PRESIDENTS: Not what history says

Stan Kwake's letter on Jan. 8 in which he listed the memorable events of the last 11 U.S. presidents left me shaking my head in disbelief. How can a person be so blatantly uninformed? 

Mr. Kwake recalls that JFK was a womanizer and assassinated, but the Cuban Missile Crisis; standing up to Khrushchev and creating the Peace Corp didn't make his list.

LBJ signed the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but Stan remembers only that the Vietnam War happened during his presidency.

Space will not allow me to do a more complete review but let me fill in a few holes in your assessment of the past 20 years.

Clinton: Welfare reform, financial prosperity, impeached, left office with a $1 trillion budget surplus.

G.W. Bush: 9/11, administration revealed the identity of a CIA operative, $700 billion dollars borrowed from China for an unnecessary war, no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq, torture, illegal wiretapping of Americans, horrible conditions for American veterans at Walter Reed Hospital, turned surplus into a $1 trillion deficit while giving tax breaks to the rich.

Obama: Inherited the mess created above, pushed for a health-care plan to benefit ordinary Americans, regulation of Wall Street and big banks, killed bin Laden, first African American President.

Turn off Fox News and do some research Stan. Your memory has become a bit selective.

MARTY MEYER

Coeur d'Alene