U.S. historians rate their president

[Melissa G]

I think Bush is lower But what do you think DUers?...



U.S. historians rate their president

Bush is bad, but there were worse

MICHAEL LIND



Richard Nixon




Andrew Johnson



(Jan 2, 2007)

It's unfair to claim that George W. Bush is the worst president of all time. He's merely the fifth worst. In the White House Hall of Shame, Bush comes behind four others whose policies were even more disastrous: James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Richard M. Nixon and James Madison.

What makes a president horribly, immortally bad? Poor luck is not enough. Some of the greatest presidents, such as Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt, inherited crises and rose to the occasion. The damage must be largely self-inflicted. And there's another test: The damage to the nation must be substantial. Minor blunders and petty crimes do not land a president in the rogues' gallery.

Doing nothing can be even worse than doing something wrong. Take the worst president of all time, Buchanan. In office when Lincoln's election in 1860 triggered the secession of one Southern state after another, Buchanan sat by as the country crumbled. In his December 1860 message to Congress, three months before Lincoln was inaugurated, he declared that the states had no right to secede, but that the federal government had no right to stop them. By the time he left office, seven states had left the Union, and the Confederates had looted the arsenals in the South.

If Buchanan had exercised his powers as commander in chief, the rebels might have been stopped at far less than the eventual cost of the Civil War -- more than half a million American dead and the ruin of the South for generations. (After he left the White House, Buchanan explained that he did not stop secession for fear that hostile blacks would overrun the North.)

http://www.therecord.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=record/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1167691813637&call_pageid=1024322168441&col=1024322596091

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Nixon certainly was an over-all better leader than the chimp! I really

don't know about the other 3 since they were before my time. If I got to vote, Georgie would be listed as 'Worst President in the History of the United States'!!

[terrya]

2. These lists, I guess, are very subjective.

I would rank Bush as the worst. I personally rank Bush lower than Nixon. God help me that I'm even defending Nixon even slightly, but he had some things in his domestic record (revenue sharing with the states, creation of the Environmental Protection Agency) and there was his trip to China and detente with the Soviet Union. SALT II began under Nixon, if I remember correctly.

Bush has nothing positive in his legacy. Nothing but failure.

[Wickerman]

5. Hey Terrya, I found myself in the same odd predicament

on NYE. Was arguing politics with some good liberals so it was friendly, but yeah, it was tough sledding arguing Nixon as a marginally better president than Bush. :crazy:

:hi:

[terrya]

8. It really is tough, Wickerman.

I remember when the contents of the White House Tapes surfaced, showing Nixon as a vile Anti-Semitic, racist, homophobic, vindictive slime bucket. I was nauseated. It is very hard to defend Nixon even marginally.

And then...then came George W. Bush.

:hi:

[Melissa G]

10. I'm with you..There were still some admirable qualities to Nixon's

presidency..some of his foreign policy for instance. At least the man was capable of thought and interest in the outside world. Shrub is pretty much devoid of redeeming qualities..

[ellisonz]

29. Please...

Nixon is not primarily responsible for "opening China", detente or SALT II. I mean, give Henry Kissenger his due credit. He may be a war criminal but he's one smart, skillful dude, as opposed to Nixon. Kissenger ran that foreign policy.

[Warpy]

3. Stupid man, limiting his focus to war, only

No president before this one has managed to roll all the flaws of the bad presidents into one miserable package. He is as imperial as Nixon, as feckless as Buchanan, as belligerent as Polk, as uncaring of citizens as A. Johnson, as big an economic bungler as Coolidge, Harding and Hoover, as utterly lacking in wit as Fillmore, and he's the only president to alienate foes and allies, alike.

What a useless article by a GOP apologist!

[dave_p]

4. Huh?

" was the only president to run a criminal gang out of the White House, engaging in spying and burglary while he sought to corrupt the Justice Department, the FBI and the CIA. (By contrast, Bush's misguided authorization of torture, secret CIA prisons and illegal eavesdropping were at least directed at suspected terrorists, not at his personal and political opponents.)

