1) Ran the cleanest Administration in history.

2) Kept the peace.

3) Stressed human rights.

4) As I wrote earlier, reduced the deficit.

5) Reversed the Nixon/Ford cuts in military spending.

6) Responded to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, even though rabid anti-Communists would rather he have done nothing except their response: Saber rattling.

7) Recognized our need to develop alternate sources of energy, but the programs he started were all killed by the foresightful Reagan.

You are misunderstanding what is going on here.

I am not blaming any American for the attacks of 9/11 in my response.

I am pointing out that Whaler's blaming of Clinton for the 9/11 attacks based on the logic of attributing present day success/failure to that president's predecessor was mistaken.

I'm not claiming that the matter asserted is true.

you lost me when you said he did the work to end the Iranian hostage situation. last time I checked they were realesed why reagan was sworn into office.

my main problem with him was that he was blaming americans for the hard times instead of himself. remember his malayze speech?

i guess if you are unwilling to fight back that gets credit for keeping the peace.

One of the funnier myths associated with Reagan in the minds of the faithful conservatives...

That's one of the things that makes me scoff at the modern populist Republican (spawn of Reagan). You guys reacted to the idea of a president saying... god forbid... that overall it is the people who need to take responsibility.
It is true. Reagan, strange for a conservative, was the one who made it cool for Republicans (albeit selectively) to join the populist ideal of people... not taking responsibility for the plight of the nation!

Note that FDR for all his greatness... much of that was due to the sacrifices made by the American people. No president has ever been great without getting the people involved.

It's a fair assessment to say Carter failed to have that kind of leadership... but nonetheless he was pointing the finger in the right direction!

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"It's never over... BOY!"
The Tall Man, Phantasm III

Yes, mysteriously the Iranians freed the hostages on the very day that Reagan took the oath of office.

In fact, Reagan had such success with the IRanians that he subsequently authorized trading stinger missiles with them for cash to fund right wing death squads in El Salvador. That's treason, but at this point, who's counting?

Wow now that is some seriously twisted logic!!!

Clinton preceeded W and Osama himslef says that he was emboldened by Clinton's cut and run decision in Somalia, and his weak response to the embassy bombings in Africa. So using the same logic used above to credit Carter with the economic successes during Reagan's years, you can credit the 911 attacks to Clinton!

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Obama = Carter minus character vote accordingly

I see what you are saying now.

Carter's appointment of Paul Volcker was a huge a key to the Reagan economic 'miracle.' I don't think any economist would doubt that. The multiple tax cuts from Reagan were bankrupting the government. That's why Reagan raised taxes 7 times in his 8 eight years in office including the single largest tax increase in history.

Every president, except for Washington, works with the situation they inherit. But tax policy & personnel appointments are not terrorist legislation. This is:

Measures taken by the Clinton administration to thwart international terrorism and bin Laden's network were historic, unprecedented and, sadly, not followed up on. Consider the steps offered by Clinton's 1996 omnibus anti-terror legislation, the pricetag for which stood at $1.097 billion. The following is a partial list of the initiatives offered by the Clinton anti-terrorism bill:

Screen Checked Baggage: $91.1 million

Screen Carry-On Baggage: $37.8 million

Passenger Profiling: $10 million

Screener Training: $5.3 million

Screen Passengers (portals) and Document Scanners: $1 million

Deploying Existing Technology to Inspect International Air Cargo: $31.4
million

Provide Additional Air/Counterterrorism Security: $26.6 million

Explosives Detection Training: $1.8 million

Augment FAA Security Research: $20 million

Customs Service: Explosives and Radiation Detection Equipment at Ports: $2.2 million

Anti-Terrorism Assistance to Foreign Governments: $2 million

Capacity to Collect and Assemble Explosives Data: $2.1 million

Improve Domestic Intelligence: $38.9 million

Critical Incident Response Teams for Post-Blast Deployment: $7.2 million

Additional Security for Federal Facilities: $6.7 million

Firefighter/Emergency Services Financial Assistance: $2.7 million

Public Building and Museum Security: $7.3 million

Improve Technology to Prevent Nuclear Smuggling: $8 million

Critical Incident Response Facility: $2 million

Counter-Terrorism Fund: $35 million

Explosives Intelligence and Support Systems: $14.2 million

Office of Emergency Preparedness: $5.8 million

The Clinton administration poured more than a billion dollars into counterterrorism activities across the entire spectrum of the intelligence community, into the protection of critical infrastructure, into massive federal stockpiling of antidotes and vaccines to prepare for a possible bioterror attack, into a reorganization of the intelligence community itself. Within the National Security Council, "threat meetings" were held three times a week to assess looming conspiracies. His National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, prepared a voluminous dossier on al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, actively tracking them across the planet. http://www.truthout.org/article/clinton-911-and-facts

These are dollars and cents measures....Not superfluous bragging about "emboldening" from the world's #1 terrorist.

Very interesting post that debunks the myths concerning president Carter.

However, I would like to say that a nation's economy (let alone the world economy) cannot be mandated by a president. It often is steered in the right/wrong direction, but more often than not it is simply beyond the ultimate control of the executive branch.

So understanding the contextual problems of the time might shed some light on the economic failures that were occurring during the late 70's, and blaming/congradulating a president or administration for the economic successes or failures of the time is a bit of an exageration.

Nevertheless, you can attribute the actions taken by the administration towards their attempts to refine the economy. Unfortunatly Carter faced a serious problem of stagflation that could not be met by balancing budgets and continuing New Deal programs. Under Reagan the economy did reverse with "reagonomics" but essentially it cut out the poorest while pushing the rest of the country forward (increased GDP, if that's what you want to measure the success of an economy by... personaly I don't). A form of trickle-down economics that allows very little of a trickle to fall to those who need it most, while swamping the very rich with a huge torrent of wealth.

Anyways, I thought I would like to add some of my own personal comments.

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Signature:

I need to respond to two earlier allegations.

Fisrt, that the hostages were released when Reagan took office. Do not interpret that to mean, "The Iranians were so afraid of He-Man Ronnie ..." The truth is, Jim Baker and others met with Iranian officials, asking them NOT to release the hostages (and the Iranians wanted to find a way to close the curtain on the whole crazy affair) until after the election. They didn't want their early release to benefit Carter. This is a shameful arrangement by the Reagan people! The Iranians held them until after the Inauguration to make a final twist of the knife in Carter, whom they had personalized their hate in. (Ironically, in a good and decent man.)

Second, that Carter's malaise speech (note proper spelling) was blaming Americans for anything. He was stating facts. I remember how bad the malaise was. So don't stone the messenger! Republicans subsequently spun it to accuse him of blaming Americans, but there is no substance to that spin.