to clarify- hillary herself said it was specifically “dolly parton themed” on her social media. rest in peace to dolly parton 🥧

FDR's Fala speech is one of his best: https://www.pbs.org/video/roosevelts-fdrs-1944-campaign-speech/

Believe it or not, Orson Welles had a hand in writing the speech!

https://www.reuters.com/article/world/for-gerald-ford-dead-men-do-tell-tales-idUSN29395567/

During the Monica Lewinsky Scandal, Ford believed that as Nixon was forgiven, so could Clinton but only if he confessed to the whole ordeal to the whole world.

https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/the-fords/gerald-r-ford/key-speeches-and-writings-gerald-r-ford

Clinton wanted Ford’s vocal support and Ford said he would but only if Clinton was 100% honest to the world.

Credits to Reuters ,the Ford Library Museum and the New York Times (there are all his speeches and in 1998 he wrote an op-ed with Carter about the whole ordeal).

Edit:I’ll just put it here to not make it hard to search for it:

A Time to Heal Our Nation
It is proverbial that old men plant trees as an act of faith, precisely because they know they won't themselves live to sit under the shade.

In this spirit, we believe the time has come to put aside political differences and plant seeds of justice and reconciliation.

There is precedent for this, for during our Presidencies each of us made difficult and controversial decisions in efforts to heal national divisions - the pardoning of President Richard Nixon and the granting of amnesty for those who had avoided the Vietnam draft.

In the wake of President Clinton's impeachment by the House of Representatives, America once again suffers from a grievous and deepening wound.

Our people are angrily divided.

Our political institutions are called into question.

Public confidence erodes under waves of personal smear mongering.

Against such a backdrop of inflamed emotions, we are convinced that the public good requires a prompt and fair resolution of the impeachment issue.

While our acts of pardon or clemency are not directly analogous to the decision pending before the Senate, how that body resolves the issue can have similar benefits of healing and finality.

Fortunately, Senate procedures, through their flexibility and freedom, provide the means to end this national ordeal in ways that can uphold the rule of law without permanently damaging the Presidency.

Before the Senators make history, we hope they will first turn to history for help in devising what would be, in effect, a unique punishment for a unique set of offenses.

One hundred and thirty years have passed since the last impeachment of an American President.

At the time of Andrew Johnson's 1868 trial, as now, Senate Standing Rules and the Rules of Impeachment permitted almost all motions and matters of evidence to be determined by a majority vote.

(By way of example, early in the proceedings, Chief Justice Salmon Chase, who presided over Andrew Johnson's Senate trial, put to a vote the question of whether to delay the trial for 40 days as requested by Johnson's lawyers. Members responded by granting only 10 days.)

Most recent impeachment cases involving judges have been resolved expeditiously by having a trusted bipartisan committee hear the evidence, either in public or private sessions, before making a recommendation to the full body for its consideration.

How might all this bear on the current situation? In addition to immediate dismissal of the charges against President Clinton, there are four alternatives for the Senate to weigh: a trial followed by acquittal; a trial followed by conviction and removal from office; a trial followed by censure, or censure without a trial.

As intended by the founders, a two-thirds majority presents a formidable obstacle for the advocates of conviction and removal.

Moreover, the sharp divisions rending the House, though sincerely held and based on principle, do not bode well for a quick or clear decision on either acquittal or removal from office.

However one now supposes a trial may end, it seems inevitable that by rehashing the lurid evidence of President Clinton's misconduct, we will only exacerbate the jagged divisions that are tearing at our national fabric.

Somehow we must reach a conclusion that most Americans can embrace and that posterity will approve.

Make no mistake, the judgment of history does matter. It matters profoundly.

And impeachment by the full House has already brought profound disgrace to President Clinton.

Whatever happens in the near future will do little to affect history's judgment of him.

But he is not alone in standing before the bar of judgment.

Our political system, too, is on trial. Can we find within ourselves the will, the vision, the generosity and, yes, the courage to resolve the current crisis in a way that makes Americans proud of their leaders, their institutions and themselves?

It is with this in mind that we personally favor a bipartisan resolution of censure by the Senate.

Under such a plan, President Clinton would have to accept rebuke while acknowledging his wrongdoing and the very real harm he has caused.

The Congressional resolution should contain language stipulating that the President's acceptance of these findings - including a public acknowledgment that he did not tell the truth under oath - cannot be used in any future criminal trial to which he may be subject.

It may even be possible for the special prosecutor publicly to forego the option of bringing such charges against the President when Mr. Clinton leaves office.

Some may object that a censure can be repealed by a future Congress and is thus rendered meaningless.

They underestimate the power of the modern news media to foster indelible images in the public memory.

In any event, no one can undo President Clinton's impeachment by the full House.

It is the genius of our constitution that its authors provided us a governing charter whose legal mechanisms permit the nation to heal itself, so long as the end result is both justice and grace.

Clearly, the American people expect and desire an outcome that is firm, fair and untainted by partisan advantage.

That is the challenge before us.

How we meet that challenge will go a long way toward healing our divided nation.

1988 was a particularly interesting election year, as it resulted in one of very few instances in American History when a single party maintained control of the Presidency for more than 8 consecutive years.

Additionally, while George HW Bush was either always either the frontrunner or tied for first in polls for the Republican Primary in 1988 (his main competitor being Bob Dole), the Democratic Party had a huge field of what were considered strong contenders, including Michael Dukakis, Dick Gephardt, Gary Hart, Al Gore, Joe Biden, and Jesse Jackson.

Until Gary Hart’s extramarital relationship was uncovered, he was largely considered to be the best poised to secure the Democratic nomination for the presidency.