Oh yes? How do we know? This sure looks like a "criminal gang" to me. And we saw how this Administration's priorities corrupted the FBI & CIA - or at least their intelligence and operational effectiveness - in 2001 and 2002.

Nixon got found out. But he didn't holiday while enemies prepared a successful attack on the US. He didn't discredit the US in the eyes of most of the world as a thuggish, uninformed aggressor. he didn't send troops without even adequate body protection into an illegal war contrary to US interests while handing tax cuts to his super-rich friends.

[lancdem]

6. Hey, fifth worst is still pretty bad

worse than his dad, whom Shrub was determined to outdo.

[valerief]

7. I guess if you can make your crimes look like bad luck, then you've

earned yourself some goody points.

[Parche]

9. Worst

I disagree, and I am a 'history buff'

I know GW Bush is the worst President in history
followed by Nixon, Buchanan, Harding


Madison was one of the best, and would have been almost top, except for the War of 1812


GW Bush IS THE WORST of all time

Iraq
NSA
Torture
Debt
Oil

[NCarolinawoman]

18. Add to your list: Katrina and ignoring global warming.

Nixon had:

The Clean Water Act

The Clean Air Act

Endangered species Act

Bush has tried and succeeded in weakening everyone of them,. Not to mention going back on his own father's promise of: "No net loss of wetlands".

[Hoosier Dem]

11. As a former college history professor...

When I was teaching US History (before the 200 Selection), I used to tell my students that I considered two presidents to be "total failures": Ulysses grant and Warren Harding.

I also considered two presidents to be "Bad Presidents": James Buchanan and Richard Nixon (I give Nixon credit for his environmental legislation and helping to ease tensions with Moscow and Beijing).

I guess for Dumbya, I'm going to creat a new category: Rock-Bottom, Totally Worthless.

I have to disagree with the failure assessment on Andrew Johnson. Johnson stood up for Lincoln's plan to heal the union after the Civil War but had his every moved blocked by Radical Republicans. Even his Impeachment was nothing more than a Republican power-grab (much like what they did to Clinton in 1998-1999).

[Melissa G]

13. Rock Bottom, Totally Worthless... It fits!

Good category!

[jwirr]

12. I would say *ss is the worst ever but it is too soon to evaluate it.

Some of the results of his actions will be apparent for years to come. His refusal to address global warming issues, alternative energy issues, health care issues, the destabalization of the entire ME. All of these issues needed immediate attention while he was cutting brush on his play ground in Texas. Historians will have all this to add insight when they make the new list: GWB will be at the bottom of the barrel.

[RaleighNCDUer]

14. What put Madison on that list?

Just because the capitol was sacked by the strongest army on earth while he was in office? The nation did survive that war, and under a different president it might not have - IIRC he had only been in office a few months when the war broke out, so it wasn't even his doing that got us there.

Or is there a lot more that I don't know about Madison?

[NCarolinawoman]

17. Uh, yes, I object to that one.

He is one of my favorite founding fathers. (obviously).

What are we missing here?

:shrug:

[liberalpragmatist]

20. Probaby something to do with the fact that the War of 1812 was pointless

It was utterly stupid, fought on ridiculous premises and accomplished absolutely nothing for the United States. There was no reason to declare war when the Americans did declare - by that point, the British had STOPPED "impressing" American sailors into the British navy.

That said, I'm no expert on Madison, so maybe his role in launching that war was minimal.

[RaleighNCDUer]

21. One thing it did do was make certain that the US would never

return to Great Britain, even in Commonwealth. Before the war there was some lingering pro-royalist sentiment, particularly in the south, but never again after it. I have no idea if that was a factor in the starting of the war, however. And it did establish the US as the preeminent power in this hemisphere, but that might be seen more as a serendipitous result than any planned effect from the war.

[Contrary1]

15. Too early to rate Junior...

he is far from being done in his task to ruin America.

