Moving on...

Having spent the better part of an hour typing my last post, let me try to start where I thought we should start.

Lincoln holds top honors because he preserved the Union in the face of national crisis.  Filmore, Pierce and Buchanan get slapped down for doing exactly the same thing, right?  All three preserved the Union by maintaining the status quo, even though that was proven to be not only ineffectual but detrimental to the national good.  Only Lincoln succeeds where the previous three fail to not only "unite" the country but end the scourge of slavery forever.  Since that time, we have been "THE United States of America" rather than "THESE United States of America".

Isn't there a parallel here with Hoover and FDR?  I give no such credit to Wilson, understand... he only won because Roosevelt split the GOP ticket with his Bull Moose run... so I am not questioning your dislike for him.  His elitist attitudes leave a bad taste in my mouth, too.  My point is simply that the status quo wasn't working in 1860... and it wasn't working in 1932.  I'm not comparing the crisis points, mind you... only the more generally "radical" aspects of the Presidential responses.  Who was the more radical in their response to a national crisis: Lincoln or FDR?

When the status quo fails, is it "radical" to change it (beyond the literal definition of the term, I mean)?  Was Reagan a "radical" for lowering the top marginal tax rate 72% in 1981?  Carter was facing the prospect of RAISING it, had he won the election... just to maintain the false promise of a balanced budget attempt.

In light of this reasoning, it might be better to say that I "dislike" Obama because he is trying (like hell) to maintain the liberal status quo that even I (a pinko-commie fag, according to some here) know to be not only ineffectual but detrimental to the national good... not because he is a "radical".