Worst President in US History [Archive] - Comic Book Resources Forums

ragnarok_2012

11-30-2006, 08:30 PM

In your opinion: who is the all-time worst United States President?

I'd argue that it's Richard Nixon.

He had drug problems (alcohol, sleeping pills, amphetamine, and the recreational use of Dilantin of all things) that seriously impaired his judgment. He was spectacularly corrupt (e.g., asked for & got a $205,000 bribe from Howard Hughes as V.P. Sold ambassadorships as President. Etc.). He wasn't particularly competent.

And to top it all off, he tried to run the White House with neither transparency nor accountability.

I'm glad that there isn't a President in this century that can be compared to Nixon in any way shape or form.

At all. :D

rick

11-30-2006, 08:31 PM

Prez.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/46/Prez3.jpg

Fucking hippy pinko bastard.

Screw you, ya damm hardhart recationary.

Prez was like, the real thing man.

He was beautiful and full of sunshine, he was a big orange tab of love!

sherlockbones

11-30-2006, 08:36 PM

no jimmy carter?

Bear

11-30-2006, 08:36 PM

Bear

11-30-2006, 08:37 PM

no jimmy carter?

Maybe ineffective; but still a decent soul.

Michael P

11-30-2006, 08:37 PM

"They called him the Great Communicator." Why?!
He had great speechwriters.

rick

11-30-2006, 08:39 PM

I'd argue that it's Richard Nixon.

He had drug problems (alcohol, sleeping pills, amphetamine, and the recreational use of Dilantin of all things) that seriously impaired his judgment. He was spectacularly corrupt (e.g., asked for & got a $205,000 bribe from Howard Hughes as V.P. Sold ambassadorships as President. Etc.). He wasn't particularly competent.

And to top it all off, he tried to run the White House with neither transparency nor accountability.

I'm glad that there isn't a President in this century that can be compared to Nixon in any way shape or form.

At all. :D

I've got to say that history is actually being pretty kind to Nixon in many ways.

He is commonly recognized as one of the best writers and thinkers of late 20th century international politics, his environmental programs have been praised by even his harshest critics. And as the first Republican to actively embrace Civil Rights, Nixon pushed for full integration of all Americans.

This is not to say that the man didn’t have his problems. :)

But there are a whole bunch worse at the job then he was.

That whole bunch like Buchanan, Fillmore and Pierce who sat by while the country plunged toward Civil War certainly deserve to be nominated for worst.

And personally I’m no fan of Woodrow Wilson not only for lying about peace while planning for war, but also for his administrations crushing attacks on dissent.

Carter is one hell of an ex-President, but his time in office was simply awful, but at least his heart was in the right place, even if his competence wasn’t.

Of course none of them were the worst.

Jack Zodiac

11-30-2006, 08:41 PM

Warren G. Harding sucked kinda' hard. He was the original oil scandal President. :p He supported Prohibition. He ignored international affairs after WWI. Also, I heard he was a real dickface.

Andrew Johnson was a real cocksucker, too. After the Civil War, when he became the President, he didn't do much of anything for the Reconstruction effort except get the ball rolling, and he opposed the Freedmen's Bureau and civil rights legislation in the years that followed the abolition of slavery. Oh, and the two impeachment trials. Also, I heard he was a real dickface.

Bear

11-30-2006, 08:47 PM

I've got to say that history is actually being pretty kind to Nixon in many ways.

He is commonly recognized as one of the best writers and thinkers of late 20th century international politics, his environmental programs have been praised by even his harshest critics. And as the first Republican to actively embrace Civil Rights, Nixon pushed for full integration of all Americans.

This is not to say that the man didn’t have his problems. :)

Agreed. One thing I respected about Nixon--and I think Oliver Stone's film was really responsible for softening him up to me--was that he was a Quaker, and very loyal to his wife Pat.

i_mmmchocolate

11-30-2006, 08:49 PM

I choose Herbert Hoover. I don't remember anything good about that guy. He was the president during the great depression.

Tages

11-30-2006, 08:55 PM

The Unholy Quintet:

1. Lincoln
2. Wilson
3. FDR
4. Truman
5. Johnson

And Bush II is making it a sextet the second he's out of office.

Jack Zodiac

11-30-2006, 08:55 PM

I choose Herbert Hoover. I don't remember anything good about that guy. He was the president during the great depression.

He cracked down on private oil companies using federal land and started the national park program, but yeah... he had that nice, big, black Great Depression mark on his career.

Almost every president does at least something right, even if they do a whole fucking lot of dumb shit.

ragnarok_2012

11-30-2006, 09:00 PM

Agreed. One thing I respected about Nixon--and I think Oliver Stone's film was really responsible for softening him up to me--was that he was a Quaker, and very loyal to his wife Pat.

Read The Arrogance of Power sometime. That book is insanely well documented.

Nixon cheated on his wife. He hit her at least twice.

As for religion, I think he was everything to everyone. He was Catholic to Catholics, Mormon to Mormons, etc.

When out of office in the 60's he often attended the services of Norman Vincent Peale. He was close to Peale and Billy Graham.

Nixon lied a lot, so it's hard to know exactly where he stood in terms of religion.

Solaris

11-30-2006, 09:01 PM

Prez.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/46/Prez3.jpg

Fucking hippy pinko bastard.

Oh my gods, I'd forgotten about that comic!

Now I feel old... I remember seeing it brand new in stores.

Solaris

11-30-2006, 09:03 PM

Playing Paradox here for a moment...

"_______" lied a lot, so it's hard to know exactly where he stood in terms of religion.

How many times is deja vu supposed to happen?

:D

jade_nova

11-30-2006, 09:03 PM

Lincoln. His presidency caused states to leave the country and plunge this nation into war. If he wasn't elected president South Carolina might not have left.

Valmore

11-30-2006, 09:06 PM

Andrew Jackson.

Haunt

11-30-2006, 09:11 PM

i don't like Polk.

Iangould

11-30-2006, 09:11 PM

I have to say that although I'm not especially fond of Reagan (Iran Contras, Reaganomics, Cold War, Deficit), somehow the communists seemed to truly fear "the madman Reagan;" and yet he always appeared so chipper and upbeat. What an actor.

I don't think we'd have the war that we have today if Reagan were President. He would have nuked--he was just that damn hawkish. As terrible an idea as that could ever be.

Some have even said he was senile while in office. "They called him the Great Communicator." Why?!

Reagan has a LOT of negatives - but his defenders can point to the fall of communism.

Nixon's defenders can point to the opening of diplomatic relatiosn with China and the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.

