[andyfox]

"recognizing that we had to have some dialog with the PRC"

I give him zero credit for that since he deserves a major portion of the blame for closing off our relationship with China to begin with, and his McCarthyist tendencies kept others from reapproaching China before him.

"I also think one needs about 20 years of perspective to really rate a President."

In some respects, maybe. I'm a firm believer in what is wrongly called "revisionism" because we usually have more evidence to go by, as well as the perspective of succeeding years, well after historical events take place. But I knew Johnson as a disaster while he was president, and I knew Nixon was a crook and a pathological liar while he was president, and I knew Carter was a disaster while he was president. And I know the current Bush is a disaster.

I was born in February of 1953, so I just missed Truman. (I believe; or was the inauguration in March in those days?) This will surely get me in hot water here, I think, but I would rate Truman as just above Nixon as a horrible president. I'm not wild about Harry.