From JFK to Joe Biden

Democrat presidents promise miracles and deliver — not much. 

By R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. April 13, 2021

 

In predicting what we can expect to be the achievements of President Joe Biden, let us consider what his modern Democratic predecessors have achieved. There is a pattern in the president’s predecessors’ achievements that is revelatory. Briefly, consider what they did.

Ever since the presidency of Jimmy Carter no Democratic president has achieved much of anything, though all have promised greater and greater miracles.

President John F. Kennedy entered the White House as a war hero, and he pursued the Cold War with courage and growing astuteness. He had plans for the domestic front but was not given the time to implement them. Suffice to say, he was a successful Cold Warrior. 

(Editor's Note:  Unlike the author I'm not a fan of JFK, or his administration.  He was not a successful president, he was a media favorite as was his wife.  Both of whom were overrated.  Furthermore, I wouldn't qualify him as a successful cold warrior.  He demonstrated his failings during the Cuban Missile Crisis. As the real history came out it was clear Khrushchev ate JFK's lunch, not the other way around.  But his failure as a president, and as a man, was even more exposed during the Bay of Pigs and his betrayal of the Cuban freedom fighters.  Two things everyone seems to forget:

• One, there was a lot of talk about his even being nominated by his party for a second term.
• Two he was elected through voter fraud, and Nixon and all the establishment knew it.  RK)

President Lyndon Baines Johnson was no war hero, but he entered the White House with a long record of legislative achievements, and while in the White House he fashioned a staggering record of domestic accomplishment — a record that cost the country billions and achieved little, but getting it through Congress took enormous energy and cunning. In fact, it cost him his life in the end, but the Great Society stands as a monument to him — a monument to his folly, but a monument nonetheless. As for the war in Vietnam, LBJ showed some grit, and our military whipped the communists again and again. The fault of the war’s outcome resides with the Democrats on Capitol Hill. They lost the war.

The next Democrat to enter the White House … well, what can I say? I called him the Wonder Boy, Jimmy Carter. He left no Great Society or New Frontier, but after dithering around for three years he did begin to build up the military, and I am told he left the White House with a modest reduction in the heating bill. After him came Bill Clinton, who initially talked of an infrastructure plan and of a nationalized health-care policy, but who actually achieved very little until Newt Gingrich and his Republican colleagues gained their majority. Then Bill and Newt brought us a bipartisan government that was pretty much a success except for Bill’s impeachment.

After Bill came Barack Obama, who was the first gentleman of color to become president. This should have been an achievement in itself, but it only opened the door for the 1619 Project, endless talk of systemic racism, and arguably the largest outpouring of racial hatred that has ever been seen in this country: in the schools, the streets, no place is free of it, and still Obama remains silent.......To Read More.....