Maybe its jsut the passage of time but I don't think I've ever heard of any positive achievements from either Andrew Johnson or Warren G. Harding.

So I'd say they and the current incumbent are jostling for the bottom spot with Jimmy Carter not far above them.

Jack Zodiac

11-30-2006, 09:14 PM

Maybe its jsut the passage of time but I don't think I've ever heard of any positive achievements from either Andrew Johnson or Warren G. Harding.

Nope. Harding had being completely inept on his side, though, so while he wasn't directly responsible for a lot of the shit that happened during his presidency, he was still incapable of figuring out that all of his friends were corrupt fucks and couldn't do shit about 'em. Johnson, on the other hand, was just an out and out asshole, and the only thing "good" he did, he did half-assed with a post-it note Lincoln left before he was killed.

Iangould

11-30-2006, 09:14 PM

5. Johnson

Andrew or Lyndon?

rick

11-30-2006, 09:23 PM

Read The Arrogance of Power sometime. That book is insanely well documented.

Nixon cheated on his wife. He hit her at least twice.

As for religion, I think he was everything to everyone. He was Catholic to Catholics, Mormon to Mormons, etc.

When out of office in the 60's he often attended the services of Norman Vincent Peale. He was close to Peale and Billy Graham.

Nixon lied a lot, so it's hard to know exactly where he stood in terms of religion.

Tony Summers is the self styled "Master of Scandal" and has written political and movie star gossip tomes.

I would take anything he writes with a serious grain of salt.

Especially the bits about Dick hitting Pat.

Honestly I find that almost impossible to believe.

As for religion, Nixon actually was a Quaker.

He might not have been a great one, but it was the church he was raised in.

Matthew E

11-30-2006, 09:50 PM

Come on, you guys; Luthor was obviously the worst.

Frodo-X

11-30-2006, 09:59 PM

Hard to say, as we only know the specifics of those in our lifetimes.

I mean, tell me 10 things that Grover Cleveland did. Unless you're a history buff, you can't.

Bear

11-30-2006, 10:00 PM

Reagan has a LOT of negatives - but his defenders can point to the fall of communism.

And many also credit Pope John Paul II alternatively.

Communism isn't really gone, is it. Maybe not like it was--in the eastern block. But Russia teeter toters. And China and Nam are still communist--even though China lends us money, and Nam takes our jobs.

Bear

11-30-2006, 10:02 PM

Hard to say, as we only know the specifics of those in our lifetimes.

I mean, tell me 10 things that Grover Cleveland did. Unless you're a history buff, you can't.

Grover Cleveland was elected twice, with another president inbetween his two terms.

He is noted as being one of the most studious and hard working of all presidents; also for having fathered an illegitimate child.

Mike Smash!

11-30-2006, 10:02 PM

Some many terrible presidents...

Richard Nixon (entrenching us further into Vietnam, Watergate, terribly corrupt all around )
George W. Bush (lied to get us into an illegal war, trashed civil liberties, shredded church/state separation)
Ronald Reagan (entrenched Saddam Hussein, Latin American policy tantamount to genocide, claimed that most pollution was caused by trees)
Woodrow Wilson (trashed civil liberties with the Espionage and Sedition Acts that made speaking out against World War I illegal, got us into WWI after promising that he wouldn't, two-faced racist prick who passed the government's first federal segregation laws.)
Andrew Jackson (Trail of Tears, evil racist prick)
LBJ (Thanks for the Vietnam War, asshole)
Harry Truman (Dropping the atomic bomb on civilian targets, excelerated the Cold War, kicked off the modern military industrial complex)

Bear

11-30-2006, 10:05 PM

Some many terrible presidents...

Richard Nixon (entrenching us further into Vietnam, Watergate, terribly corrupt all around )
George W. Bush (lied to get us into an illegal war, trashed civil liberties, shredded church/state separation)
Ronald Reagan (entrenched Saddam Hussein, Latin American policy tantamount to genocide, claimed that most pollution was caused by trees)
Woodrow Wilson (trashed civil liberties with the Espionage and Sedition Acts that made speaking out against World War I illegal, got us into WWI after promising that he wouldn't, racist prick who passed the government's first federal segregation laws.)
Andrew Jackson (Trail of Tears, evil racist prick)
LBJ (Thanks for the Vietnam War, asshole)
Harry Truman (Dropping the atomic bomb on civilian targets)

I dig your bullets. :)

howyadoin

11-30-2006, 10:19 PM

Has Reagan been dead long enough for me to call him an incompetent douchebag?

Mike Smash!

11-30-2006, 10:21 PM

Has Reagan been dead long enough for me to call him an incompetent douchebag?

Go for it.

StoneGold

11-30-2006, 10:22 PM

Bill Jemas.

Bear

11-30-2006, 10:22 PM

i don't like Polk.

"54o 40' or fight!" Am I right.

Was a total jackass.

And speaking of Jackasses, I learned an interesting fact today while researching Andrew Jackson. Apparently, he was frequently referred to by members of the opposition as "Jackass." Couldn't have been for that Native American smallpox incident you suppose? Might have used a stronger term.

But anyway, Jackson seemed to like this insult so much, that he and his supporters affectionately referred to themselves as "Jackasses." And today those people are known to us as the Democratic party.

Now where the hell that elephant came from, I'm not sure.

howyadoin

11-30-2006, 10:23 PM

Go for it.I think I already did. But what kind of a fucking shit-for-brains calls Nazis war heroes?

Sir Tim Drake

11-30-2006, 11:01 PM

Hard to say, as we only know the specifics of those in our lifetimes.

I mean, tell me 10 things that Grover Cleveland did. Unless you're a history buff, you can't.

Uh... he was President twice, and ran for President one other time and lost. He fathered a child out of wedlock (resulting in his enemies creating the campaign slogan "Ma, Ma, where's my Pa?") and he spanked Abraham Simpson on two non-consecutive occasions.

Hmmm... that's only six things, two of which are fictional. So I guess you're right.

Chris N

11-30-2006, 11:10 PM

Lincoln. His presidency caused states to leave the country and plunge this nation into war. If he wasn't elected president South Carolina might not have left.

They did that because he was elected, not 'cuz of anything he did. They were ready to secede if anyone not supporting their views was elected. Not his fault, but those before him, as Rick pointed out. The Civil War was about to happen. Lincoln kept this nation together.

Chris N

11-30-2006, 11:12 PM

Bill Jemas.

I'm with you.

o1pickleboy

11-30-2006, 11:17 PM

no jimmy carter?

