I guess I must be the ?????

So many great Americans! How about Charles Lindbergh. Eli Whitney. George Washington Carver. Jesse Owens. Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali. Rosa Parks. Neil Armstrong.

I'd probably try to get Frank Lloyd Wright, Walt Disney, and Andrew Carnegie on there somewhere but it's tough to argue with the others.

Who knew Albert Einstein was an American; if I had realized that, I would have put him on my list.

I had Ali on mine, along with Disney (for baoxian). It'll be interesting to see if those who submitted lists will publish them, as they did with the worst Americans. Usually, folks don't. For what it's worth, here's mine:

* Ronald Reagan – nuff said
* Abraham Lincoln – saved the Union, freed the slaves
* George Washington – the Father of the country, etc
* Ben Franklin – dude was the go to guy for almost everything
* Douglas MacArthur – won a few, lost a few, but, always said “America is great, don't mess with us”
* Lewis And Clark – two of the more notable true American adventurers
* Will Rogers – stood tall as a proud American at all times
* Audie Murphy – this 5'5″ 100 pound dynamo made Rambo look like a p*ssy
* Babe Ruth – the greatest baseball player of all time, made the game our national pastime
* Bill Gates – your reading this on a mass produce computer, probably a Windows machine, right?
* Clint Eastwood – a quintessential American actor, epitomizing the “don't f*ck with Americans” attitude
* Frederick Douglas – abolitionist, supporter of women voting, worked for equal rights, and more
* Henry Ford – even Climate Creationists drive cars. One of the defining inventions of all time
* John Glenn – Decorated Naval pilot of two wars, supersonic flights, first American to circle the Earth in space, great politician
* Lucille Ball – really, did anyone do more for women in entertainment than her? Beloved by all Americans
* Muhammed Ali – larger than life
* Susan B. Anthony – women's rights and voting rights
* Wright Brothers – first real powered flight
* Walt Disney – he told Americans “Dream Big!”
* Bob Hope – the work this man has done for our troops during his life is immeasurable
* John Wayne – bigger than life, brash, the ultimate version of an American male

Good list . No one from the Arts? I vote Irving Berlin.

Good list William, but as a liberal I would have to ax Reagan and replace him with FDR. LOL

Your comments about Bill Gates made me think this: I am writing this on a MacBook Pro. So isn't America what it is because there is always a Steve Jobs to push a Bill Gates into make a better product? Just thinking out loud.

I'd probably throw in Pierpont Morgan, but, hey, I'm a finance geek. The guy financed some of the titans of American industry and personally staunched the panics of 1893 and 1907.

Hmmm, imagine that. Competition makes for better products? Who knew?

Good point about Jobs. I thought about making it Bill Gates/Steve Jobs, since, they really started together, but, Steve went his own way, but Bill really made the personal PC happen with Windows, not too mention most companies and governments worldwide using Windows. But, yeah, competition is great.

That's a pretty good list. Light years ahead of the previous crappy “worst” list.

I'll have to think about this a little.

Here is the list I submitted.

1) George Washington
2) Abraham Lincoln
3) Thomas Jefferson
4) Calvin Coolidge
5) John Quincy Adams
6) Benjamin Franklin
7) John Marshall
9) Thomas Edison
10) John D. Rockefeller
11) Clara Barton
13) James Madison
14) Henry Ford
15) Mark Twain
16) Ronald Reagan
17) Thomas Paine
18) Andrew Carnegie
19) Wright Brothers
20) Noah Webster

I wish I had submitted a list with the top people from each group (politics, arts, etc). I did the best I could.

Henry Ford was a rabid anti-semite and would be at home with the GZ mosque supporters. He is not a great American. Sam Walton should be on the list. He is one of the greatest capitalist ever. Created a business that Ford and Gates can only dream of. Redfined an industry almsot single handedly and yes brought inexpensive goods to the masses. Andrew Carnegie not only was he a successful businessman, he used his fortune to build libraries all over America. If you are going to have a movie star bum like John Wayne, Bob Hope would be a better choice due to his USO tours and service to our military heroes.

