Quote:
Originally Posted by Autumn Demon
I find it odd that Bush is called the 43rd president when there have only been 42 presidents so far. : /
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Grover Cleveland won two non-consecutive terms, so he counted as the 22nd and 24th President.
To put it in perspective: let's say that in this past election no seats were changed amongst the various open Congress positions (i.e. none of the Representatives or Senators lost their positions). So, if none of the positions changed, would we still call the Congress the 110th? No, of course not, it would still be the 111th due to the simple fact that even if the people stayed the same; the very fact that there was an election means that this Congress is "New".
edit: as has been pointed out to me, this logic is immensely flawed
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Concerning Iran and their potential development of nuclear weapons: Obama has an interesting strategy to counter possible Iranian tensions regarding not allowing them to develop nuclear weapons. Specifically, while America will prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons, America will also be destroying/retiring much of their own nuclear arsenal. So, America would be equalizing their position to Iran and the world. Additionally, America could hopefully help Iran, or other developing nations, develop nuclear power plants.