Speakiing of Carter. I heard he had one the highest I.Q's of all our presidents. I also heard that the presidents with the highest I.Q's are also the ones that have been considered the some of the worse president's we ever had.

If what I heard is true. I believe that the system is fucked up and at least with Carter that was the problem. Not Jimmy himself.

Serik

11-30-2006, 11:20 PM

@jade_nova - are you serious? Lincoln was one of the greatest presidents and without his leadership there might not even be a United States of America...

rick

11-30-2006, 11:24 PM

@jade_nova - are you serious? Lincoln was one of the greatest presidents and without his leadership there might not even be a United States of America...

Personally I think Lincoln was one of the greats, but there are actually a few people on this board who think he was a dictator.

Kind of weird isn't it?

Paul McEnery

11-30-2006, 11:37 PM

Reagan has a LOT of negatives - but his defenders can point to the fall of communism.
That's a plus?

An orderly transition is happening under Gorbachev, and insane brinksmanship bankrupts both countries, and drives Russia back into the arms of a KGB gangster. Boy, that's a win.

And while we're at it: there is no substantial difference between the Reagan presidency and the current one. Same players, different figurehead.

Cam63

11-30-2006, 11:41 PM

Dubya gives me the shits every time he opens his mouth and has the morals of an outright prick.

Nixon got what he deserved and should've done jail time.

Any president who ordered genocide of the natives.

Reagan for his stance on environmental issues and the Cold War shit.

howyadoin

11-30-2006, 11:44 PM

Reagan for his stance on environmental issues and the Cold War shit.And for making arms deals with terrorists.

TheTen-EyedMan

11-30-2006, 11:46 PM

The following is from a arch Democrat.

I have always classed Jack Kennedy as the worst president this country has ever had. He got us deeper into Vietnam, was indebted to the Mafia, hung the Cuban rebels out to dry and let his psychopath of a brother loose on the unions.

Not to mention the whole setting up Marilyn Monroe as his brother's personal whore.

I won't write what I'm thinking because I know I'll be censured. All I'll say is that I'm glad he didn't make the full term.

rick

11-30-2006, 11:57 PM

Iangould

12-01-2006, 12:12 AM

That's a plus?

An orderly transition is happening under Gorbachev, and insane brinksmanship bankrupts both countries, and drives Russia back into the arms of a KGB gangster. Boy, that's a win.

And while we're at it: there is no substantial difference between the Reagan presidency and the current one. Same players, different figurehead.

Reagan left office in 88, the fall of the Soviet Union didn't come until three years later; Putin was 10 (?) years after that.

Blaming him for events in the 90's or later is like blaming FDR for the Korean War.

Paul McEnery

12-01-2006, 12:28 AM

Reagan left office in 88, the fall of the Soviet Union didn't come until three years later; Putin was 10 (?) years after that.

Blaming him for events in the 90's or later is like blaming FDR for the Korean War.
Oh come on.

Star Wars is what destabilized Gorbachev's economy; what happened after that was inevitable.

howyadoin

12-01-2006, 12:42 AM

This all may be true, but the man had sex in the oval office with both the before mentioned Marilyn and Angie Dickenson.

I don't care how bad he was, this must count in his favor.Angie Dickenson?

Now I'm impressed.

Wesley Dodds

12-01-2006, 01:11 AM

Star Wars is what destabilized Gorbachev's economy; what happened after that was inevitable.

Gorbachev had an economy?

howyadoin

12-01-2006, 01:15 AM

Star Wars is what destabilized Gorbachev's economy; what happened after that was inevitable.

Gorbachev had an economy?If he did, I guess George Lucas brought it down.

TheTen-EyedMan

12-01-2006, 01:29 AM

This all may be true, but the man had sex in the oval office with both the before mentioned Marilyn and Angie Dickenson.

I don't care how bad he was, this must count in his favor.

Richard Nixon had sex with Joan Allen. Back when she was hot.

Drew Van T.

12-01-2006, 02:02 AM

howyadoin

12-01-2006, 02:04 AM

6) You think a blowjob is the worst thing that can happen.That's the official Republican stance, isn't it?

StoneGold

12-01-2006, 02:05 AM

Mike Smash!

12-01-2006, 02:16 AM

Who voted Clinton? That's just petty. That can only be rationalized in the following ways:

1) You were in Iraq when he did a few too many bombing runs.
2) You were laid off or lost your income when he cooperated with Republicans to cut social services.
3) You were inside a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant at the wrong time.
4) You are convinced he was renting a wing of the White House to Osama Bin Laden the entire time.
5) You are Serbian.
6) You think a blowjob is the worst thing that can happen.

Clinton was by no means the worst, but he helped pave the path for a lot of the Bush agenda, who simply ran with what he started, whether he springboarded off of Clinton's Defense of Marriage Act (and the state bans that came out of it) and the barriers he helped put up against same sex marriage helped get the anti-gay forces the platform to try for the Federal Marriage Amendment. His NAFTA and having the U.S. join WTO set the state for Bush's CAFTA. His Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 and his constant bombing of Iraq helped set the stage for the Bush invasion of 2003 (Bush even referenced the act early on during the build up to war. Clinton's media consolidation led to further media consolidation under Bush.

One could also take serious issue with his economic sanctions on Iraq that according to the U.N., killed over half a million children.

"Only Nixon could go to China" works both ways and during the early 90s, Clinton was able to push for conservative policies that they GOP wouldn't have dreamed of being successful with.

He was shitty president and it seems that people have forgotten that because the man that came after him is a warmongering theocrat who can't adlib a complete sentence. But in the overall scheme of things, I don't Clinton can hold a candle to much worse presidents, like Bush, Reagan, Jackson, Nixon and Wilson.

Mike Smash!

12-01-2006, 02:17 AM

That's the official Republican stance, isn't it?

Blowjobs were illegal under those sodomy laws...

thehod

12-01-2006, 02:23 AM

William Henry Harrison.

Man did nothing whilst he was in office.

LtMarvel

12-01-2006, 02:26 AM

I don't think you can put Truman down for dropping the nukes. It was a no-brainer that saved American lives that would've been lost in a protracted invasion of Japan.

Andrew Jackson and GW Bush have to be on the short list of the worst.

Serik

12-01-2006, 02:36 AM

I don't think you can put Truman down for dropping the nukes. It was a no-brainer that saved American lives that would've been lost in a protracted invasion of Japan.

*ducks, grabs some popcorn, and prepares for the debate of the week*

twilight

12-01-2006, 02:38 AM

At least there's no argument about who was the best president:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc9y5ayeeb4&eurl=

Pól Rua

12-01-2006, 02:40 AM

Oh come on.

