GOP Making a Comeback?

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The sign of a good leader is someone who can convince shortsighted thinkers to do things beyond the end of their nose. We haven't had a president like that for as long as I can remember.

 

Nixon and Reagan fell into that category, Thrasher -- and Clinton at times.

 

Not really. The last president to actually to lead like that was maybe Johnson, and definitely JFK. Although Johnson's techniques were more along the lines of arm twisting rather than encouraging long term thinking.

 

Actually, I find JFK to be a very difficult president to rate his performance. I cannot consider him one of the all-time great leaders of our country - he simply was not president long enough to make that grandiose of a claim. Although I do think his personal charisma and his speaking abilities (the content, not the syntax) are very close to Obama.

 

Just creating NASA and the Apollo program was enough in my book.

 

Health care reform had little to do with the elections on Tuesday. Most of those were the results of local issues. In NJ it was property taxes, something Corzine never bothered to address. In fact, the lack of health care reform progress may have kept some of the Democratic base away from the polls.

Another point in fact, the base does not consider the current plan to be "massive" enough and it is far short of what the voters who supported these guys were expecting.

And as far as expense is concerned, we seem to have plenty of money for the banks and Wall Street investment firms, but not much to provide basic services for our population. A government that cannot secure the most meager, basic services that even third-rate countries can provide for its citizens, is a government that isn't worth a damn.

 

Chandos, several of your points were exactly what I meant. While the liberal base may like a larger plan than has been proposed, the masses don't like anything that will cost them a lot. That pretty much guaranteed there would be little to no progress for a long while at a time when Obama really needed to show results fast. If he had focused on the economy (not that he's ignored it, but he could have done much more, especally in public image) and shown results early on, he'd be doing better right now. I doubt it would have impacted these elections much (maybe a few % total), but it's sure to be reflected in the mid-term elections if he doesn't show progress by then.

 

NACA was created in 1915 and was dissolved in 1958 to form NASA. NACA actually did all the planning and preliminary testing of the Mercury program. The Apollo program was originally conceived by NASA in early 1960 (before JFK took office) but was put on hold until after Kennedy was in office (Eisenhower was not a fan of manned space flight). The Apollo program was pitched to the President and VP in April 1961 following Gagarin's successful flight.

Kennedy gave his support and ensured funding, but he did not create either program.

 

Oh, don't get me wrong, I don't think JFK was a bad president, it just seems to me you were ranking him ahead of Johnson in terms of personal leadship. LBJ had Medicare, a ton of civil rights initiatives (which cost the Democrats the South for a generation - talk about looking long-term), and of course the Vietnam War (which Kennedy had too, but Johnson greatly increased US presence there).

Holy crap, Chandos - don't hold back there - how do you really feel?

 

Ok, I agree with what you are saying here. Before I thought you commented that it was "unwise" for him to act on health care at this point in time. It would have been a mistake for him to have waited. It's better for the Dems if they get this out of the way before 2010. The last thing they want is for this to be an election issue in 2010. They would be getting it from both sides.

 

All of that is irrelevant factoids. What's relevant is that he actually lead the government to pass the legislation.

 

Not true Thrasher -- Gagarin lead the US government to pass the legislation. Kennedy was just the messenger (and the message fell on very receptive ears). After he was gone the Apollo program became a way to memorialize Kennedy -- the program was almost sacred.

To give a more modern analogy: After 9/11 an incredible amount of legislation was passed to combat terrorism (spending a lot of money). Bin Laden was the catalyst for all the reforms, he changed the way we did things -- Bush was the messenger.

Don't get me wrong, I like Kennedy but I would have used his standoff with the Soviets during the Cuban missile crisis as an example of his leadership.

 

It's tragic that our people are dying from a lack of services, while in not only Europe but places like South America they can provide these basic services. I'm not pretending that these services are perfect, but at least these governments and the citizens understand that they cannot let their fellow citizens just die from a lack of care.

 

@T2B You have a rather strange interpretation of the word "lead".


Would NASA have been created without Kennedy? We don't know. What we do know is that he made the legislation happen. Gagarian did not. In fact if he had tried, it would have been interpreted as a commie plot...

 

What part of "NASA was formed in 1958" are you missing? Do you know when Kennedy was president? Any Bozo in office could have nailed funding for the space program after the manned Soviet flight.

 

Creation of the Apollo program legislation was lead by Kennedy. End of discussion. And yes most Republicans are bozos.

 

Wow! I didn't know we had a new sherriff monitoring the boards. Well T2, looks like you're not aloud to discuss this one anymore.

 

Well, sure anyone is welcome to continue pointless arguments with themselves and vapid logic. But count me out...

 

T2, you been talking to yourself again?

 

"Apollo program legislation"? WTF is that? Show me some of this "Apollo legislation." Of course anyone is free to post whatever statement they want and believe whatever fantasy they post is true -- happens all the time.

You might try reading the NASA paper: Project Apollo: A Retrospective Analysis

Two statements of interest:

Johnson was by far the greater champion of NASA and Apollo -- which is why Texas gets the lion's share of NASA funds.