If you really want to understand Ronald Reagan, you need to do more work. I also was at these events. I also worked in the Ronald Reagan White house on the Senior Staff. I traveled wit President Reagan Reagan. To put in more perspective, my father ran all of Ronald Reagan's campaigns, except when my Dad ran Jerry Ford's in 1976 for President, Ronald Reagan's experienced his only defeat.

To understand President Reagan Reagan, you must read the oral histories which are on line. Some on my website: www.spencer-roberts.com. Read Lou Cannon's books. Read Marty Anderson's book that include many of Ronald Reagan's letters and speeches. There is a book of Ronald Reagan's speeches, And Ronald Reagan diaries will be released this spring.

And foremost, visit the Ronald Reagan Library. Go through the new Air Force Pavilion. And hear closely to President Reagan's words. And look into his eyes as he speaks them. Ronald Reagan reached out to people, the common citizen that is a common thread in his writings that is the true essesence of Ronald Reagan.

 

If you really want to understand Ronald Reagan, you need to do more work. I also was at these events. I also worked in the Ronald Reagan White house on the Senior Staff. I traveled wit President Reagan Reagan. To put in more perspective, my father ran all of Ronald Reagan's campaigns, except when my Dad ran Jerry Ford's in 1976 for President, Ronald Reagan's experienced his only defeat.

To understand President Reagan Reagan, you must read the oral histories which are on line. Some on my website: www.spencer-roberts.com. Read Lou Cannon's books. Read Marty Anderson's book that include many of Ronald Reagan's letters and speeches. There is a book of Ronald Reagan's speeches, And Ronald Reagan diaries will be released this spring.

And foremost, visit the Ronald Reagan Library. Go through the new Air Force Pavilion. And hear closely to President Reagan's words. And look into his eyes as he speaks them. Ronald Reagan reached out to people, the common citizen that is a common thread in his writings that is the true essesence of Ronald Reagan.

Dec. 9, 2006 - Consensus. That was the watchword for Jim Baker and Lee Hamilton, co-chairmen of the Iraq Study Group, as they unveiled the panel’s long-awaited report. Like a pair of politically ecumenical Siamese twins, they trudged around Washington chanting their mantra: “We believe that a constructive solution requires that a new political consensus be built, a new consensus … at home and a new consensus abroad. And it is in that spirit that we have approached our study group’s task on a bipartisan basis,” said Baker. We “hope very much that in moving forward others will wish to continue to broaden and deepen the bipartisan spirit that has helped us come together.”

Mission accomplished. According to the new NEWSWEEK poll, Americans back the ISG’s recommendations by a two-to-one margin. In interviews with 1,000 adults done Dec. 6 and Dec. 7, 39 percent of Americans said they generally agree with the group’s 79 recommendations, while 20 percent said they disagree. (Twenty-six percent said, in effect: “Report, what report?”)

What is the new consensus? Nearly two out of three Americans (65 percent) concur with the Iraq Study Group that the U.S. should threaten to reduce economic and military aid to the Baghdad government unless it meets benchmarks for security and development. Fifty-seven percent believe Washington should reach out to its adversaries Iran and Syria in an effort to stabilize Iraq. And 61 percent believe Washington should launch a new and sustained effort to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

That’s bad news for President George W. Bush since it’s unclear whether the new consensus has been adopted by the White House. Though the president called the Baker-Hamilton report “constructive,” in a press conference on Thursday with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush’s closest ally, the president signaled resistance to at least two of the key proposals: drawing down U.S. combat troops in Iraq by early 2008, and talking to Iran and Syria. “One way to assure failure is just to quit, is not to adjust and say it’s just not worth it,” said Bush, adding, “I believe we’ll prevail.”

That places the president in a distinct minority. According to the NEWSWEEK poll, more than two out of three Americans believe the United States is losing ground in Iraq (68 percent), versus 21 percent who say it is making progress—the most pessimistic assessment the NEWSWEEK poll has ever recorded. A near-record 53 percent believe invading Iraq was a mistake, compared to 39 percent who say it was the right course of action.