Star Wars is what destabilized Gorbachev's economy; what happened after that was inevitable.

Sorry Pol - posted as you again, Ian.

No the Russian economy collapsed in large part because of the collapse in the oil price after the end of the Iraq-Iraq War and then the Gulf War.

Cephus

12-01-2006, 02:49 AM

Voted BabyBush first, Reagan second. Certainly we've had bad presidents in the past, but these two morons have had the biggest, most long-term negative effect on this country in history. BabyBush only got first place because he's not done fucking us over yet.

Tages

12-01-2006, 03:03 AM

Maybe its jsut the passage of time but I don't think I've ever heard of any positive achievements from either Andrew Johnson or Warren G. Harding.
Harding pardoned Eugene Debs.

Iangould

12-01-2006, 03:03 AM

Blowjobs were illegal under those sodomy laws...

More fun that way.

Mike Smash!

12-01-2006, 03:07 AM

William Henry Harrison.

Man did nothing whilst he was in office.

His thirty day run (before dying of pneumonia) accomplished nothing. But he's still a far better president than several others who did do things in office.

Tages

12-01-2006, 03:08 AM

They did that because he was elected, not 'cuz of anything he did. They were ready to secede if anyone not supporting their views was elected. Not his fault, but those before him, as Rick pointed out. The Civil War was about to happen. Lincoln kept this nation together.
Lincoln stated, very clearly and on no uncertain terms, that if the Southern states didn't collect their import duties he would use force to make them.

And note that four states didn't secede until after he called for the 75,000 volunteers.

But we can thank him for keeping the nation together atop ~700,000 corpses and the tattered shreds of the US Constitution, I'll give him that.

Mike Smash!

12-01-2006, 03:09 AM

Harding pardoned Eugene Debs.

This is true. In many ways, Harding was the epilogue to the 1912 presidential election. He pardoned Debs, who was tossed in jail for making an anti-war speech because of Wilson's bullshit Sedition Act and he put former President Taft on the Supreme Court, which is the position he really wanted all along (the man never wanted to be president).

Mike Smash!

12-01-2006, 03:13 AM

I don't think you can put Truman down for dropping the nukes. It was a no-brainer that saved American lives that would've been lost in a protracted invasion of Japan.

That's not Eisenhower's take on the situation. He was always opposed to dropping those bombs. Japan was defeated and looking for a way to bow out while saving face.

We dropped nuclear bombs on civilian populations as a means to scare their government into changing their policies. If that's not a textbook definition of terrorism, I don't know what is.

And there's the Pandora's Box we opened by dropping those bombs and setting the precedent that if you want the power to make a country surrender unconditionally, you get the bomb and use it. And that led to the Cold War and over fifty years of lunacy like "Mutually Assured Destruction".

Andrew Jackson and GW Bush have to be on the short list of the worst.

No argument here.

thehod

12-01-2006, 03:14 AM

His thirty day run (before dying of pneumonia) accomplished nothing. But he's still a far better president than several others who did do things in office.

Actually thinking about it, I suppose Harrison did set up the Curse of Tecumseh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_Tecumseh) which made American politics interesting every 20 years.

Trust Reagan to fuck it up though. :)

Tages

12-01-2006, 03:20 AM

I don't think you can put Truman down for dropping the nukes. It was a no-brainer that saved American lives that would've been lost in a protracted invasion of Japan.
We've discussed this three times now. Suffice it to say, the above is horseshit rationalization that doesn't match the facts.

The Batman

12-01-2006, 04:21 AM

We've discussed this three times now. Suffice it to say, the above is horseshit rationalization that doesn't match the facts.

From what I understand, by the time the atomic bombs were used Japan was sending out peace feelers if not outright willing to make a conditional surrender but the U.S. had settled on unconditional surrender as the only acceptable end to the war. One of the terms Japan wanted was to keep their Emperor, the U.S. gave that to them anyway. The bombs gave them that unconditional surrender without that protracted invasion of the main islands which would've undoubtedly cost more American lives. That being said, they could've conceivably ended the war without the bombs or the invasion though we're left to wonder if it'd have been a sustainable peace.

There's also the school of thought that the bombs were used, not so much to cow Japan into surrender, but to show that the U.S. not only had this terrible weapon but was more than willing to use it on the population of a country. In other words it was the birth cry of American global hegemony and roughly the international equivalent of stabbing a guy your first day in prison to show everyone you're not to be fucked with.

I don't doubt that dropping the bombs saved American lives, I think that we can put that debate to rest. The question we're not ever going to be able to answer though is if the American lives saved, whatever that number might be, are worth more than the Japanese lives lost and the cost of opening that nuclear Pandora's Box.

Buried Alien

12-01-2006, 04:29 AM

Without Warren G. Harding among the selections, this poll is fatally flawed.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

Wesley Dodds

12-01-2006, 04:53 AM

Or William Henry Harrison!

(The fucker.)

I'll be interesting to see how history treats Bush -- I mean, if Iraq somehow makes it people will have to say he accomplished something positive (whatever his failings).

Tages

12-01-2006, 05:06 AM

Without Warren G. Harding among the selections, this poll is fatally flawed.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)
As a libertarian I kind of have a soft spot for the guy, since his Administration was the last time the overall size and expense of the US fedgov shrank.

Shem the Penman

12-01-2006, 05:13 AM

I choose Herbert Hoover. I don't remember anything good about that guy. He was the president during the great depression.

Hoover I put in the same class as Jimmy Carter -- a smart and basically good guy who nevertheless turned out to be an awful president.

And no, I can't think of anyone more deserving of this dishonor than Chimpy, even if he does still have two years to go.

Valmore

12-01-2006, 05:27 AM

William Henry Harrison is clearly, by far, the BEST President America has ever had.

Because he did the honorable thing of getting sick with pneumonia and dying 31 days into his administration.

We'd all be a lot better off if EVERY President was gone after 31 days.

FunkyGreenJerusalem

12-01-2006, 05:35 AM

Has Reagan been dead long enough for me to call him an incompetent douchebag?

Been dead plenty.

Hell, if you didn't have a drink your hand and weren't dancing to 'Death Of A Clown' by The Kinks within five minutes of the news, then you're just a bad person.

There's no need to ask permission to celebrate some of the few good things that happen in this world.

Valmore

12-01-2006, 05:42 AM

FunkyGreenJerusalem

12-01-2006, 06:03 AM

I heard LBJ passed more humanitarian bills than any other president before or since.
Now I assume he didn't do this out of the goodness of his heart - just trying his best to stop people hating him as much - but that's gotta count for somthing.

