If we could forget about Watergate, we would have to confront the enormous economic mess he made. Nixon provided just about the most compelling proof that price controls do not work. Triggered or atleast threw gasoline on the inflation that wrecked the seventies, busted the financial system. You are correct that Nixon was progressive – a FAILED progressive.

I will be happy to give Nixon great credit for his foreign policy successes, but it ends there.

I like the inclusion of Augustus, Marcus, and most of the us presidents excluding Nixon. My reasoning for that is based on his treasonous sabotage of the Paris peace talks, and the nightmare he unleashed in Cambodia, He was also a racist homophobic anti semite and a drunk, which we know from the tapes the paranoid loony kept of all his conversations.

Also Woodrow Wilson was an out and out white supremacist, though I do like his foreign policy views and I more or less agree with the nice things you did say about him… I just don’t like racists.

Finally I’d nominate two additional roman emperors, Vespasian, who ended a long period of strife and civil war, and brought a common sense approach to imperial politics that balanced the treasury and rebuilt the social fabric of the city, (famously starting the Colosseum, which while an arena of blood sport, is a lasting cultural landmark and the archetype of all modern stadiums.) Then there was Julian the Apostate, who managed to reestablish the roman empire after a bloody civil war, attempted to end the established theocracy created under Constantine, championed neo platonic philosophy as an alternative to Christianity and a remedy for the sectarian bloodshed plaguing the empire. He was noted for his modesty and hard work… how he died is not entirely known, he was either killed by the Persians or one of his christian bodyguards. Either is likely.

Also for moderns, how about Salman Rushdie? Aside from the rather Socratic fight he had with the Iranian theocracy over his book he’s also been an outspoken critic of Islamism and has made quite a few enemies on the “left” for his views… He is, to be fair a leftist and a close personal friend of Christopher Hitchens who I wouldn’t suggest because he is in no way a moderate, nor would I want him to be. The following interview might also state my case somewhat on Rushdie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn831hlh2L4 You might also add in Irshad Manji as a bonus, after all how many openly gay female Muslim reformists are there? Not many that I’m aware of.