The Butler

Hi Everyone!!!!

Just watched a film called The Butler for the very first time, with Forest Whittaker and Oprey Winfrey. Well, I guess I shed tears about 93 times!!!! What an amazing film and based on a true story..... I don't know if you saw it but it also cast light on different American Presidents too. I always liked Ronald Reagan, but I did not know he supported the South African regime, though Nancy seemed to treat the staff well. It suggested Nixon was a weasel, well that's not surprising, JFK was nice and Johnson, Carter and Ford came out almost unscathed. Amazing film, if ya 'aint seen it give it a run, it's quite good. Have a bunch of tissues at hand though!!!

Celia xx

Ronald Reagan was a great President who did not do great things.

Richard Nixon was a terrible President who did great things.

I lived through both Presidencies and can say Nixon advanced the cause of Americans in general while Reagan drove us into debt and foreign conflict.

Give me another Nixon any day - sans the corruption.

Well, I hope you do get another like him then, whomever they may be, for surely they could not be any worse than your present incumbent, could they?

So, I think you had much better Presidents of the United States of America than you realised at the time, whereas, those looking in from the outside saw they were not all that bad at all in fact.

Case in point.... G.W. Bush, now a very close friend to the Obama family and famous for quite a good sense of humour as well. I always liked him and did not like the guttersnipes that snapped politically upon his quirkyness. He was decisive and did not mess around and also, a very good friend of Britain too, always a very good mark of a great U.S. President, I believe.

I was very happy when Barak Obama was elected too, even without that particular credential, I was disappointed with the amount of changes he actually made, but all the same, I was enamoured with him as your President, I liked him a lot.

If Nixon had been smart enough to ensure those tapes were destroyed, we would possibly know nothing of Watergate. Such a shame then, (for I trust Miki's judgement), that he did not. Though Ford did not seem too bad either, I was very young during his Presidency and living in England then and do not know of any impact he failed to make, that Nixon maybe would have.

Celia xx

George W. Bush was a very weak president during his second term. Dick Cheney was forced upon him by the GOP leadership and Cheney's influence (a strong new world order guy) essentially told Bush what to do. Hence Iraq and not Afghanistan.

Bush freed himself of Cheney in his second term but, unfortunately, a lot of harm had already been done.
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While a corrupt crooked politician:

Richard Nixon, who was the 37th President of the United States, did do a lot of good things while in office. In 1972, he reopened America's relations with China. And he signed one of the first treaties limiting the deadly nuclear arms race, which could have ended horribly had it continued as it did in the 60's. He also largely ended segregated classes in the south, revenue sharing, he ended the draft for soldiers for Vietnam, he created new anti crime law and put into affect a new environmental program (he is largely responsible for the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency). He was the only President who was able to achieve a balanced national budget.