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Presidential Realities

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Herbert I. Johnson

Published: May 2, 2008

After "Kaiser Bill's" U-boat sank the Lusitania, Woodrow Wilson still pursued appeasement tactics. National outrage compelled him to declare war on Germany.

Warren G. Harding's patronage appointments embroiled him in the Teapot Dome scandal and his death from food poisoning under unclear circumstances.

Herbert Hoover vetoed bills to provide employment during the Great Depression, also efforts to fund public works.

FDR's New Deal created jobs under his "cost plus 10 percent" that resulted in all kinds of wastes and thefts for higher profits. We saved Europe from Hitler and Mussolini and were stabbed in the back by Japan.

"Our greatest generation" met all it was called upon to contribute to the war effort and its terrible sacrifices.

Harry Truman's atomic bombs ended the war with Japan, but created the proliferation of today's nuclear threats. In the Korean War, his restrictions of Gen. MacArthur's military strategies resulted in today's fragile truce with North Korea.

In election campaigns, Estes Kefauver won the Democratic popular vote, but the Democratic committee chose Jack Kennedy to be sure he became president, but also brought about years of violence, assassinations under the misnomer "Camelot." Brother Bobby was also assassinated. The latest tragedy was "John-John's" plane lost in the Atlantic. Politically he failed to depose Cuba's Castro and had to yield to national demands to remove Russian nuclear missiles in Cuba.

Lyndon B. Johnson added more socialistic Civil Rights and then escalated our involvement in the Vietnam War with his Gulf of Tonkin resolution.

Richard Nixon ended the Vietnam debacle, brought the runaway budget deficit under control with "Excess Profits Tax" and "price controls." But he blew it all by involvement in Watergate.

Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon and lost re-election because of his Watergate links and possibly errant link shots.

Jimmy Carter gave away the Panama Canal and then gave Iran our finest war machines, intact, in his aborted attempt to rescue our kidnapped diplomats from Iran.

George H. W. Bush invaded Panama to unseat Noriega. He drove the Iraqi's out of Kuwait and defeated Saddam Hussein. All was well in that area.

Bill Clinton is best remembered for wagging his finger at us and denying "any sexual relations with that woman." Found guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice, his Democrats placed him above laws of the land by endorsing illegal acts while in the highest office in the land.

George W. Bush's charge of Iraq having nuclear weapons is still unproven and we are in an "Unholy War," being pressed against any and all "Infidels."

What we need is someone who is a statesman, not a greedy war mongering, profiteering Democrat or Republican.

Herbert I. Johnson
Sebring

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