In fact, the public goes farther than the Baker-Hamilton report. Sixty-two percent of Americans want the Bush administration to set a timetable for withdrawal. And not in the distant future. Forty-eight percent of Americans want U.S. soldiers and Marines to come home now or within the next year. Add in the 19 percent who say they would support U.S. troops remaining in Iraq one to two years more and 67 percent of Americans say they would support keeping large numbers of U.S. military personnel in Iraq for no more than another year or two.

Only 23 percent of Americas sound like the president, arguing that troops should stay in Iraq “as long as it takes to achieve U.S. goals,” the lowest percentage ever recorded in the NEWSWEEK poll.

One Baker-Hamilton recommendation that did not receive widespread support was the proposal that as the United States reduces the funds and the troops it sends to Iraq, Washington should increase economic and military support for Afghanistan. Only 43 percent of respondents agree; 44 percent disagree.

Perhaps President Bush figures after Democratic victories in the midterm elections, he has little left to lose following his “principles” as he told Fox News early this week. The NEWSWEEK poll supports that view: the president’s approval remains at a near-record low 32 percent and only 31 percent of Americans say they’re satisfied with the direction of the country. Sixty percent say they are dissatisfied.

But Bush isn’t completely alone in challenging the report either. Sen. John McCain called some of the ISG recommendations “a recipe that will lead to … our defeat in Iraq.” Perhaps the Arizona senator, an early front runner for the 2008 Republican nomination, is less concerned with today’s debate about how and when to get out of Iraq than with the 2008 debate. While a majority of Americans say the Iraq war was a mistake, 67 percent of Republicans still believe it was the right thing to do. One of their likely questions in the primaries that start just a little over a year from now: who lost Iraq?

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16122983/site/newsweek/page/3/

