Reading about Germany's Angela Merkel leaving after 16 years - Which elected American President

[walkingman]

would you have liked to see serve that long, if any?

Born in 1950, my choices would be either Jimmy Carter or Barack Obama - I think I would lean towards Jimmy Carter.

I would immediately eliminate Reagan. Although "W" Bush and Trump were both disgusting I honestly think that Reagan did the most damage to our country overall. "W" probably did more damage to humanity worldwide than any other and Trump was/is just a buffoon who almost destroyed our Democracy but didn't succeed....yet.

[iemanja]

1. Obama

but in reality, I'm glad they don't serve that long, or we'd still have Reagan's corpse as president.

[walkingman]

4. The only factor that made me choose Carter over Obama

is I didn't like his attitude towards the drone program. IMO, Reagan started our slide toward autocracy that has continued even to this day.

[FakeNoose]

2. John F. Kennedy

Or even better, 2 terms of John and 2 terms of his brother Bobby.

The amazing thing about Angela Merkel that is seldom mentioned by the western media is that she grew up in Communist East Germany. She earned a doctorate in Quantum Chemistry in 1986. The reunification of East & West Germany in 1989 and the fall of the Soviet Union by 1992 affected her profoundly and she entered politics as a young woman. She participated in the rebuilding of Eastern Germany and helped to modernize and mold it to what it is today. I'm sure that her brilliant leadership gave the East Germans the confidence to become full partners in what Germany has become since the EU was formed. Angela Merkel helped to make it all happen.

[walkingman]

6. I admire JFK historically but as a 10 year old I remember the strong resentment

for him in the South because of his push for civil rights. And from what I read Robert might have been even better than his brother. I was too young to really know how it went. No doubt that JFK might have been the most inspirational leader of my lifetime and I think he inspired our nation to finally do something about civil rights under LBJ.

Personally, if not for Vietnam, I would have said LBJ but Vietnam is too big to overlook.

[Aristus]

3. Although sixteen years of Jimmy Carter would have been nice,

just getting him a second term for a total of eight years would have been enough. So much of the shit we're dealing with these days stems from Reagan and his misbegotten administration.

[beaglelover]

5. None, that's way too long to have one person in charge.

[walkingman]

7. I think that it takes at minimum 8 years for a POTUS to make major accomplishments

however, depending on if the Build Back Better plan is passed Biden's accomplishments might be historical.

[BlueCheeseAgain]

8. The closest we've come since FDR was probably the Reagan-Bush years...

Which could be thought of as one 12-year administration.

16 years is a long time for one leader in a democratic government. If I had to pick one, though, it'd probably be Obama. Things were great with Clinton, but unfortunately he had so much personal drama all the time. Obama was a very able leader who also had an impeccable personal life. While one could argue that shouldn't be important, it does matter with our media.