Quote:Without condoning the internment of U.S. citizens, you cannot discount the times in which it occurred. Given your criteria and ignoring what was going on at that time, the list of top 5 U.S. presidents would start with Washington, and include Jefferson, for not insisting that slavery be abolished. How could the immorality of that practice escape one of the greatest minds in history? Jefferson not only owned slaves, he used his position of authority and dominion to   I'd say 400 years of kidnapping and enslaving people trumps just about anything else. Andrew Jackson committed genocide.

 

When you make a list like that, you have many candidates for number 1.

 

There's a difference between ignoring what was going on at the time, and ignoring the time period.

 

You can't excuse what FDR did because "Well, look at what Hitler did."  When nobody in history excuses Hitler for his actions.  Same goes for Kim Jong Un, and the privacy laws in China.  Nobody's giving 'Dubya' a pass because 'well, look at what else was going on in the world'.

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