[Melissa G]

19. sad but true...no telling how low we will let Shrub drag us...

:cry: I'm praying for some patriot action in this country!:patriot:

[yellowcanine]

16. Bush is worse than Nixon. Nixon was a crook (despite his denial) but he at least did not

completely undermine the U.S. position abroad - in fact it could be argued that his opening to China was rather skillfully done and quite valuable to the U.S. in the long run. Now, it is also true that Nixon was one of the main obstacles to normal relations with China in the first place. And Humphrey likely would have seized the moment as well had he been President. But give Nixon credit - he did the right thing in that instance.

[Joe Chi Minh]

27. Even Hunter S Thompson said he'd jump at the chance to

vote for Nixon in preference to Bush, though he seems to have (rightly) spent most of his adult life reviling Nixon.

[ellisonz]

30. Except for Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos 1968-1974.

Johnson may have started the tragedy, but Nixon certainly made sure there were 4 or 5 encores. Bastard.

[MasterDarkNinja]

22. Worse then Buchanan maybe, but not the others

What did Madison do to get on your list of worst presidents? I don't think he was that great of a president, but he didn't do that much harm to us I can think of.

Johnson I don't really know enough about to rate.

I wasn't born yet while Nixon was president, but reading the replies here it sounds like he at least accomplished a couple of good things. Plus the disasters Nixon created are nowhere near as bad as the disasters Bush has made.

Bush meanwhile has accomplished what? Lets see here, off the top of my head.

-More then doubled our national debt since taking office (it was at around 4 trillion dollars when he took office, and his reign isn't even over yet)

-Destroyed a lot of our credibility within the international community.

-Rushed us into a war with Iraq based on false claims that he probably knew to be false at the time, such as claims that they had nuclear weapons.

-Destroyed the USA's reputation as a leader in civil rights for POW by openly violating the Geneva Convention, possibly putting our troops in even more danger in future wars by encouraging people who capture them to not follow Geneva Convention rule either. Why bother if we won't do the same to their troops.

-Making our relationships with other countries who already hated us even worse by declaring them a part of his Axis of evil, possibly even making them rush to develop nuclear weapons out of fear that Bush will invade them otherwise just like he did to Iraq.

And I'm sure I'm forgetting quite a few other failures of Bush.

[Hoosier Dem]

25. Don't forget his heroic performance during Katrina!!

[SaveElmer]

23. Eric Foner rating W the worst carried alot of weight with me...

He is one of my favorite historians. I have always rated Buchanan the worst, with Andrew Johnson, Warren Harding, Richard Nixon and W, with Coolidge and Hoover in there as well...

But if a guy like Foner, who has mde the Civil War and reconstruction his lifes work thinks W is worse than Buchanan and Johnson...who am I to argue!!!

[Spearman87]

24. Fun stuff but he has 2 years to go. You really need the

perspective of many years hindsight to rate them. Meanwhile, Bush has a new Democrat congress for 2 years and may work with them on a couple of issues here and there (immigration, healthcare?). You can't get a good rating while the Presidential body of work is still warm, let alone when it's not even dead yet.

[BoneDaddy]

26. I think time will tell

The four who precede Bush have had the luxury of being studied over time.

I think that in 50 years, Bush will rise like rotten cream to the top of that group. His decisions will be seen as the origin of much future and destructive conflict.

[against all enemies]

28. Probably correct, Bush is too incompetent to be #1 at anything.

[ellisonz]

31. My semi-qualified list:

1. Nixon - Prolonged Vietnam, Watergate
2. G.W. Bush - Iraq et al.
3. LBJ - Vietnam undermined the Great Society, and Johnson would eventually leave office a downtrodden man.
4. Herbert Hoover - Great Depression.
5. William McKinley - see Phillipines Insurgency/Ineffectual Old Man.

The problem with these "consensus" lists is that they're all trying out "historicize" eachother without looking at what really mattered to the country and what the President's role in it was.