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December 8 2007 Article

DOW JONES REPRINTS This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers, use the Order Reprints tool at the bottom of any article or visit: www.djreprints.com. • See a sample reprint in PDF format. • Order a reprint of this article now. Baker-Hamilton Won't Stop Beltway Bloodshed December 8, 2006; Page A16 Notwithstanding its 79 recommendations for "the way forward," the Iraq Study Group's primary purpose wasn't saving Iraq from catastrophe but saving the political system of the United States from catastrophe. The commission's two chairs, Jim Baker and Lee Hamilton, make this explicit in the report's first pages. "U.S. foreign policy is doomed to failure . . . if it is not supported by a broad, sustained consensus." Leon Panetta, a Democrat in the House from 1977 to 1993, said at their news conference, "This country cannot be at war and be as divided as it is today." These are essentially restatements of GOP Sen. Arthur Vandenberg's 1952 dictum amid the Truman presidency that "politics stops at the water's edge." More than a sentiment, Vandenberg's point was, as he put it, "to unite our official voice at the water's edge so that America speaks with maximum authority against those who would divide and conquer us." For the past three years, we have had the opposite -- a domestic political war waged relentlessly at the water's edge. Now comes the ISG report, and based on the Beltway reaction to it, one has to wonder whether the call yesterday for unity and bipartisanship by Messrs. Baker, Hamilton, Panetta and former Sen. Alan Simpson was disingenuous or naïve. Washington took their study and went completely over the edge. The morning-after press reporting on the Baker-Hamilton report can only be described as neurotic glee. Over endless columns, reporters ransacked their thesauruses for words to unload pent-up antipathy toward the Bush White House: failed, repudiated, dire, abject failure, deeply pessimistic, disdain, replete with damning details, a rebuke, a remarkable condemnation. For the Bush opposition and its beliefs, this White House has become the most odious and illegitimate presidency (the disputed 2000 Florida result) of the last century. Opposing it became a moral imperative. We can pinpoint the moment the Vandenberg ethos died. It was when one Democratic senator, Joe Lieberman, tried to bridge the partisan divide. He was culled from the party herd, shunned and left for dead by his oldest friends in the Senate. Note that the ISG report at no point includes the words Guantanamo, warrantless wiretaps, Swift surveillance, secret prisons or the Patriot Act. These are the Bush policies in the war on terror, presumably the war "we all support." And they are the names of the most famous Washington battlefields of recent years. All this, like Iraq, has been repudiated, denounced and condemned as a moral violation. This bloodbath at the water's edge has produced a divided, bitter nation. The American people are dispirited and depressed, even after the election. An AP/Ipsos poll taken the week after the November vote showed Congress's ratings fell, to 26%, 10 points below the president's in the same poll. It looks like the voters have replaced the traditional post-election honeymoon with a political prenuptial agreement. * * * Before this Sunday's talk shows use the Baker-Hamilton bulldozer to bury alive the Bush Doctrine and the "neoconservatives," let us suggest there is an alternative version of the Iraq narrative -- one that is less a collapse of doctrine than simply the result of bad, possibly fatal, decisions the administration made in 2003. The years 2003-2005 don't exist in the ISG study, which is almost wholly about the horrors of the past year. But in the war's immediate aftermath, from May 2003 onward, Baghdad was rebuilding, notwithstanding continued violence. Retail commerce came to life. A strong real-estate market emerged. New cars filled the streets, and Iraq's universities reopened. But it was also in May that someone in the Bush administration made the worst decision of the war, as described on this page in June by Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari in an interview with our Robert Pollock. "The biggest mistake, honestly, if you go back," said Mr. Zebari, "was not entrusting the Iraqis as partners, to empower them, to see them do their part, to fill the vacuum, to have a national unity government." The opportunity existed at that moment to form an Iraqi unity government, likely consisting of the religious Shiites Ibrahim al-Jaafari and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the Sunni Adnan Pachachi, Kurdish leaders Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani, and secular Shiites Ahmed Chalabi and Ayad Allawi. Instead, someone in Washington (it has never been clear exactly who) decided to push them aside in favor of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority. This was fatal because for two years, until last December's election, Iraqis had nothing -- other than tribes, sects and militias -- to commit themselves to politically. Recall how over that period the insurgents repeatedly targeted police stations and police recruits. They knew that a functioning police posed the greatest danger to their plans to reduce Baghdad to a brutal anarchy that would drain the spirit of both Iraqis and Americans. It worked. For two years there was no "Iraqi" entity for their police to fight and die for. Certainly opinions can differ on whether these Iraqi leaders in 2003 could have achieved the vaunted "national reconciliation" at the heart of the ISG report. But it is a more plausible, discrete explanation of what went wrong than the preposterously exaggerated celebration (there is no other word) of total American "failure" emanating from the Baker-Hamilton report now. In short order, the Iraq story will enter 2008's presidential politics. To his credit, John McCain distanced himself from the report, which has turned into an unedifying pig-wallow for one swath of our political culture. The Washington Post yesterday reported that Democratic congressional aides say they'll make sure Mr. Bush still "owns" the Iraq war so he gets tagged if Baker-Hamilton fails. Leon Panetta is already getting an answer to his belief that a divided nation cannot be at war. Oh yes it can -- if defeating the enemy at home is more important than defeating the enemy abroad. Write to Daniel Henninger at henninger@wsj.com1

 

We need conversations

Our military operation is not working. We need to add another approach to the military operation, conversation. And not just with the countries in the Middle East that we are already talking too. What we need is vision. Somehow I can't equate this situation with Hitler. This is a War on Terrorism which is elusive. Many people, sects, parts of countries, extreme religious organizations, and cells are involved. Not one single leader. It seems to me to combat this War, America should talk to all countries whether they are involved or not. If they are involved, we handle them with kid gloves. Has anyone heard, "keep your enemies close." People I respect sugest that America start the dicussions with Syria. Iran has a highly inflated regard for itself. They believe they control Hamas and Hezbollah. we also tighten our commitments with our "existiing" allies, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, etc. As the Iraq Report makes clear, Israel will be protected by the United States. So that situation needs to be resolved. The report also makes it clear that Turkey is clearly frighten. We have to address that situation. What our country needs is vision. It needs the backbone to try something new and to take a chance. All our strongest leaders excelled when they took changes. President Bush has two years to save his Presidency. Unless he embraces vision, he will not do well.

 

For anyone interested, California is dedicated the Department of Finance Conference Room in honor of Casper Weinberger tonight.  He served as Director of Finance for Governor Reagan and earned the title "Cap the Knife."

