The Greatest American
 

Discovery Channel did a viewer vote on who was the "Greatest American."
Yep, 100 of America's Best (as thought by America's worst)
Here is a quote I found regarding it and it sums my thoughts up about it nicely.

Well, the votes are in on Discovery Channel's Greatest American contest. Ronald Reagan is the Greatest American of all time. What a farce. Never mind that voters had the audacity to place Bob Hope, Oprah Winfrey and Lance Armstrong in the Top 20. Never mind that the original 100 included colossal jokes such as Madonna. The fact that these names don't belong close to a Top 100 Americans of all time should be woefully obvious.
But we can see how some people may forget as Reagan fades into a revisionist-history haze. So let's revisit the man who said that trees cause pollution and whose administration designated ketchup as a vegetable, favoring the almighty dollar over the health of schoolchildren.
This is, after all, the man who illegally sold weapons to Iran and used the money to fund the fascist death squads of the Contras in Nicaragua and then claimed he could not recall anything about it. But in fairness, perhaps the Alzheimer's had begun to set in by then.
Even the Discovery Channel was at a loss to come up with positive marks for Reagan. On its Web site, www.dsc.discovery.com, it notes only that he was "The Great Communicator" and that he gave us "Reaganomics." As if those were good things. Iran-Contra, while a disgusting footnote in American history, has nothing on the bloated federal deficits we have inherited from the Reagan administration and its backward economic policies.
After Watergate, our faith in government was on a respirator when Reagan came to power. And by casting off the belief in fiscal responsibility shared by his conservative antecessors, destroying our social net with fictional tales of "welfare queens" driving Cadillacs and further eroding our faith in the ability and decency of our leaders, Reagan clenched his hands around the throat of the dying American Dream and slowly squeezed the life from it, chomping jelly beans and grinning that stupid grin all the while.
It was only after he had already tossed the American Dream's lifeless corpse into a coffin that our current administration was able to nail the casket shut. In the end, we look at Reagan not so much with hatred as with sadness, like Michael Corleone saying to his inept older brother, "I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart. You broke my heart!
Here are some great Americans we think should have made the list instead of, say, Tom Cruise or Tiger Woods:
Mark Felt -- a.k.a. "Deep Throat"(Over Madonna)

Osceola -- historic leader of the Seminole Tribe(Over Bob Hope)

Louis Armstrong -- jazz great(I'll give it to you)

Ted Nugent -- rocker, outdoorsman and family man(Honorable mention)

Samuel Adams -- patriot and brewer(Hellz yeah)

George W. Bush was number 6 on the list.

George W. Bush...

Who were the mindless farts that came up with this list?!

Dear God, it was us.

I retract the digs on Sweaty Uncle Teddy. At least he keeps his killing restricted to animals.

Everyone in the UK should hang their heads in sorrow on July 4th.

Indeed... It makes sense. If the US can celebrate breaking free from British rule and becoming independant, we can remember the times we owned your asses :).

I meant that we should mourn for creating this free nation of idiots. It never happened to Australia...

This "Greatest Americans" list seems to suffer from the typical "overly-simplified-test-group-attempts-to-create-comprehensive-list" syndrome. Gather up some excessively enthusiastic, prejudiced persons, tally their thoughts, and this is the kind of crap that comes out. Regardless of topic or place, when was the last time anybody read some "definitive" or "top 100" style list from some "official" source and didn't call it a crock of shit? I remember that Rolling Stone's top 500 song list all too well...

The point is, there's no need to invest any sort of interest in stuff like this. They satisfy the makers and their followers, and that's about it. If people responding to a television vote were really the end all voice to determine the greatest Americans, the world would be a sad, sad place.

I hope there were some people involved in charity there. If not, then they really have their priorities wrong.

Ronald Reagan?

What about JFK? Armstrong and Aldrin? The Wright Brothers?

Or what about Andrew Carnegie? He was the worlds richest man when he retired at the age of 66 in 1901, and he gave all his money away to help other people. He did that for the good of the many, and he is an inspirational example of the good will of mankind.

There have been so many truly great Americans, and they are what made America the greatest nation on Earth...but there are all these other false heroes who undo all the good that these people have done. How can a moron like George Bush, or insignificant donothing like Ronald Reagan, take places that should've been given to people like the founding fathers?

They all made it, but they didn't sell enough weapons to terrorists to fund rightist death squads to be number 1.

Andrew Carnegie made the list?

What position was he?

I believe he was right between Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake, he was pretty high up there too.

What were Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake doing there?

What have they ever done that's so great?

It was a joke, at least I hope it was.

if generalizing all americans as idiots from a television broadcast is cool, i think it's then fair to say that america tells england what to do, that all english people have bad teeth, and smell like sardines.




christ, what are we, four year olds?

No, but we have the right to act like them every once in a while, you big doodoohead.

There was a similarly done Greatest Britons enormous TV event done a few years ago on the BBC. I believe Winston Churchill came top, with Princess Diana close behind. Don't remember any others, but you can be sure people like J. K. Rowling featured.

It was either saying that or just quoting one of Dino's posts, but that adds NOTHING.

I can't believe they forgot John Rockefeller, but they squeezed on Micheal Jackson, Madona, and Hephner.

Personally, I would have voted for Nikola Tesla of Teddy Roosevelt.

That Brunel bloke who built the bridge was in it. I think Johnny Rotten or someone should have won it.

Henry Ford should've won America.

Charles Darwin or one of our monachs should have won the British one.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Richard Trevithick are the greatest brits hands down. Those two along with Bolton and Watt, and all the various other inventors and architects of the industrial revolution, are largely responsible for making Britain the world's first industrial power. Thanks to them, for over 100 years, Britain was the industrial center pf the world, and will always be remembered as where industry began. They're also the greatest engineering minds who ever lived, and have contributed more to Britain and the world as a whole than any other person ever has or ever will.

You're probably right.
A shame I'm familiar with none of those names, though I don't doubt their greatness.

Well, Richard Trevithick invented the steam road engine, car and the steam locomotive.

Yeah. Pretty big inventions. :p

How about Thomas Crapper? Surely he's due a mention . ;)