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It's occurred to me that poor old Pres Bush's term has been bookended by two of the biggest crises in American history: 9/11 and now the Wall Street crisis. Regardless of what you think of him, it's been a pretty rough ride.
The only other president than Bush that comes to mind who's had his term bracketed by such huge crises, that I can think of anyway, is FDR, who had the Great Depression to deal with at the beginning and WW2 at the end.
Any others you can think of having to deal with such major crises at the beginning and ends of their offices?
(This isn't meant to be a Bush bash or defense post, by the way, I'm just passing comment.)
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Many presidents have had major economic downturns during their presidency - I don't think we yet have reason to think this downturn is categorically different from those.
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But let's see... FDR helped pull America out of the depression by, and did a yeoman-like job of pulling the entire American workforce into a united offensive that saw America spearhead the largest-scale invasion in world history, successfully.
Bush choked on some chips, and his VP shot someone in the face. They went on to kill thousands of Iraqis together.
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I don't think Bush's presidency is special in the its level of difficulty. I also don't think start/finish is the best way to look at it, but if you did, then Lincoln would win hands down. Starts with the Civil War and ends with him dying, that's a much rougher way to go out than a wall street panic. I think in 100 years when we look back on this, it won't be treated with the same kind of crazed language that is being used right now. I think they'll call it the Panic of 2008, which will join a dozen other Panics or Crises that we've had over the centuries.
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Lincoln's assassination can't count as a crisis Lincoln had to deal with as a president, although it was rather traumatic for him I'm sure . And 9/11 has to trump anything for its spectacular nature if nothing else.
The hostage crisis was at the end of Carter's presidency, but the fuel crisis started 4 years before he was president.
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Hoover: Started with the Roaring 20's and ended in the Depression? And we all know how well he handed that.
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quote:And 9/11 has to trump anything for its spectacular nature if nothing else.
Really? Like the Civil War?
9/11 as an event itself was a pretty minor thing. It speaks poorly of our nation if we do regard it as one the biggest crises we've ever faced.
And for all the fear mongering about a new Great Depression, the current financial situation doesn't seem like it is going to be any thing like it. We're talking about what may be a severe depression in which the markets realign to a more reasonable level from being over-inflated. I don't think we're looking at bread lines and abject misery.
I think these both have been hyped way out of proportion. Compared to what the country has gone through, these are like a suburban teenager whining about how hard their life is. Unfortunately, we're responding to these situations like self-obsessed teenagers.
quote:Lincoln's assassination can't count as a crisis Lincoln had to deal with as a president, although it was rather traumatic for him I'm sure . And 9/11 has to trump anything for its spectacular nature if nothing else.
Okay, then count what he WOULD have had to deal with had he not been executed. He would have had to oversee reconstruction (which I'm sure would have been a better job than Johnson did, whew).
Maybe I'm alone in this one but I think the Secession Winter by far beats 9/11. September 11th was dynamic and singular because of the shock value and because it all happened at once, but the series of events that constituted the beginning of the Civil War was no less important, and I'd argue was far, far, far more important.
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quote:Originally posted by Cashew: Lincoln's assassination can't count as a crisis Lincoln had to deal with as a president, although it was rather traumatic for him I'm sure . And 9/11 has to trump anything for its spectacular nature if nothing else.
Dude. Pearl Harbor? Sinking the Lusitania? Placing nuclear-tipped missiles on Cuba? Talk about present-day bias, sheesh.
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Cashew, I realize I may be missing where you are coming from. Why do you think these things are such huge crises?
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One could argue that that are several pivotal points, though not technically crises, at which the American president had great ability to shape world events in a profound manner.
I'm thinking about events like the negotiations at Versailles after WWI and the Potsdam after WWII.
There are many casual links beyond the obvious German and Iraq ones at Versailles. For example, taking occupied Chinese Shandong from the Germans and giving it to the Japanese, is a direct cause of the May 4th Movement and one of the core elements in the birth of the Communist party in China.
It is humbling in a way to realize how many lives have been touched by the decisions at these particular times.
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Quoting Mr Squicky: "And 9/11 has to trump anything for its spectacular nature if nothing else." (Quoting Cashew) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Really? Like the Civil War?
9/11 as an event itself was a pretty minor thing. It speaks poorly of our nation if we do regard it as one the biggest crises we've ever faced. ------------------------------------------ From dictionary.com SPECTACULAR: hair-raising, dramatic, breathtaking. As a single event 9/11 was amazingly spectacular. In terms of SIGNIFICANCE, the Civil War trumps.
Quoting Mr Squicky again: ---------------------------------- Cashew, I realize I may be missing where you are coming from. Why do you think these things are such huge crises? ------------------------------------- 9/11 has defined and dominated our century so far. World wide. Wall St? The long term perspective may assign this to a place of lesser importance, but at the moment it's looking pretty big. And it is having a big impact internationally, not just in the US.
