[Buddha-l] Re: S. Pinker

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Tue, 2005-06-28 at 09:05 -0600, jkirk wrote:

> Sorry----FDR was the best president of the 20th c. , followed perhaps by 
> Johnson.

No, Carter was the best. It's a tie between Clinton and FDR for second
place. The race for best president of the 20th century is not very
interesting, because there are so few serious contenders. (How can one
be best if none of them is even good?) There's not one of them who comes
even close to the stature of Pierre Eliot Trudeau, who was probably the
best leader in the world during the 20th century. 

Much more interesting is trying to figure out who was the worst
president of the twentieth century. Where does one begin trying to
figure out who was worst among Coolidge, Harding, Kennedy, Johnson,
Nixon, Reagan and Bush? I suppose Nixon would be my vote for the worst
president in US history before 2001. Kennedy and Johnson, who brought us
the Vietnam war, would be close behind. In fact, it could be a three-way
tie.

There have been remarkably few presidents who have espoused anything
like Buddhist principles. But then again, there have been remarkably few
Buddhists who have espoused anything like Buddhist principles, so I
guess it all works out evenly.

As for Hillary Rodham Clinton, you had better start taking her
seriously. She will be the next US president, narrowly defeating
Condoleeza Rice. You heard it here first. Clinton-Richardson versus
Rice-Rove in 2008. (I've never been wrong in predicting who the next US
president will be, so you'll be wanting to visit this web site to learn
about applying for Canadian citizenship: http://www.cic.gc.ca/)

-- 
Dh. Dayamati
Albuquerque, New Mexico