held by the US-American population. Maybe then I'll be a happier person for it.