Don't see Dubya doing that.
(and lil'georgie beats out Nixon and Regan as worst - he's made the exact same mistakes they did, only worse (and he invented a few new ones).
Hell, his own party didn't want him near them when they were campaigning in the lasst election.

Motormouse

12-01-2006, 06:10 AM

http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/v/D/twins_priceless.jpg

FunkyGreenJerusalem

12-01-2006, 06:14 AM

The question we're not ever going to be able to answer though is if the American lives saved, whatever that number might be, are worth more than the Japanese lives lost and the cost of opening that nuclear Pandora's Box.

Actually it's kinda easy.
A life is worth the same, regardless of nationality or race.

It only get tricky because were talking about bombing civillians, who were just living their lives, to save soldiers, who's job it is to fight and die.

Tages

12-01-2006, 06:22 AM

Oh, and Woodrow Wilson? Not one of the worst. Yeah, he was a bit of a racist but he also had many successful accomplishments - women's suffrage, Federal Reserve, Federal Trade Commission, Clayton Antitrust Act, Creation of the League of Nations. In general, scholars rank him as one of the better Presidents. Of course, they also rank Andrew Jackson up there, too.
And exactly how is the Federal Reserve a positive accomplishment? How is it a good thing that the US economy bends and breaks at the whims of an organization without a budget or so much as a Congressional oversight committee, under whose watch the dollar has lost approximately 97% of its value since its inception?

Wilson deserves his spot for his champing at the bit to get the US involved in possibly the most pointless war in human history, if nothing else.

Tages

12-01-2006, 06:25 AM

I heard LBJ passed more humanitarian bills than any other president before or since.
Now I assume he didn't do this out of the goodness of his heart - just trying his best to stop people hating him as much - but that's gotta count for somthing.
That depends on how you define "humanitarian bills."

LBJ was a great power player who knew how to get things done and possibly the absolute best president we've ever had in terms of the psychological edge he always managed to achieve over his opponents.

Pity he escalated Vietnam, with a completely unwinnable strategy no less, and that the Great Society was a disaster of epic proportions.

Tages

12-01-2006, 06:32 AM

Personally I think Lincoln was one of the greats, but there are actually a few people on this board who think he was a dictator.

Kind of weird isn't it?
When you have an opponent in Congress deported to Canada on your say-so, order the arrest of the Supreme Court Chief Justice for overruling your actions, have newspapers shut down for criticizing your policies, unilaterally suspend habeus corpus despite that the part of the Constitition that mentions HB suspension is clearly in the Article delineating Congressional duties, and when your Secretary of State brags to foreign diplomats that he can ring a bell and arrest anyone he wants and that he has more power than the Queen of England, then yeah, your government is a dictatorship.

I've heard people say Lincoln was justified in becoming a dictator, but no one denies that he did act, in fact, like a dictator during his presidency.

Tages

12-01-2006, 06:36 AM

And while we're at it: there is no substantial difference between the Reagan presidency and the current one. Same players, different figurehead.
Nah, Reagan had the sense to get out of Lebanon. Bush would have taken the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing as a cue to occupy the whole country.

Tages

12-01-2006, 06:41 AM

Oh come on.

Star Wars is what destabilized Gorbachev's economy; what happened after that was inevitable.
I disagree with this. Star Wars was a joke and Gorbachev's government knew it; I've mentioned before the Soviet report that concluded the USSR would have to increase its nuclear stockpile a single-digit percentage point to completely neutralize whatever protection Star Wars afforded the US (which in reality was zero).

Perestroika, Glasnost and Hungary opening the border with Germany all had more to do with the Soviet Union's hastened collapse than anything Reagan did. The Misesian economist in me says that the internal (il)logic of socialism made that collapse inevitable anyhow.

Rob on the Job

12-01-2006, 06:45 AM

Warren G. Harding.

Hands-down.

Not only was his administration so corrupt that his Cabinet secretaries were taking payoffs at their desks ...

Not only was perennial adulterer Harding otherwise preoccupied with copulating with a young woman in White House closets, when he wasn't playing poker or golf ...

But when Harding finally learned of how his administrators were stealing public funds, he had the dumb luck to try to wrap his hands around the neck of one of the thieves and attempt to strangle him in his office JUST AS A TOUR GROUP WALKED BY AND SAW THE WHOLE THING.

Incredible.

moebius

12-01-2006, 07:22 AM

Reagan left office in 88, the fall of the Soviet Union didn't come until three years later; Putin was 10 (?) years after that.

Blaming him for events in the 90's or later is like blaming FDR for the Korean War.

Can I still blame him for Al Qaeda, The Taliban and Saddam?

moebius

12-01-2006, 07:24 AM

William Henry Harrison.

Man did nothing whilst he was in office.

Didn't he die in his First 100 Days? Jeez...everyone's a critic.

Erebus

12-01-2006, 07:29 AM

The Unholy Quintet:

1. Lincoln
2. Wilson
3. FDR
4. Truman
5. Johnson

And Bush II is making it a sextet the second he's out of office.
Why FDR?:confused:

FunkyGreenJerusalem

12-01-2006, 07:37 AM

Why FDR?:confused:

Presumably because he regulated business, got better rights/pay for workers and raise taxes to pay for better utilities/infrastructure.
Despite all evidence to the contrary, Libertarians see 'the new deal' as the worst thing since hitler.

Tages

12-01-2006, 07:38 AM

Why FDR?:confused:
The Japanese Internment Camps would be enough to include him, but to that you can add siccing the FBI on his political enemies, burning crops and slaughtering livestock to drive agriculture prices up, the sickening control over the US economy the New Deal resulted in, and all the uncomfortable facts surrounding Pearl Harbor.

Hoss

12-01-2006, 07:38 AM

Warren G. Harding sucked kinda' hard. He was the original oil scandal President. :p He supported Prohibition. He ignored international affairs after WWI. Also, I heard he was a real dickface.

Worst POTUS by far

His deregulation and laissez-fair are the true govermental* causes for the great depression. Hoover gets alot of blame but the pooch was screwed once he came into office. After all, the market crashed during his first year.

Here is good historical ranking of POTUS. Just scroll down a bit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_United_States_Presidents

*There is alot of responsibility to go around and alot of it is not the governments. But as far as the government is concerned, Harding was the most culpable for its part.

Tages

12-01-2006, 07:39 AM

Presumably because he regulated business, got better rights/pay for workers and raise taxes to pay for better utilities/infrastructure.
Despite all evidence to the contrary, Libertarians see 'the new deal' as the worst thing since hitler.
That would be difficult seeing as the New Deal was contemporaneous with Hitler.

