In an interview with Steve Croft of 60 Minutes, President Obama believes he is the 4th best president. If you take the four presidents on Mount Rushmore – Lincoln, Roosevelt, Washington, Jefferson – Obama can be no better than 5th. Obama claims that he’s forth behind Lincoln, FDR, and Lyndon Johnson. You didn’t see his ridiculous claim? “60 Minutes” conveniently left it out of its broadcast. Here’s the exchange:
The issue here is not gonna be a list of accomplishments. As you said yourself, Steve, you know, I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president — with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln — just in terms of what we’ve gotten done in modern history. But, you know, but when it comes to the economy, we’ve got a lot more work to do. And we’re gonna keep on at it.
And what are some of these accomplishments? Of course, ObamaCare is one of them, a policy change that a majority of Americans disapprove of and are trying to get overturned. Here are some of the others he mentioned: “Ending Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Decimating al Qaeda, including Bin Laden being taken off the field. Restoring America’s respect around the world.”
I wouldn’t call opening the armed forces to self-professed and practicing homosexuals an accomplishment but a disgrace. He might want to go back and study what Washington and Jefferson thought of homosexuality.
I realize Lincoln is an icon, but he oversaw a war that led to the deaths of 600,000 Americans.
The Lyndon Johnson is an accurate comparison, the president that gave us the “Great Society” that increased the number of poor and created a permanent dependent class that will vote exclusively for Democrats.
Obama is still blaming Bush for the economy, but he is taking credit for what Bush started in the War on Terror. Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not agreeing with the original Bush policies. I’m just putting his argument in a political context.
Where is Ronald Reagan in all of this? Under Jimmy Carter we had double digit inflation and sky-high mortgage rates. Reagan reversed the economic decline, lowered taxes and interest rates, and unemployment dropped. The economy took off. Then there was the inconsequential end of the Soviet Union, the dissolution of Communist East Germany, and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Minor accomplishments.
Obama did borrow money for shovel ready projects, many of which were “sidewalks to nowhere” that I pass everyday on the way to my office. Of course, this ranks higher than Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System.
P.J. Gladnick tells it like it is: “So kneel, all you presidential peons, before the greatness that is Obama. His radiance shines so bright that it dazzled Steve Kroft to the extent that he didn’t even bother to ask an obvious follow-up question.”