Quoting King of Men: ----------------------------- Dude. Pearl Harbor? Sinking the Lusitania? Placing nuclear-tipped missiles on Cuba? Talk about present-day bias, sheesh. ------------------------------- Pearl Harbour: if you're raising it to counter what I said about 9/11 trumping anything in its spectacularness, then I have to say 9/11 was more spectacular, in the sense of a publicly witnessed event on an as-it-happens world wide scale. Pearl Harbour wasn't broadcast to the world while it was happening, and so it didn't have the immediacy of impact as a spectacle that 9/11 did. Cuban missile crisis? No doubt about it's significance. But it wasn't a spectacle, in the sense of: American Heritage Dictionary n. Something that can be seen or viewed, especially something of a remarkable or impressive nature.
My original post wasn't about those two things being more important than anything else that's ever happened in American history, simply about the way two very significant events have bracketed Bush's presidency.
posted
Cashew, I don't know. I think edit: something (If I recall correctly, you still support President Bush, yes?) /edit is really whacking your perspective out. He has had some tough things to deal with, but many other Presidents have had much harder things to deal with that make his troubles seem very small.
edit: I'm not sure what you mean by 9/11 dominating. Do you mean the Bush response to it? Because the event itself hasn't dominated in any way that I can see. If you're talking about stuff like the Iraq War, that was largely a self-created crisis, wasn't it?
posted
Quoting Mr Squicky: "I think your support for President Bush is really whacking your perspective out." --------------------- Where do I say anything about supporting Bush?? I specifically said in my first post that it wasn't about either criticising Bush or defending him, merely an observation about what seemed to be a coincidental symmetry of major events with international significance. The point of my post was not to pass any judgements on what Bush did to deal with them, simply to note they happened. If others want to get into defending or criticising him, fine. That's not why I started the thread. Don't accuse me of something I specifically spelled out I wasn't doing.
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You do still support President Bush, though, don't you?
The thing is, the two things you're holding up as two of biggest crises that the U.S. has ever faced really aren't that big a deal compared to other things. Your perception of them is way off. Because I know that you've been a Bush backer in the past, I suspect that this may have something to do with it.
edit: It wasn't your intent that I was speaking to, but rather the source of your bias.
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Thank you for clarifying with your edit, Mr Squicky. To me, at least, it seems 9/11 as the defining moment of our century so far is pretty obvious. It was a tremendously emotive event, having a huge impact on many different levels, from a basic human one to international and political. I think it's safe to say Afghanistan and Iraq wouldn't have been invaded if it hadn't happened. Iraq's invasion has polarised the international community over America in general.
As far as whether I support Bush or not, it's not relevant to the current discussion. There are things I like about him personally, but I think he's been hugely problematic for the US, both at home and internationally, and the mistakes he's made have been big ones.
But living outside the US and having close ties with it through family and friends and having a real affection for and interest in the country, I get annoyed at how criticism of Bush turns easily into criticism of the country as a whole.
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I really can't see how noting a symmetry of significant events around one presidency has to be seen as bias, one way or another. That's a real stretch.
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9/11 and the current crisis are relative blips in history compared to what past presidents have faced. They seem huge now, because we're facing them in the now and we weren't alive during any number of major crisis's presidents have had to face.
In terms of spectacle, perhaps 9/11 was one of the biggest spectacles in US history simply because of the prevalence of modern media. However, I would say the majority of our navy being destroyed by a surprise attack in an American harbor had far, far greater shock value when it was finally reported on. And while people weren't watching it happen on TV, they certainly heard about it on the radio.
And as to your original post, what a president has to deal with has nothing to do with the spectacle that crisis creates. The spectacle might make it a little harder or easier, but not a lot. What Bush has had to face is pittance compared to what past presidents have faced. What Bush has done to our government on the other hand...
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See, I agree with the role of Iraq, but that was a crisis that President Bush carefully constructed it and is such a big deal because of such a huge freaking mess he made of it.
It did not flow out of 9/11 except that President Bush wanted to do it and used 9/11 as a pretext. Linking the two like you are doing is, to me, a huge mistake, one that has been going on for years.
The actual event of 9/11 and what it represented was a big deal, but not really much of a threat and a very minor thing when compared to other things.
The things that the Bush administration did after the attacks and the problems that they have caused don't strike me as crises that the President faces so much as problems he made for himself (and for all of us). This is such a dominant thing in part because it has had far ranging, largely negative, effects and because anything America does on a large scale right now is going to be a big deal, not because the situation itself is so very dire.
The biggest crisis that President Bush found himself in was being President during the Bush administration. Not surprisingly, he hasn't been handling it very well.
The financial crisis isn't anything to sneeze at, but it's no where on the scale of the Great Depression or the World Wars or a whole host of other things.
It serves some people interests that these problems get blown way out of proportion, but that doesn't mean that they are anywhere as serious as some make them out to be.