So much has been said about the Iraq Report.  And so much criticism.  And so little vision.  It seems that what Americans are doing is looking through America's prism.  Which is fine, since American's self-interest must come first.  However, if American's self-interest must come first, we must solve the situation in the Middle East.  And by that I mean Iraq.  And American hasn't done a very good job solving that problem militarily.

The military has its place.  However, it is NOT the sole solution.  We sorely need diplomacy.  If President Reagan had just invaded Russia during the Cold War, America would have gotten nowhere.  Instead he chose to have summits with the several leaders of Russia during his Presidency.  He hit gold with Gorbachev.

In politics, timing is everything.  America must now listen to the recommendations of the Iraq Report.  America must open some doors of diplomacy.  And the timing of with who to open those doors is critical.  Syria appears to be logical.  Iran's head may be too big.  The Report says that Turkey has much to lose with what ever America does in Iraq.  So we must be careful with this ally. 

The Report says Israel's role is key.  America will never give up on Israel.  So some sort of peace must be accomplished in that regard.

The bottom line:  Diplomacy is a required component in settled the Iraq situation.  Diplomacy was used heavy by President Reagan and other great American Presidents.  President Bush must use it now to salvage his last two years in office.

Everyone keeps talking about the middle class.  No one really defines who they really are.  I have a very practical reason for asking this question.  I'm teaching a college course and this question will be part of the course.

So I'm throwing the question out to this blog.  I would appreciate all and any responses, articles, links.

Thanks.

 

The First Amendment does not only allow for the freedom of speech. It allows for people to petition their government. James Madison saw this right to petition clearly when he wrote Federalist 10. He spoke of the competing of “factions” and their impact on the function of the legislative process. Everyday the press shows images of celebrities speaking before legislative committees about various issues to which they are committed. In California, every lunch period our State Capitol has a rally at all four doors about some special interest issue. These are examples of lobbying.

Unfortunately, lobbyist Jack Abramoff has brought to light the unseemly side of lobbying. He went for the “quid-pro-quo” for issues rather than arguing actual policy. That means paying money or giving favors for a vote. That is a felony. And that rarely occurs among lobbyists. If they play around the edges of this “quid-pro-quo,” in my 30 years of lobbying in Washington, DC and Sacramento, these lobbyists do not last long. What does last long, is trusting relationships, hard work, good policy arguments, creative thinking, grassroots involvement, and just plain shoe leather. It is a hard job. And people are not particularly nice to one another in the process.

A Case Study – Plastic Pipe

36 million people live in California. The medium price home is around $500,000. And under the California Plumbing Code only one type of pipe can be use in residential homes – copper. In the other 49 states, two other pipes can be used in addition to copper – CPVC and PEX. The Pipes Trades Unions in California have effectively banned the used of the other two pipes (which I will call plastic pipe) since 1982. I have been involved in this issue, off and on, since that time. In the long lobbying history of this issue, both legislative and administrative, the upshot is that CPVC has had three Environmental Impact Reports (EIR) (in California we like our own assessments rather than the federal Environmental Impact Statements). It is unheard that a building material would have an environmental impact statement. And CPVC still cannot get unfettered statewide use.

What does this nonuse of a competitive pipe choice mean to the consumer? In some areas of California, copper corrodes. It pits and bursts through the walls. Under the California Code, the only replacement can be copper pipe.

The Union lawyers have made many claims against “plastic pipe” – leaching, fire hazards, chemicals, etc. All of which have been explored in three EIR’s.

Currently Governor Schwarzenegger has said he wanted statewide use of all pipes. We are fighting to get these pipes in the current code which will be written in January 2007. It may happen. However, how it was written by this administration begs the question – will it stand up in Court. We will be sued. And arguing the State’s case is our new Attorney General, Jerry Brown.

Which brings us back to the Administration and the Legislature. The Legislature is term-limited. With 38 new members, they are uneducated. And the Administration has spoken.

In the meantime, California is left with copper pipe unless it can be proven that conditions are so bad that the best alternative is to use one of the plastic pipes. In the other 49 states, the market determines what is best.