Try looking at the New Deal and Italian Fascism at once and you see some very disturbing similarities.

Tages

12-01-2006, 07:43 AM

Worst POTUS by far

His deregulation and laissez-fair are the true govermental* causes for the great depression. Hoover gets alot of blame but the pooch was screwed once he came into office. After all, the market crashed during his first year.
That wonderful Federal Reserve that was mentioned earlier shares culpability (http://www.amazon.com/Americas-Great-Depression-Murray-Rothbard/dp/0945466056/sr=8-3/qid=1164984126/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3/105-3977317-6686023?ie=UTF8&s=books).

Hoss

12-01-2006, 07:45 AM

They did that because he was elected, not 'cuz of anything he did. They were ready to secede if anyone not supporting their views was elected. Not his fault, but those before him, as Rick pointed out. The Civil War was about to happen. Lincoln kept this nation together.

The Civil War was slated to happen the moment the founding fathers passed the buck on the slavery issue. And yes, I know in Tages view slavery is just a massive cover up for the real reasons for the war.

Agent Helix

12-01-2006, 07:47 AM

I haven't been around here for very long, so I'll just ask.

Tages, are you a Libertarian?

rick

12-01-2006, 07:49 AM

Oh, and Woodrow Wilson? Not one of the worst. Yeah, he was a bit of a racist but he also had many successful accomplishments - women's suffrage, Federal Reserve, Federal Trade Commission, Clayton Antitrust Act, Creation of the League of Nations. In general, scholars rank him as one of the better Presidents. Of course, they also rank Andrew Jackson up there, too.

He had his critics during the first World War deported or imprisoned.

Plus he swore up and down for his entire campaign that the US would not enter the war in Europe, and then almost instantly after taking office, entrenched the US in the conflict.

Bad President.

Tages

12-01-2006, 07:54 AM

The Civil War was slated to happen the moment the founding fathers passed the buck on the slavery issue. And yes, I know in Tages view slavery is just a massive cover up for the real reasons for the war.
Never said that. I have admitted many, many times that slavery was a reason the war happened, singular.

It was not, as many have claimed, the sole and only reason the war happened. As is typical, the distance of time has lead the public at large to take an enormously large and complicated historical event and simplify it to two dimensions. It's just not that simple.

rick

12-01-2006, 07:55 AM

Nah, Reagan had the sense to get out of Lebanon. Bush would have taken the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing as a cue to occupy the whole country.

Having been on the scene of the Beirut bombings in 1983 I will say that the biggest mistake that old fool Reagan ever commited is to put US troops on the ground in a hostile position and then only allow about 3% of the troops to have actual ammunition in their weapons.

Even if this might not have stopped the bombing, it remains one of the most insane decisions by a President ever.

FunkyGreenJerusalem

12-01-2006, 07:56 AM

That would be difficult seeing as the New Deal was contemporaneous with Hitler.

However, it was so soon after him, that at the time, some saw it as the worst thing since him.
(especially as all most people did after the war was have sex lot, I reckon anything that took the mind off that job was viewed dimly).

Hoss

12-01-2006, 07:57 AM

He was shitty president and it seems that people have forgotten that because the man that came after him is a warmongering theocrat who can't adlib a complete sentence. But in the overall scheme of things, I don't Clinton can hold a candle to much worse presidents, like Bush, Reagan, Jackson, Nixon and Wilson.

It is amazing how economic prosperity, greatly lowered unemployment, a decline in crime, a positive turn in environmental policy, a balanced budget, and sizeable increases in college loans/aid and education will do to distort a person's view of a Presidency.

Hoss

12-01-2006, 07:58 AM

Hoss

12-01-2006, 07:59 AM

I haven't been around here for very long, so I'll just ask.

Tages, are you a Libertarian?

Does Howdy Doody have wooden balls?

Tages

12-01-2006, 08:02 AM

I haven't been around here for very long, so I'll just ask.

Tages, are you a Libertarian?
Small "l" please. A capital "L" Libertarian is a member of the Libertarian Party, and though I registered to vote in the state of Nevada as a Libertarian when I was 18, I am not a member of the LP, have never given them money and in fact refuse to associate myself with them. I haven't even followed internal LP politics since that nastiness in 2000 between Harry Browne (God rest his noble soul) and L. Neil Smith.

Those guys have their hearts in the right place, but they have plenty of problems to work out before they can accomplish anything.

More specifically, I'm a free-market, natural order, Rothbardian anarchist libertarian. Browse the archives at LRC (http://www.lewrockwell.com/) and it gives you a good idea of where I stand on most issues.

Agent Helix

12-01-2006, 08:03 AM

Ah, okay. I just wanted to make sure I understood from which perspective you were coming.

No offense, but I'll just never agree with that.

rick

12-01-2006, 08:04 AM

Never said that. I have admitted many, many times that slavery was a reason the war happened, singular.

It was not, as many have claimed, the sole and only reason the war happened. As is typical, the distance of time has lead the public at large to take an enormously large and complicated historical event and simplify it to two dimensions. It's just not that simple.

Tages, I’ve got to get to work, so I’ve got to hit and run on this post, but this is probably my very favorite of your idiosyncrasies.

Let just quickly provide the necessary fact checklist for you and others in the conversation…..

Who left the Union even before Lincoln took office?

Not all, but several of the new Confederate States, that’s who.

Who fired the first shots and began the actual combat stage of the war?

That would be members of the Confederacy too.

Who claimed that it was because of Slavery and the Unions opposition to it that the South was “forced” to leave the Union?

That would be most of the Southern States themselves in their very own statements dissolving their connection to the Union.

I have no problem with you being a fan of the Confederacy, that is certainly your business, but your tendency to rewrite history on the subject is well established and as always will be rejected by anyone who actually takes the time to research the facts.

Now you all have a nice talk while I'm gone.

Agent Helix

12-01-2006, 08:05 AM

Slavery was a major factor in the American Civil War, probably the most important. But he is correct in saying that the entire conflict is more complex than that.

Tages

12-01-2006, 08:05 AM

I apologize. Seriously. I did put words in your mouth. My bad.
No worries. Easy mistake to make.

Slam_Bradley

12-01-2006, 08:08 AM

And exactly how is the Federal Reserve a positive accomplishment? How is it a good thing that the US economy bends and breaks at the whims of an organization without a budget or so much as a Congressional oversight committee, under whose watch the dollar has lost approximately 97% of its value since its inception?

Wilson deserves his spot for his champing at the bit to get the US involved in possibly the most pointless war in human history, if nothing else.

The Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 along with his allowance of institutionalized racism in the Federal government are enough to put Wilson #1 for me. The rest is just gravy.

Tages

12-01-2006, 08:12 AM

Tages, I’ve got to get to work, so I’ve got to hit and run on this post, but this is probably my very favorite of your idiosyncrasies.

Let just quickly provide the necessary fact checklist for you and others in the conversation…..
Sweet Mother of Pearl, I am not getting into this subject right now. Another time, maybe, but I don't feel like another 100-post flame war at the moment.

Besides, someone needs to buy me the complete "Civil War: A Narrative" set by Shelby Foote for Christmas since I left my old set in California. I need to brush up a little.

I do, however, take issue with the assertion that I have ever attempted to rewrite history. When have I ever said anything about the ACW that fits that definition? I never denied that the CSA fired on Ft. Sumter and in fact said that Davis was a blithering idiot to do that and he was playing right into Lincoln's ha-

No, not getting into it. Must...resist...urge...to...discuss...Civil...War. ..

Paradox

12-01-2006, 08:15 AM

Arguments can be made for all on that list, so I voted Nixon, simply because I found him the most loathsome of the bunch. He oozed contempt and weaseliness in both appearance and deed. Hunter S. Thompson once wrote "Nixon was so evil, he glowed in the dark." That about sums up my feelings on the man.

And, yeah, Solaris, George W. does very much remind me of Tricky Dick's inept little brother.

Gordon Smith

12-01-2006, 08:24 AM

Hard to say, as we only know the specifics of those in our lifetimes.

I mean, tell me 10 things that Grover Cleveland did. Unless you're a history buff, you can't.

I can tell you one thing Cleveland did, at least. During his term as Sheriff of Erie County, he personally hanged two criminals. Gotta admire a man who's willing to do his own killing, rather than delegate it to faceless and expendable underlings.

Dreadstar

12-01-2006, 08:31 AM

I haven't even followed internal LP politics since that nastiness in 2000 between Harry Browne (God rest his noble soul) . . .

Thank you. I swear, sometimes I think the damned LP should have just died when Harry stopped being the frontman. Harry was the man.

FunkyGreenJerusalem

12-01-2006, 08:43 AM

Gotta admire a man who's willing to do his own killing, rather than delegate it to faceless and expendable underlings.

I'd like to think that if it HAD to be done (which it didn't), it HAD to be done on the behalf of law and order, so it wouldn't matter who done it, and not that it was 'his' killing.

Nick Soapdish

12-01-2006, 08:45 AM

Slavery was a major factor in the American Civil War, probably the most important. But he is correct in saying that the entire conflict is more complex than that.

I'd agree to that except without the "probably".

The South was strongly for States' Rights. Except when it came to a state's right to prevent the ownership of slavery. Look at the Fugitive Slave Law and the Dred Scott case. Then they were opposed to the idea of "nullification" unlike South Carolina from a generation before. But again for States' Rights when it came to import duties.

South Carolina's secession statement started off with an argument about the rights of slaveowners. And most of the vocal Southerners of the time regarded slavery as the cornerstone of the Confederacy, only switching to States' Rights afterwards.

Edit: Despite my emphasis, it still doesn't mean that I think that slavery is the only cause. Just the biggest and that I'm a bit annoyed because my history textbooks goose-stepped around it and stuck with the states' rights line.

Agent Helix

12-01-2006, 08:56 AM

Yeah, the probably is there purely for the sake of Devil's Advocate...ism.

cactusmaac

12-01-2006, 09:18 AM

Sweet Mother of Pearl, I am not getting into this subject right now. Another time, maybe, but I don't feel like another 100-post flame war at the moment.

Besides, someone needs to buy me the complete "Civil War: A Narrative" set by Shelby Foote for Christmas since I left my old set in California. I need to brush up a little.

I do, however, take issue with the assertion that I have ever attempted to rewrite history. When have I ever said anything about the ACW that fits that definition? I never denied that the CSA fired on Ft. Sumter and in fact said that Davis was a blithering idiot to do that and he was playing right into Lincoln's ha-

No, not getting into it. Must...resist...urge...to...discuss...Civil...War. ..

Crittenden Amendment.

Lincoln stated, very clearly and on no uncertain terms, that if the Southern states didn't collect their import duties he would use force to make them.

He also said the same would apply if federal mails were interfered with. Does that mean interference with the postal service was a major cause of the Civil War?

cactusmaac

12-01-2006, 09:30 AM

Worst POTUS by far

His deregulation and laissez-fair are the true govermental* causes for the great depression. Hoover gets alot of blame but the pooch was screwed once he came into office. After all, the market crashed during his first year.

Here is good historical ranking of POTUS. Just scroll down a bit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_United_States_Presidents

*There is alot of responsibility to go around and alot of it is not the governments. But as far as the government is concerned, Harding was the most culpable for its part.

That's a woefully ignorant judgement. The reason why the Great Depression lasted so long and was so painful was because the Federal Reserve tightened money supply and kept it tight when the economy was crying out for easy credit, leading to a collapse in industry and widespread bank failures. Hoover's attempts to strong-arm employers into keeping wages high and his meddling in the economy didn't help matters either. Frankly, Coolidge refusing to run for a second term is probably the single most unfortunate choice made by any American president.

Harding's scandals were penny-ante stuff in comparison.

As for Star Wars, pretty much any documentary of the era I've seen has a Russian official who was a high-up at the time saying it was a significant part of the explanation for why the Soviets decided to loosen up. If it wasn't seen as a viable threat, why did Gorbachev push so hard for it to be abandoned at the Rekyjavik summit? If the USSR felt it was a joke, they would have treated it as one.

Rob on the Job

12-01-2006, 09:51 AM

... Harding's scandals were penny-ante stuff in comparison. ....

Hardly.

Most people, if they know anything at all about the Harding Administration scandals, think only of the Teapot Dome.

But there were three other substantial thefts: the Justice Department Scandal, the Veterans Bureau Scandal, and the Alien Property Custodian Scandal.

In each case, the public good/trust was auctioned off to the highest bidder. Cabinet officers and other administrators served time. One committed suicide.

cactusmaac

12-01-2006, 09:56 AM

Rob on the Job

12-01-2006, 09:59 AM

And how much of a negative effect did they have on America - and the world - as a whole compared to the Great Depression?

And was Harding personally dishonest when it came to those scandals or was he let down by the people he gave the job to?

The Great Depression's causes and effects were worldwide and therefore were beyond the scope of one man in one office to mitigate or prevent.

