Reading Sunday's News Reel
December 29, 2024
Reading the news reel this Sunday.
The Economist on the Carter's passing away earlier today at 100:
"To their confusion, and often to their regret, Americans seemed faced with two Jimmy Carters. One was the man whose presidency, won by a squeak and relinquished amid the humiliation of the Tehran hostage crisis, seemed an essay in weakness and naivety. This was the chief executive who once addressed the nation in a grey cardigan, sitting by a guttering fire; who, at the peak of the energy crisis in 1979, as Americans queued miserably for petrol, wanly criticized their malaise; who, at peak of the cold war, seemed to hope he could effect a thaw by writing a personal letter to the exiled nuclear physicist Andrei Sakharov; and whose bid to rescue the hostages ended with a helicopter crash in the desert. This was also the man who, out fishing, was said to have been assailed by a “killer rabbit” that swam towards him; who, when jogging, suffered heatstroke; and who admitted to Playboy magazine that he had often committed “adultery in my heart”, inciting a wave of mockery from sophisticates on both coasts."
***
With the Jimmy Carter's centennial passing away today, Trump will assume a mantle of the oldest former U.S. President at 78.
Albeit beating Billy Clinton by merely two months.
***
Carter was the "most virtuous U.S. President." (The Economist.)
***
CNN's Scott Jennings on Biden:
“I think he’s gonna leave office in disgrace. The Hunter Biden pardon was disgraceful. He’s going to be remembered largely for inflation and for the disastrous Afghanistan pull out. ” Jennings continued, highlighting a concern that Biden’s staff covered up a decline in cognitive function ahead of the 2024 presidential election and “for all four years.” “I think it’s going to be a really ugly chapter,” he said. “It’s a diminished presidency because of it.” “I think we still don’t know the full extent of what they did to try to hide what they’ve been doing over in the West Wing.”
***
The Hill, Dec. 20
Biden has been a historically transformative president. His landmark domestic accomplishments are comparable to Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society.
A 2023 survey of 154 political scientists and other presidential experts ranked Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Rosevelt and George Washington as America’s three greatest presidents, in that order. Biden ranked No. 14. Donald Trump, who will become president again on Jan. 20, ranked No. 45 - last on the list. I’m confident Biden’s ranking will rise in the years ahead.
Really?
That makes Biden stand lower than Barack Obama (#7) and Bill Clinton (#12), but ahead of Ronald Reagan (#16), George H.W. Bush (#19), George W. Bush (#32), let alone Donald Trump (#45).
Does anyone believe this scholarly, Democrats-heavy BS?
https://www.wsav.com/now/the-2024-presidential-greatness-rankings-are-in/
Phil Z.