 :

Dec. 6, 2006 - Forget for the moment that the Bush administration has quickly ruled out one-on-one talks with Iran, the kind put forward by the Iraq Study Group in its long-awaited report. Forget that Iran seems, for now anyway, uninterested in helping the Great Satan out of its Baghdad fix. Forget, even, that as Washington agonized this week over its future in Iraq, Iran sent out invitations to a conference in Tehran on the “myth” of the Holocaust—the genocide Nazis committed against 6 million Jews in World War II.

Could Iran really help stabilize Iraq?

James Baker and Lee Hamilton, the co-chairs of the study group, believe Iran can be persuaded, mainly through incentives, to stop supporting militia groups in Iraq and promote conciliation between Shiites and Sunnis. Diplomacy with Iran and Syria marks one of the report’s three main recommendations (alongside shifting the role of American troops in Iraq from combat to support and jump-starting the Israeli-Arab peace process). Panelists on the bipartisan commission write that Iran has financed and armed both Shiite and Sunni groups and holds sway over key leaders like Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim, who heads the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). “Of all the neighbors, Iran has the most leverage in Iraq,” their report says. It quotes a leading Sunni politician as saying: “If you turn over any stone in Iraq today, you will find Iran underneath.”

But in rummaging for a way out of the mess, the commission probably overestimated the chances of getting help from Iran. Here are two reasons:

Iran has no real interest in helping the United States. Baker and Hamilton believe Iraq’s disintegration would create a ripple of instability that even Iran must fear. Already, hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled Iraq to neighboring countries. With a large minority of Azeris, Kurds and Arabs, Iran has its own sectarian tensions to worry about. The Iraq Study Group report cites incentives Washington could offer, including helping Iran gain membership with the World Trade Organization and shifting U.S. policy from regime change in Iran to an emphasis on political and economic reforms. But with Iran riding the global oil market wave, many analysts believe those inducements amount to precious little. “Iran doesn’t want chaos in Iraq,” says Jon Alterman, who heads the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “But if it has a choice between a humiliating and bloody departure of American troops with some instability or the U.S. leaving with its head held high and no instability, they would opt for the instability.” Alterman believes the United States squandered opportunities to negotiate with Tehran when it was weaker. “If you’re Iran, this is a time of ascending strength. Is that the time you start giving things away?”

Iran probably has less influence than we think. Most of the intelligence community believes Iran has helped Iraqi insurgents carry out attacks on U.S. troops, in part by teaching them to make more lethal roadside bombs. But most of the militias now have their own sources of funding--from extortion and corruption schemes--and a stock of weapons from the old regime’s caches. “I’m mystified that people think Iran would actually be able to help bring about stability even if it wanted to,” says Patrick Clawson, an Iran expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. And though Iran has probably infiltrated some Shiite groups, its influence over Moqtada al-Sadr, who heads the powerful Mahdi Army, is thought to be limited.

These caveats could not have been lost on the panel. Baker met with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations during the deliberations on Iraq and heard tough words. “Our limited contacts with Iran’s government lead us to believe that its leaders are likely to say they will not participate in diplomatic efforts to support stability in Iraq,” Baker’s commission wrote in its report. What Iran really wants in exchange for cooperation on Iraq is a free pass on its nuclear program. But that’s a price neither the Iraq Study Group nor the Bush administration is willing to pay.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16081320/site/newsweek/

Have you ever visited YouTube lately?  And read the comments?  Either I am getting extremely old or no can write anymore.  And Americans are extremely angry and negative.  Almost 1 million people see 2 to 5 minutes of a edited video clip, and than comment, scream, rant, rave, and abuse whoever below the video clip.  It goes like this:  Lo, U F#&@ dance like a pig.  Your speech makes all politicans look like @$#%# dunce.  And so on.  And if the person is drunk, the more people watch it. 

Freedom of speech is a wonderful part of our culture.  What worries me is the amount of anger.  If it's not anger, the need to up-manship.  And the need to have the last word. 

Don't get me wrong, some of these videos are great fun.  Emmitt Smith doing MC Hammer was classic.  And I love watching the animal videos. 

