HIP HIP HOORAY ANOTHER TOPIC....

[LovetoCamp]

Clark's nickname among those who served under him should give you an idea of the extent of his megalomania. He was referred to as "the Supreme Being." Col. David Hackworth called him the "Ultimate Perfumed Prince" and added "he's far more comfortable in a drawing room discussing political theories than hunkering down in the trenches where bullets fly and soldiers die."

 

Fred Franks was a general. Left part of his leg in Vietnam, continued to serve, commanded VII Corps during Desert I. Clark went to Oxford with Bill Clinton. Jeeeesh!

[NJCubScouter]

Let's see if I can do this quickly and from memory.

 

First of all, there have been 41 presidents before George W. Bush; the reason he is counted as the 43rd is that Grover Cleveland is counted as both the 22nd and 24th because his terms were not consecutive.

 

The truly one-term presidents (became president by election, served one full term) were John Adams, lost to Jefferson; John Quincy Adams, lost to Jackson; Van Buren, I believe lost to WH Harrison; Polk, did not run again; Pierce, I don't think ran again, Buchanan, same (would not have been re-elected anyway; only president to enter office with country in one piece and leave with it in two, March 1861); Hayes, I don't think he rain again; B. Harrison, lost to Cleveland; Taft, lost to Wilson and actually came in third behind third-party candidate T. Roosevelt; Hoover, lost to FDR; Carter, lost to Reagan; GHW Bush, lost to Clinton. That's 12.

 

NW listed the 15 who were elected twice, though not all of them served out their second term (or in FDR's case elected 4 times, died very early in fourth term.)

 

Four were elevated from V.P. to president due to a death in office, then were elected to a full term but did not run for a second full term (T. Roosevelt, Coolidge, Truman, LBJ; though after 4 years as a voluntary ex-president, T. Roosevelt did try again as a third-party ("Bull Moose") candidate but lost.)

 

I previously listed the 5 who never got a chance to run because they died during their first term, and the 5 who were never elected president at all.

 

That's 41; though I have to admit that at first I missed Teddy Roosevelt because I thought he was in the two-term category, and I was coming up one president short.

 

I love presidential history (and trivia.)

 

[NJCubScouter]

I don't know enough about Wesley Clark yet to have any idea whether he is qualified to be president, or whether he has any realistic chance of winning. Nor have I really seen much about his positions about any issues other than the war in Iraq. I saw where his position on the economy is basically that he needs to study it, which does not seem like a very auspicious beginning. But I personally am giving him a chance.

 

I do notice that the conservative/Republican pundits on radio and on the Internet are going into fits of apoplexy over this guy, dredging up quotes from old military rivals (like the one repeated by TrailPounder.) That probably means that they think he has a good chance of winning the Democratic nomination and that he would pose a real threat to beat G.W. Bush. I thought they had been going kind of easy on Howard Dean, treating him more as a joke than anything else, because they probably would be more than happy to see him as the Democratic candidate. Now, suddenly, they are scared to death. If I had to make a prediction right now, it would be that Clark will not be the Democratic nominee, and I still think what I thought a couple of days ago, which is that Bush will probably win the election.

 

We shall see whether there is any real substance to General Clark and whether he can escape the label of being "Clinton's general" that the Republicans are trying to stick on him. Of course, the last time, Al Gore got the most popular votes (and we could discuss whether he actually got the most electoral votes, too, but I won't) and his connection with Clinton was much more immediate. So, trying to attach whoever the Democratic candidate is to Clinton, which seems to be the main Republican strategy at the moment, may not work. For those who are on neither side, or who can take themselves out of being on one side or the other long enough to see what is really happening, it is pretty interesting, at least I think so.

 

It is interesting to compare Gen. Clark to the former generals who have been elected president in the past. I think the generals who have been elected president based solely or primarily on their military records, with little or no substantial government service in between, have been of a much higher stature and had much greater name recognition than Gen. Clark. The two examples would be Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight D. Eisenhower. (The latter is the best example because he is much more recent. George Washington is another example but the differences between the political and electoral situation then and now are so great that the comparison would be silly. There were other wartime generals who became president but they all had substantial government service after their military career and were probably better known for their non-military service by the time they ran for president.)

 

Anyway, Grant and Eisenhower were overwhelmingly strong candidates because they had recently been the top commanding officers in wars that were so "big" that they were the primary focus of life in this country while they were going on. The same cannot be said of the war in Kosovo, in which Clark was the U.S. commander. Eisenhower in particular became a household name during WW2, which Clark never even approached. I think that if a retired military officer has to explain to the American people who he is first, he's already in trouble, as opposed to someone who is a governor or senator. In the latter case, I think most people figure, ok, he (or she, at least in theory) has the basic qualifications to be president, let's see how he looks and sounds and what he has to say. I don't think that's necessarily true for a former military officer who most people don't know.

[LovetoCamp]

Machievelli's Corner? LCA?

[dsteele]

Trailpounder:

 

Did you mean to post that as a private message? I guess it doesn't matter.

 

Yes, I wrote a column in my weekly college newspaper called Machiavelli's Corner. I was a big fan of Machiavelli at the time and still think he was one of the few philosophers willing to speak the political truth at a time (15th Century Italy for those unfamiliar with his work) when people were killed for such things.