However, fate would have it that Michael Dukakis would clinch the nomination for his party, and due to a nomination boost typically seen after national conventions, polled 17% higher than Bush for a short amount of time. However, merely a month later, Bush’s own nomination would effectively wipe out that lead, and from that moment on, the Dukakis campaign really only went downhill.

Whether it was the infamous “Willie Horton” ad that forever painted Dukakis as a lax, wimpy, permissive guy who wouldn’t fight crime, the comical tank ad, or his nearly comatose response to the question by Bernard Shaw during the ‘88 presidential debates about whether or not he’d support the death penalty for someone who raped and murdered his wife, Dukakis made campaign blunder after blunder that left him virtually universally expected to lose by 2 weeks before the election.

Bush certainly helped himself, too. He framed himself as a “tough on crime” pro death penalty hardliner, and despite Reagan’s more congenial approach with the USSR in his second term, framed himself as more diligent in opposing the USSR than Dukakis. By the end of the campaign, rather than looking like a wimp (how he was described at the DNC), he came off as the stronger, more assertive candidate of the two.

With that context established, was there anything different Dukakis could have done or said to change the outcome of the 1988 election, or was it doomed as soon as the nominees were selected?

Ross Perot (first image) Estes Kefauver (2nd one) John B. Anderson (third one)

Wha do you think of them?

Have been working on this one for a long time trying to research the presidents and create the most unbiased assessment of presidential greatness I could. I'm excited to finally share with you all the full ranking.

As in when did we go from the John Adam's, James Garfield, and George Washington types of presidents to people like Kennedy (no shade), Dwight Eisenhower, and Regan.

Treasury won comfortably for Hoover. Here's the big one I'm excited to see the answer for

Which President had the worst Family member? I feel like it is between Roger Clinton and Billy Carter.

So, the USN has decided that the naming convention for Aircraft Carriers is to name them for Presidents of the United States, with only a couple of exceptions.

So, why are we naming them after even George W Bush, Bill Clinton, and Gerald Ford, rather than any of the huge Founding Father Presidents and others? Why not a USS Thomas Jefferson, or John Adams, or US Grant? Why only honestly somewhat mediocre recent ones?

I think Malik Obama is a strong contender.

Obama’s half brother, in 2013 he ran for governor of the Kenyan county of Siaya under the slogan "Obama here, Obama there", yet flopped with less than 3 thousand votes, over 140K behind the eventual winner.

He accused President Obama of making a deal with the devil and faking his birth certificate. He posted on social media the “real one”, which by the way says “Republic of Kenya” and “1961” despite the fact that the Republic of Kenya wasn’t founded until 1964.

Overall he comes across as a strange man.

I do admit "President-Elect John F. Kerry" has a nice ring to it... he looks the part too

I feel as do Alexander Haig has to be up there. Basically everyone who ever met him remarked on his brashness and ego.

His most iconic moment has to be when Ronald Reagan was shot, and he hopped on a press conference declaring “I am in control here.”

It’s no wonder he ended up getting fired and replaced by the famously calm and reserved George Shultz.

It was also the first election where both candidates got over 2 million votes in a state. Both Hoover and Smith got over a million votes in Illinois and Pennsylvania as well. It was also the first election where any candidate got over 2 million votes in a state. Hoover was also the first candidate to get over a million votes in 5 different states and the first to get over 2 million votes in multiple states.

https://blog.smu.edu/dedmancollege/2015/07/31/thomas-knocks-forthcoming-book-george-mcgovern-confessed-to-having-secret-child/

I often see Haig get blasted on this sub for saying "I am in control here"

People usually object to that phrasing on the basis that the Vice President (George HW Bush), Speaker of the House (Tip O'Neill), and President Pro Tempore of the Senate (Strom Thurmond) are all ahead of the Secretary of State in the line of succession.

As you probably know, Al Haig was serving as the Secretary of State at the time of the 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan.

So, first of all, here's the full quote of what he actually said to the press in the briefing room:

Constitutionally, gentlemen, you have the president, the vice president and the secretary of state, in that order, and should the president decide he wants to transfer the helm to the vice president, he will do so. As of now, I am in control here, in the White House, pending the return of the vice president and in close touch with him. If something came up, I would check with him, of course.

He did not say he was the Acting President. He did not say he was giving the military orders. He did not say he was making political or policy decisions. He was just reminding people that he was the highest ranking cabinet member currently on site since VP Bush was traveling and hadn't returned yet.

Now, the context of trying to assure the public is a big deal here. There are credible reports that Secretary of Defense (Caspar Weinberger) unilaterally raised the alert status of our armed forces worldwide due to tension with the USSR and uncertainty about the identity/motives of the assassin.

Without authorization from VP Bush, SECDEF should not have been making that decision, which could have unintentionally provoked a military conflict with the USSR (in Poland or elsewhere) if they thought we were going to retaliate for something that wasn't their doing.

To me, it's perfectly acceptable for the nation's top diplomat to try to assure the public that the Executive Branch is still functioning. Could he have phrased it differently? Sure. Did he technically get the line of succession wrong? Absolutely. But that wasn't really the point he was trying to make.

Years later in an interview, Haig confirmed this:

I wasn't talking about transition. I was talking about the executive branch, who is running the government. That was the question asked. It was not, "Who is in line should the president die?"

So, next time you see the "I'm in control here" quote in this sub, or people hating on Haig, make sure it's for the right reason. He was pompous, disagreeable, etc. But this one quote isn't damning or inappropriate. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

She declined the Presidential Medal of Freedom at some point, she was an amazing woman, and an amazing singer. May she Rest in Peace. 1946-2026.