Harry Truman supposedly had a sign on his desk that read “The Buck Stops Here”. Basically, it meant, he was the guy in charge and he was the guy with the responsibility for making the tough decisions. He got a lot of praise (once he left the White House) for that sign. But what has happened since then?
Did other presidents after Truman take responsibility for the mistakes that were made while they were in the White House? Surprisingly, the answer is yes!
Take John F. Kennedy. He had a terrible mis-step with the Bay of Pigs invasion. Yet, he accepted full responsibility for it on April 21, 1961, stating, “There’s an old saying that victory has 100 fathers and defeat is an orphan…I’ve said as much as I feel can be usefully said by me in regard to the events of the past few days. Further statements, detailed discussions, are not to conceal responsibility, because I’m the responsible officer of the government, but merely because I, and that is quite obvious, but merely because I do not believe that such a discussion would benefit us during the present difficult situation.”
Lyndon Baines Johnson never fully accepted any of the blame for his largest mistake, which was to expand the war in Vietnam, and yet, he never blamed others for it either.
Richard Nixon told his speech writer, Ray Price that he should probably put in his resignation speech that he was responsible for his part in the Watergate coverup and raising money for the hush funds of the Watergate burglars.
Gerald Ford never apologized for pardoning Nixon, but he did take responsibility (who else could?).
Jimmy Carter would only say that “we had a lot more work to do to get the economy right” during his terrible tenure as president. Carter basically admitted that he was wrong, but never took full responsibility for it.
Ronald Reagan never accepted responsibility for the Iran/Contra Arms Deal, letting Oliver North and others take the fall for him as he relied on plausible deniability.
George HW Bush admitted after his loss to Bill Clinton that the whole “Read my lips, no new taxes” line was what got him into trouble. He accepted the defeat, but never accepted full responsibility for it, or for the recession that occurred toward the end of his presidency.
Bill Clinton is famous for referring to the Harry Truman sign, saying “The buck never got here!” There were tons of examples in Clinton’s reign where he was at fault and never really apologized or admitted responsibility, with the whole Monica Lewinsky affair being one of them.
George W. Bush never admitted responsibility for the 2008 banking crash and ensuing “Great Recession”. Of course, in that regard, it’s been proven that Democrats in Congress were basically to blame forcing banks to take sub-prime mortgages from people that couldn’t afford to pay them so that “everyone can afford the ‘Great American Dream’ of home ownership.” That fiasco was entirely Congress’ fault (and no, they never apologized for it!).
Barack Obama never apologized or admitted responsibility for any actions while in office, even though his presidency was marred by up to 35 different and separate scandals ranging from tapping telephones of the Associated Press, and Fox News employees, to the whole Benghazi fiasco which killed the US Ambassador to Libya.
Donald Trump never fully admitted responsibility for things that went wrong while he was in the White House. He never accepted responsibility for the January 6th protests at the Capitol. In fact, he was well known to have told people to “Go home and go in peace” during his speech. He never accepted responsibility for his loss to Joe Biden in 2020, refusing to believe to this day that he actually lost. The one thing Trump did apologize for was when he was a candidate and the sex scandal that was made public through Access Hollywood. In fact, he apologized several times in several different ways for it.
As for Joe Biden, he hasn’t admitted that he has any responsibility for the high gas prices. He hasn’t admitted any responsibility for the crisis in the southern border, going so far as to wait six months before he even had anyone in his administration call it “a crisis”. He hasn’t even acknowledged that America has a higher inflation rate than any other country in the world, much less taken responsibility for it. To listen to Joe Biden talk, he is the reason things are going so well. That’s amazing considering only 20% of Americans actually agree with him on that! Consumer confidence is at it’s lowest level in history, and while most Americans feel that a recession is right around the corner, something most economists and the FED agree with, Biden maintains that there’s nothing certain about having a recession during his time in office!
It would seem to me that looking back at the presidents since Harry Truman, that yes, some took responsibility for their actions, and some did not. But only one seems to be so out of touch with what’s happening in the world today that he can’t even get the facts straight. That would be one Joesph Robinette Biden.
Carry on world…you’re dismissed!
The Lone Cactus 