 

Machiavelli's name hardly invokes warm and fuzzy feelings, by the way. I was young and loved to drum up controversy. I hope my writings no longer do that.

 

At any rate, I got hauled into the college president's office a couple of times, got punched at a party once or twice, and won awards from Northwestern University and the Chicago Tribune for a few of the columns.

 

And, yes, I was a member of Lambda Chi Alpha (LXA) for three and a half years and President of the Greek Council (when the campus was 60% greek) for a few months until I resigned rather publicly.

 

But that was quite a while ago.

 

DS

[Eamonn]

Keeping track of English monarchs is every English kids nightmare, but boy am I glad we don't keep track of our prime ministers.

Reading what has been posted it seems as if you guys really know your presidents.

I spend my time in the car with NPR on the radio mainly to catch the BBC World Service.

Today the big topic was the Cummings Report.

This report is saying that both Tony Blair and George W. Bush went too far with the war.

Still I think George W. is doing ok.

There is now some conjecture that Hillary Clinton might run and that Wes Clark would be willing to be her running mate.

This is juat to easy and would be a really gray area??

Eamonn

[NWScouter]

OK here is some more presidential trivia. What presidents were related and what were their relationships? I have five and one pair with the same last name but not related.(This message has been edited by NWScouter)

[OutdoorThinker]

Ah, NWScouter, Presidential Trival -- fantastic!

 

The answers to your question is as follows:

 

The pair with the same name and no relation are the Johnsons, Andrew Johnson and Lyndon Baines Johnson share a last name, but no DNA.

 

On to the relatives:

 

1) George Bush and George W. Bush: Father and Son

 

2) John Adams and John Quincy Adams: Father and Son

 

3) William Henry Harrison and Benjamin Harrison: Grandfather and Grandson

 

4) Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt: Teddy was FDR's fourth cousin once removed, but Elenor Roosevelt's uncle, so that makes him an Uncle-in-law, too

 

5) (Last but not least, the pair that don't share a last name, but are more closely related than the Roosevelts) James Madison and Zachary Taylor: second cousins

[SR540Beaver]

I think you are right that Clark puts a little fear into the Republicans. What really has them scared is Hillary Clinton running. It has been discussed repeatedly by the right wing pundits for months. They luagh it off, but I think the thought really has them shaking in their boots. One note on Clark and the Republicans going after him. I find it amusing that the conservative pundits like to insult the celebrities who speak out and really push supporting the troops 200%, unless it is a celebrity like Charlton Heston or Dennis miller or a General who runs as a Democrat. All of a sudden a celebrity is to be praised for his wisdom and the soldier is considered a low life. Amusing! By the way, I'm an Independent. I get to laugh at both sides.

[LovetoCamp]

I'm an Independant like you are! LOL I'm studying to be one of them thar "Free Thinkers" too. BooooYah!

[NJCubScouter]

I don't know, kwc, I think the conservative establishment (Republican party plus radio pundits plus Fox News Channel) would love to see Senator Clinton run for president. The opportunities for Clinton-bashing, not to mention fund-raising, would be beyond comprehension. I don't think she is going to run this time because she does not want to run against an incumbent. I personally don't ever want to see her run, because I think her personality and history would put the focus on her rather than on the issues. I am sick of the politics of celebrity (actually I am sick of the whole culture of celebrity, but that would be another thread and probably in a non-Scouting forum.)

[NWScouter]

Your fifth one I didn't know about. Mine is a little more recent, Nixon and Eisenhower. Nixon's daughter married Eisenhower's grandson, that makes them some kind of in-laws. I don't know what.

[LovetoCamp]

I wonder what Ike thought of that???

[NJCubScouter]

On the "which presidents are related" issue: "Related" is a bit too ambiguous a word, unless it is defined. Many of us would probably be surprised at who some of our tenth or fifteenth cousins are; in most cases that would take in quite a number of people. When the "related presidents" question is asked in a trivia contest (which as you may have guessed from my earlier post, I have been in one or two or...), it is usually asked as which presidents are direct ancestors/descendants of each other. (Those would be the Adamses, Harrisons and Bushes.) The Johnsons share a name but were unrelated. The problem is with situations like the Roosevelts, fifth cousins once removed. (Outdoor says fourth, I always thought it was fifth, I could be wrong.) I am sure there are other pairings of presidents who are closer than fifth cousins (ignoring the degree of removal for now), Outdoor mentions Madison and Taylor (which I admit to now knowing) but I would be surprised if there weren't others.

 

What I always thought was really neat about the Roosevelts was Eleanor Roosevelt being Teddy's niece and also sharing his last name -- in other words Roosevelt was both her maiden and married name, though in no state would they be considered "related" enough to prohibit them from getting married. (Not even close; I think that generally second cousins can get married, and if it is not second, it's third; personally I have never had occasion to check.) I don't think there is any legal context in which fifth cousins would be considered to be "related."

[NJCubScouter]

Oh, and...

 

Although David Eisenhower did marry Julie Nixon, presidents Eisenhower and Nixon were not "related." There might be some cultures in which you somehow get to be considered a "relative" of your grandson's wife's father, but I don't think this is one of them. You might consider them "family," but "related" should be a little more specific than that. They aren't even "related by marriage."