However, where are people learning how to communicate in the same language in American?  Do we need to learn a variety of English?  If so, I guess I'm game.  However, as a teacher, tell me now, I need to grade papers.

I must respond to Truth & Consequences who seems to advocate that the United States much not start a dialogue with Syria and Iran. Obliviously the terrorist situation needs more than one prong approach.  Diplomacy is a necessary prong.  President Reagan used it very effectively during the Cold War with Russia.  Yes, our enemy was a state with borders at that time.  However, during these past five years it is clear that Iran, and to a lesser extent, Syria, are financially and in other ways supporting terrorists.

As President Reagan said in one of his letters to Mikhail Gorbachev:  "First, I want you to know that I found our meetings of great value.  We had agreed to speak frankly, and we did.  As a result, I came away from the meeting with a better understanding of your attitudes.  I hope you also understand mind a little better.  Obviously there ae many things on which we disagree, and disagree very fundamentally."

Clearly strong leadership is required on all sides.  And a desire to solve a problem and to find common ground.  And finally, the clarification of ground rules which will be communicated to the people each leader represent.  If you read my other postings where I quote President Reagan's letters, you will see he tries to clarify to the American people his intentions.  I view these efforts as leadership.

                                                            The Honorale John Serman Cooper
                                                            Washington, D.C.
                                                            February 9, 1987

Dear Senator Cooper:
    I have just been given a copy of your letter in the Washington Post (of) January 21 and want you to know how grateful I am for your well-reasoned, common-sense response to the unfounded speculation which has characterized so much of the press reporting of the Iran situation.
    When the press got wind of our effort to open a dialogue with certain Iranian individuals both in and out of government I immediately told them and the public what we have been trying to accomplish.  When I subsequently learned there might have been some manipulation of funds, which was not part of our plan I made what information I had available.  I am still waiting to learn if this was indeed true and what the particulars might be.  In short I am not engaged in any cover-up, indeed I'm anxious to have the truth known and will help in any way I can to learn what the facts are to make them known.
    Again my thanks to you for bringing a touch of sanity to what has become a diatribe of unfounded charges and name-calling.

                                                            Sincerely,

                                                            Ronald Reagan

 He's Only Fifth Worst

By Michael Lind
Sunday, December 3, 2006; B05

It's unfair to claim that George W. Bush is the worst president of all time. He's merely the fifth worst. In the White House Hall of Shame, Bush comes behind four other Oval Officers whose policies were even more disastrous: James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Richard M. Nixon and James Madison.

What makes a president horribly, immortally bad? Poor luck is not enough. Some of the greatest presidents, such as Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt, have inherited crises and risen to the occasion. The damage must be largely self-inflicted. And there's another test: The damage to the nation must be substantial. Minor blunders and petty crimes do not land a president in the rogues' gallery.

Doing nothing can be even worse than doing something wrong. Take the worst president of all time, Buchanan. In office when Lincoln's election in 1860 triggered the secession of one Southern state after another, Buchanan sat by as the country crumbled. In his December 1860 message to Congress, three months before Lincoln was inaugurated, he declared that the states had no right to secede, but that the federal government had no right to stop them. By the time he left office, seven states had left the Union, and the Confederates had looted the arsenals in the South. If Buchanan had exercised his powers as commander in chief, the rebels might have been stopped at far less than the eventual cost of the Civil War -- more than half a million American dead and the ruin of the South for generations. (After he left the White House, Buchanan explained that he did not stop secession for fear that hostile blacks would overrun the North.)

The Civil War era also gave us the second-worst president: Johnson, Lincoln's vice president and successor, a Tennessean who vetoed civil rights acts and blocked the 14th Amendment because he didn't like blacks, of whom he declared, "It is vain to deny that they are an inferior race -- very far inferior to the European variety." Johnson's policies led to his impeachment and forced the Republicans in Congress to create a quasi-parliamentary system marginalizing the president. While Lincoln had his own racial prejudices, he was a model of enlightenment next to Johnson and Buchanan.