And while I agree with most of this list, here are a few that could have been on the list (imNho)…
•Every Man that signed the Declaration of Independence
•Babe Ruth
•Senator Joe McCarthy
•Lewis & Clark
•Steve Jobs
•Bob Hope
•Sam Walton
•Apollo 11 Astronauts
•Norman Rockwell
•Paul Harvey
•Helen Keller
•Whittaker Chambers
•Jimmy Doolittle
•Chuck Yeager
•Billy Graham

Whittaker Chambers and Billy Graham are two big ones I didn't think of.

Not Americans, “Figures In American History.”

Henry Ford didn't invent the car. He gave us the consept of the modern assembly line.
Glad to see John Glenn on your list. He gets overlooked quite a bit…
To me, number one has to be Benjamin Franklin. Statesman, Patriot, inventor, and a ladies man to boot. That's AMERICAN right there. If George Washington was the father of our country, it was Ben that did the delivery…

They used to teach that in school…

Agreed. I'd add William Faulkner and Ansel Adams

Competition and cooperation. There is a place and time for both.

My list:

- George Washington
- Thomas Jefferson
- Alexander Graham Bell
- Thomas Edison
- George Washington Carver
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
- Lewis Burwell “Chesty” Puller
- Audie Murphy
- Vernon Baker (African-American WWII Medal of Honor winner, passed away earlier this year)

So many great Americans to choose from, so little time.

I'd have to add Patrick Henry, first Gov of Virginia who ushered in the first Declaration of Independece for the colony Virginia and speaker of “Give me liberty or give me death.”

Oh, and Iggy Pop.

those are all fine selection but you forgot two..my dad and my mom
He fought in WW II, lived during the great depression, worked hard all his life, helped me, my brother and sister grow up, has been a great grandfather to my kids and a super great grandfather for my grandkids…
All two of the greatest Americans I know

Bill Gates through Microsoft saved Apple back in the middle 90's by buying a good share of its stock. This was after Apple had tried to correct the biggest error of its time (back then): the firing of Steve Jobs. They brought Jobs back, but the damage had been done.

The cluster bomb that was Jobs' departure would work itself out by the late 90's, but if it wasn't for Microsoft, there would be no i-products, or even Apple.

I've considered you the ?????????? for years, Paul.

There are so many men and women to choose from perhaps it would have been better to select the “Greatest Figures in American History” by era or century. I'd like to make a suggestion of my own, for Army Colonel Robert Howard, MOH winner in Vietnam. Then Sgt. Howard served 54 months in Vietnam with the 5th Special Forces Group, the infamous SOG, was wounded 14 times and was awarded 8 Purple Hearts, as well as the DSC, multiple Silver Stars and multiple Bronze Stars. He was a true American hero, and passed away at the age of 80 this past year. They don't make em much like Bob Howard any longer.

Where's Jimmy Carter?

Ringmaster:
Noted that Calvin Coolidge and John Quincy Adams are near the top of your list. I'm an actor of solo history (one-man shows) Coolidge and JQA are two men I portray. Their elective terms are a Century apart. Mr. Adams takes office in 1825 and “Silent Cal” presides over the “Roaring Twenties.” As I have come to know these gentlemen better it becomes increasingly clear that Coolidge was our last conservative president and JQA our first liberal. Adams thought the role of government was to improve the lot of the people and Coolidge held that the government should leave the people alone.
Had this been my list I might have added that Yankee Doodle Dandy – George M. Cohan.

Forget “conservatism,” please. It has, operationally, de facto, been Godless and thus irrelevant. Secular conservatism will not defeat secular liberalism because to God they are two atheistic peas-in-a-pod and thus predestined to failure. As Stonewall Jackson's Chief of Staff R.L. Dabney said of such a humanistic belief more than 100 years ago:

??”[Secular conservatism] is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today .one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt hath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It .is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth.”??Our country is collapsing because we have turned our back on God (Psalm 9:17) and refused to kiss His Son (Psalm 2).

?John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
Recovering Republican
JLof@aol.com