Old Hickory documentary on PBS last night. (Andrew Jackson, US President #7).

Did anyone else watch this? I have to say that though it made him a slight bit more sympathetic and showed he did more good things than I gave him credit for, he was still a monster overall and at least as bad as Nixon in my opinion.

The Indian Removal: I still get pissed when people try to defend this as it was not him but his successor. It was him, it was clearly him and the fact it was him was an even larger betrayal. In additional to the genocidal action, I condemn him for riding complete roughshod over the Supreme Court in this matter.

The burning of the abolitionist pamphlets I never even knew about. I really like and respect John Adams. I get grief (OK deserved grief) for defending him even when the Alien and Sedition acts get brought up but really, don't you think Jackson's interfering with the mail and suppressing information was about as bad? He also seemed to do a lot very imperially. He ignore the other two branches of government. John Adams did not request the Alien and Sedition act and did not use them himself. He is guilty mostly of signing them into law. Jackson abridged our rights on his own and illegally.

He was a terrible president overall and his one good act was breaking the second Bank of the US in my opinion but I still think this ass needs to be removed from the $20.

Jeez. Is he running again, or what? :)

This is a test to see if Lib is lurking here, right?

Quote:

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Originally posted by Rube E. Tewesday

This is a test to see if Lib is lurking here, right?

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It's actually an omnibus lurker detection thread.

Did you know that there's going to be a biopic of Andrew Jackson directed by Paul Verhoeven? It's going to suck because Paul Verhoeven sucks and he makes films for idiots.

*waits*

Um...buckeye cuntlapper. :madsci:

Sorry, the one thing I most agreed with Liberal on was Old Hickory. I've always thought Jackson was human fecal matter. Only Buchanan and Bush the Lesser rate lower for me overall. The documentary had one super-weasel of a historian that really kept pissing me off.

I don't know if I have seen the special you mention in your OP. I did see a fairly postitive portrait on the channel that used to show history programming but now shows crap about pawn shop owners and assholes who slice pinball machines in half.

Jackson's defenders usually cite two things IME - his very strong individualism (which is all well and good if you are a moral person, and he wasn't) and "he was a product of his times" which is utter crap when you realize there were people around at the same time actually trying to do the right thing.