The third-worst president is Nixon, a criminal in the White House who is still the only commander in chief ever to resign. Many presidents have abused their power, and the "imperial presidency" existed long before Nixon. But he was the only president to run a criminal gang out of the Oval Office engaging in spying and burglary while he sought to corrupt the Justice Department, the FBI and the CIA. (By contrast, Bush's misguided authorization of torture, secret CIA prisons and illegal eavesdropping were at least directed at suspected terrorists, not at his personal and political opponents.)

The damage Nixon inflicted might have endured had he established the principle that the president is above the law. As he told David Frost in a famous 1977 television interview, "Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal." Because of the exposure of Nixon's criminality during Watergate, we still live in a constitutional republic rather than a banana republic with an elective dictatorship.

Refusing to enforce the law while the country disintegrates, trying to re-enslave emancipated blacks, and doubling as chief magistrate and gangster -- what could rival these presidential misdeeds? Well, how about unnecessary and catastrophic wars?

To qualify a president for the Worst of All Time list, a war must be catastrophic as well as unnecessary. Ronald Reagan's invasion of Grenada, George H.W. Bush's invasion of Panama and Bill Clinton's invasion of Haiti don't cut it -- they were unnecessary, but minor. And presidents can be forgiven costly wars that were necessary or hard to avoid, such as Harry S. Truman's stalemated war in Korea and Lyndon B. Johnson's failed war in Vietnam, each of which was a Cold War battle more than a separate conflict. After 1950, U.S. strategy required Washington to go to war to prevent Soviet bloc proxies from taking over South Korea, Indochina and Taiwan -- the amazing thing is that the Cold War ended without a battle for Taiwan, too. Future historians are likely to be as kind to LBJ as they have been to Truman.

The two big, unjustified wars on my list are the War of 1812 and the current conflict in Iraq, and the first was far worse than the second. Madison, the "Father of the Constitution," was a great patriot, a brilliant intellectual -- and an absolutely abysmal president. In his defense, the world situation during the Napoleonic Wars was grim. The United States was a minor neutral nation that was frequently harassed by both of the warring empires, Britain and France. But cold geopolitics should have led Washington to prefer a British victory, which would have preserved a balance of power in Europe, to a French victory that would have left France an unchecked superpower. Instead, eager to conquer Spanish Florida and seize British Canada, Madison sided with the more dangerous power against the less dangerous. It is as though, after Pearl Harbor, FDR had joined the Axis and declared war on Britain, France and the Soviet Union.

It might have been worse. In 1812, Madison wrote Thomas Jefferson to ask what the former president thought of waging war simultaneously against Britain and France. Alarmed, Jefferson replied that this was "a solecism worthy of Don Quixote." Instead, the United States fought only the British, who torched Washington, D.C., while Madison and first lady Dolley fled to Virginia. Gen. Andrew Jackson's victory in the Battle of New Orleans (waged two weeks after the United States and Britain, unknown to Jackson, had signed a peace treaty) helped Americans pretend that the War of 1812 was something other than a total wipe-out.

By contrast, George W. Bush has inadvertently destroyed only Baghdad, not Washington, and the costs of the Iraq war in blood and treasure are far less than those of Korea and Vietnam. Yet he will be remembered for the Iraq conflict for generations, long after tax-cut-driven deficits, No Child Left Behind and comprehensive immigration reform are forgotten. The fact that Bush followed the invasion of Afghanistan, which had sheltered al-Qaeda, with the toppling of Saddam Hussein, will puzzle historians for centuries. It is as though, after Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor, FDR had asked Congress to declare war on Argentina.

Why did Bush do it? Did he really believe that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction? Was it about oil? Israel? Revenge for Hussein's alleged attempt on Bush's father's life? The war will join the sinking of the USS Maine and the grassy knoll among the topics to exercise conspiracy theorists for generations, and the photos of torture at Abu Ghraib will join images of the napalmed Vietnamese girl and executed Filipino rebels in the gallery of U.S. atrocities.

Like all presidents, George W. Bush wants to be remembered. He will get his wish -- as the fifth-worst president in U.S. history.

lind@newamerica.net

Michael Lind is the Whitehead senior fellow at the New America Foundation.