Ronald Reagan - Greatest American???

[oldhen]

The BBC reports that Ronald Reagan - yes, the one-time Hollywood man, has been voted the "greatest American" of all time by his fellow citizens. He edged out Abe Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr to claim top spot, in a poll that placed GW - yup, George W Bush at #6, closely followed by Bill Clinton at 7, and Oprah Winfrey at 9, FDR just about made

Comments

[rileen]

Ha. Ha.

Don't take this seriously, for any number of reasons, including the fact that less than 1% of the population voted.

I was in London in 2002, and had a great laugh over various aspects of that exercise. Brunel was apparently boosted by mass voting organized by students of his university, Diana was no. 3, Beckham was one of only two living sportsmen to make the initial top 100 (Redgrave only had to win 5 Olympic golds to be worthy of Becks' company!) ...........

These are just publicity stunts, and in some cases money-making devices. Unfortunately, they can also influence opinion, simply because of how powerful media is nowadays.

[oldhen]

Redgrave only had to win 5 Olympic golds to be worthy of Becks' company!

Oh come on, surely Posh Spice and long golden locks (in 2002 anyways) surely more than make up for a few medals :) Point well taken, guess liberal pinches of salt would definitely help digest poll results better..

[murthys_r_us]

What a joke! I wonder at people who waste time conducting polls like these.

America as myopic

[shortindiangirl]

People are myopic here. It's part of the culture. A remnant side effect of being one of the youngest countries in the world. As a culture, they don't have the ability of perspective. Through their generations they have only learned to look back one or two or three generations, they've never known any better. But part of this myopia is a more serious inclination of culture. In my mind, the American ability to invent and progress is intimately connected with this myopia. The American ability to think for themselves, question everything and push forward through technology is fundamentally linked with this myopia. The American arrogance, whether in science, culture, academics, or society, believes that everything can be understood by the human mind. By ONE single human mind within ONE generation. Thus they are able to invent and progress in ways that blow most of the world away. The side effect is that they also don't put much store into the collective knowledge of several generations (And I think this is something that the religious

Re: America as myopic

[murthys_r_us]

I agree, it has to be myopia. Forget the 'winner', Oprah & Dubya - in contention for the greatest American of all time!? Amazing!