U.S. Grant and Ronald Reagan

When I think of the least intelligent presidents we've had, Ulysses S. Grant usually pops up at the top of my list. The semi-senile Reagan (he may have been a bright guy once, but not by the time he took office) is also way up there. Plus, Reagan's kooky religious ideas were just plain moronic.

Still, these guys had one thing in common: they were the right man, in the right place, at the right time, with the right idea. Grant wasn't a particularly good general. He didn't know much about tactics. His idea of attacking a fortified position was wait until you gathered every soldier you can and then attack on every available front. You'd think this would make him unpopular, but it didn't. His men loved him. He rose through the ranks while fighting ancillary battles west of the main lines, and eventually commanded the Union armies. He recognized that neither he, nor his subordinates, were going to outthink or outmaneuver the Confederates on their own ground. So what did he do? He threw every men, weapon, and bullet at his disposal at them. No other strategy would have worked, particularly in so short a time. He got a lot of men killed, but at least they died accomplishing something. Sadly, Grant was an idiot who didn't make a very good president, but unlike his myriad predecessors he knew what was needed to end the war.

Similarly, the U.S. was in a unique position vis a vis the Soviets when Reagan took office. Nuclear weapons made actual war impossible. The U.S./Soviet cold war also represented the greatest threat to humanity ever faced. It's amazing we didn't blow ourselves up. If actual war was impossible, and cold war had proved futile, what could be done? Economic war. Reagan's economic policies were disastrous in a lot of ways, but he did spend the Soviet Union and its affiliate nations into oblivion. Deficits can be erased (in theory ...), but nuclear explosions are forever.