Thanks for the article Teribus. Some interesting points in there. I may not think Bush II is the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, but Comments like "moron" are never intended to realisitically indicate a guess at a person's actual IQ. Presidents are also not the sum of their administration; the Prez may not be brilliant, but that's why Presidents have advisors and staff.

I'm not likely to hop on the bandwagon about how Reagan ended the Cold War or Bush II defeated the mighty Taliban.

I mean, really. The Taliban wouldn't be in power if we hadn't put them there in the first place; defeating the Taliban is like me bragging about how I beat up a 3 year old kid. The 3 year old may or may not have deserved a bloody nose, but it's no indication of my "power."

The Soviet Union simply collasped under the weight of it's own arrogance. It was foolish of them to think they could out-spend us when they had no real economic infrastructure to speak of. For all the talk of "Communism," they were a totalitarian oligarchy. Communism was simply the state religion. Which is not to say Reagan didn't try, and he did help speed up some symbolic issues, like the Berlin Wall. But the collapse of the Soviet Union was no triumph, it was simply fated to be. Of course, Reagan will go down in history with the "credit" -- someone has to get it -- but I was a raging Reagan fan back then and even I didn't think that Reagan really had a whole lot to do with it. The Republican rewriting of history lauding Reagan as one of the great presidents is kinda sad. Personally I though Bush Sr. was a better President, even if I disagreed with his politics.