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quote:I really can't see how noting a symmetry of significant events around one presidency has to be seen as bias, one way or another. That's a real stretch.
Cashew, It's not nothing the symmetry, but rather your description of these things as "two of the biggest crises in American history". I've got no problem with saying that they were significant events, but two of the biggest crises? They're not even close to this.
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For some perspective, more people were killed in one day during the Battle of Antietam than on 9/11. That was only one battle of the Civil War. 9/11 was tragic and sudden and visible, but it shouldn't have changed the world. The century is not very old yet.
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I don't want to trivialise any of these events by getting into an argument about whose event was worse than whose, which one had more people killed, or whatever. They were all horrific and traumatising.
Mr Squicky: I still don't see however I describe these crises is in any way indicative of a bias towards Bush. What, the fact they happened while he was president somehow means that I think he must have been a good president? So, how about two of the biggest crises in immediate American history? Still don't agree? Describe them how you like. I was merely noting the coincidental bracketing of them.
And Mr Squicky, the pot is calling the kettle black.
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quote:Originally posted by Cashew: Mr Squicky: I still don't see however I describe these crises is in any way indicative of a bias towards Bush. What, the fact they happened while he was president somehow means that I think he must have been a good president?
Well, the way you presented them made it all come across as one big attempt to excuse the problems of the Bush administration by the implication that he's had to deal with unprecedented difficulties.
quote:Originally posted by Cashew: So, how about two of the biggest crises in immediate American history? Still don't agree? Describe them how you like. I was merely noting the coincidental bracketing of them.
Well, I suppose I can agree that President Bush has had to deal with the two biggest crises that occurred during the Bush administration.
Other than that, I agree with the other people who are trying to put these events in perspective.
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ricree 101: Rereading the way I worded my original post, I can see where you're coming from, but that wasn't my intention, and I thought I'd made that clear by the bracketed proviso at the end. "Poor old Pres Bush" probably wasn't the best way to stop hackles from rising...
I was hoping it would be a discussion about what crises have occurred at the front and back of other presidential terms, which is what the first few responses were.
posted
I don't think it's very much to say that 9/11 was the worst thing of the century, the century is only 9 years old.
I think it will go down in history in much the same way that other singular events of devastation have gone down in US history, probably somewhere around the level of memorial status given to Pearl Harbor, which is significant, though muted 67 years after the fact.
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Please. The obvious answer is William Henry Harrison - he gives his inaugural address outside in the rain and dies from the pneumonia he contracted doing it 32 days later. And he was miserable for all of those 32 days.
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Myself, I'd go with James Buchanan. He had fun watching his country spiral into total revolt that resulted in a long and bloody war. And sucking at stopping it.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Myself, I'd go with James Buchanan. He had fun watching his country spiral into total revolt that resulted in a long and bloody war. And sucking at stopping it.
He tried to stop it?
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Given his actions during the Bleeding Kansas debacle, I'd say he was trying as hard as he could to fan sectionalist flames but ended up defusing the situation despite himself when he appointed a territorial governor that threw out fake "border ruffian" ballots from Missouri (which ironically totally pissed Buchanan off).
If not for Kansas-Nebraska Act, which is probably in the top 3 most important pieces of legislation in US history, we very likely would have gotten Cuba and a very large swath of Mexico during the Pierce Administration.
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By sending the US Army to Utah under the command of a Southern General. That certainly almost forshortened it.
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I'd have to think that the Civil War trumps every crisis of the past 50 years put together, in terms of challenges for a president.
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quote:I still don't see however I describe these crises is in any way indicative of a bias towards Bush. What, the fact they happened while he was president somehow means that I think he must have been a good president? So, how about two of the biggest crises in immediate American history?
It's not that they happened, but that you described them as two of the biggest crises in American history.
They're just not. The perception you showed was deeply flawed. I believe that a major reason for this (and for your linking the Iraq war to 9/11) is that you support President Bush.
It's possible that your misperception arises from another source. I'm not saying that your presentation indicates that you support President Bush but rather that I believe that it may be your support of the President that is a primary factor influencing you to blow these things out of proportion.
---
Is your question now about Presidents that faced the hardest things in their individual Presidencies at the beginning and the end?
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: For some perspective, more people were killed in one day during the Battle of Antietam than on 9/11. That was only one battle of the Civil War. 9/11 was tragic and sudden and visible, but it shouldn't have changed the world. The century is not very old yet.
And not just larger in numbers, but proportionally a much larger percentage of the population, given our spiking population numbers since then.
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Comparing 9/11 to the Battle of Antietam is sort of unfair, though. It's like comparing a cupcake to a life-size version of the Taj Mahal carved out of marzipan.
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Yeah. But the comparison is there implicitly, if one raises the issue of "biggest crises in American history."
Don't get me wrong -- I understand Cashew's point. This political stretch neither began nor ends on much of a high note.
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. And 9/11 has to trump anything for its spectacular nature if nothing else.