No, Harding was not personally dishonest in stealing money, but he was a failure in that he ushered the thieves into the treasury, and then diverted his attention to poker, golf and illegal drinking [after he hypocritically voted for Prohibition].

Oh, and cheating big-time on his wife in the White House, to the point of fathering an illegitimate child.

All in all, a pretty pathetic figure.

cactusmaac

12-01-2006, 10:14 AM

The Great Depression's causes and effects were worldwide and therefore were beyond the scope of one man in one office to mitigate or prevent.

You don't think the constriction of the money supply and bidding up of wages were a factor at all in the length of the Depression? That's an interesting view but one unlikely to be supported by any worthwhile economist out there.

No, Harding was not personally dishonest in stealing money, but he was a failure in that he ushered the thieves into the treasury, and then diverted his attention to poker, golf and illegal drinking [after he hypocritically voted for Prohibition].

Oh, and cheating big-time on his wife in the White House, to the point of fathering an illegitimate child.

All in all, a pretty pathetic figure.

Given the kind of woman Florence Harding was, it's no wonder he had affairs and sought refuge in drink. Why not give FDR, Wilson and Kennedy major downgrades for doing the same when their wives were far more congenial?

Seriously, given the failures of Hoover, Nixon, both Johnsons, Carter, Buchanan and Wilson, Harding's shortcomings were a storm in a teacup.

Sean Walsh

12-01-2006, 10:23 AM

anthony!

12-01-2006, 11:00 AM

Hoss

12-01-2006, 11:13 AM

You don't think the constriction of the money supply and bidding up of wages were a factor at all in the length of the Depression? That's an interesting view but one unlikely to be supported by any worthwhile economist out there.

.

Actually, I believe that Harding's deregulation and Laissez-Faire is what I named. I didn't even mention the specific scandals because I believe that what happened legally was much worse. Add his 40% tariffs on European goods and the man rode the bus of depression.

And yes, I hold the POTUS who did the most to cause the Depression to be more culpable than the POTUS who didn't really know how to handle it. That's like saying that the incompetent fireman is more culpable for a fire than the arsonist.

I would also say that a lack of a social safety net, the gold standard and the collapse of the banking industry were huge factors in the length and severity of the depression.

Drew Van T.

12-01-2006, 11:13 AM

7) You were an American soldier whose base got closed down and your whole life was basically destroyed as a result of it.

Yeah, I guess. But wouldn't you have to assign part of the blame to the Republican majority in Congress? Also, didn't the military budget as a whole keep growing during his entire term in office?

9) You think the idea of cheating on your wife with many other women is distasteful

So maybe he's the Worst Husband (though I can think of better contenders). I don't see how that makes him Worst President. "Be faithful to your wife" is nowhere in the job description.

Nick Soapdish

12-01-2006, 11:28 AM

James Buchanan's presidency hastened the Civil War. Andrew Johnson's presidency seemed to almost start a second one. The Civil War was basically braceted by two horrendous executives, both unwilling to really confront the problems facing the nation.

Those are far worse crimes in my mind that W's incompetence/stubborness. I disagree with the prez on a lot, but I will admit the man sticks to his guns (literally and figuratively) no matter what.

Harding and Nixon I'd say where the "bad" presidents of the 20th century. Carter was fairly mediocre and weak.

I'd be tempted to argue that Buchanan may have actually delayed it by ignoring the problems confronting the nation. The South was already pretty edgy and insecure about its place due to the growing population of the North. Any attempts to rein it in could've been a flashpoint.

Johnson was horribly suited as the chief executive and hated the South (or the plantation owner mentality of a lot of it), but I think that ultimately he helped bring the sides back together - partly by giving the Radicals another target besides just the South and partly by thwarting their attempts to impose a more punitive peace upon them.

On the other hand, the peace that finally did get ironed out wound up setting back any advancement of rights for blacks by nearly a century.

I'm not saying that they were good presidents by any means. Part of why I think that Lincoln so often comes in as the best president (which I also see him as, despite his dictatorial tendencies) is that the three before him and two after him were so horribly incompetent.

As for W, if the incompetence and stubbornness were all of it, that'd be one thing. But they're just exacerbating the rest of the issues IMO.

Sean Walsh

12-01-2006, 11:30 AM

Yeah, I guess. But wouldn't you have to assign part of the blame to the Republican majority in Congress? Also, didn't the military budget as a whole keep growing during his entire term in office?

But wasn't this military downsizing the reason people use to complain about current troop levels and how they could've been higher but aren't?

Hindsight *is* 20/20, I guess. Dang.

Rob on the Job

12-01-2006, 11:37 AM

You don't think the constriction of the money supply and bidding up of wages were a factor at all in the length of the Depression? That's an interesting view but one unlikely to be supported by any worthwhile economist out there. .

How did Harding's tightening of the American money supply cause the Depression in Europe, South America and Asia? Or were there other factors to play in those areas? How did Harding cause the German economy to collapse several times in the 1920s and early 1930s?

Given the kind of woman Florence Harding was, it's no wonder he had affairs and sought refuge in drink. ...

What an apologist for moral bankruptcy. Did you work in the Clinton White House?

Why not give FDR, Wilson and Kennedy major downgrades for doing the same when their wives were far more congenial?...

Harding's philandering in the White House was the final nail in his coffin. As bad as their philandering ways were, FDR, Wilson, Kennedy & Clinton had a modicum of ability. Harding had none.

Seriously, given the failures of Hoover, Nixon, both Johnsons, Carter, Buchanan and Wilson, Harding's shortcomings were a storm in a teacup.

The Teapot Dome and other Harding scandals were the worst in US history until Watergate ... and they still dwarf everything else but Watergate.

Mac Danny

12-01-2006, 11:39 AM

i don't like Polk.

Who doesn't like Polk. He is the answer to most jeopardy questions about presidents. He took Washington by STORM!

James K Polk baby!!!

Arrjay

12-01-2006, 11:40 AM

Bush II.

Without a doubt.

Rob on the Job

12-01-2006, 11:41 AM

Who doesn't like Polk. He is the answer to most jeopardy questions about presidents. He took Washington by STORM!

James K Polk baby!!!

In four short years, Polk annexed Texas, bitch-slapped Mexico, wonall of Spanish North America, and settled the Northwest boundary dispute with Britain.

He was a cold and cunning sonuvabitch ... the model for the Lex Luthor presidency.

LtMarvel

12-01-2006, 12:18 PM

We've discussed this three times now. Suffice it to say, the above is horseshit rationalization that doesn't match the facts.
Okaaay.

The war ended with literally two air missions, each with a single bomb. Neither costing a single American soldier.

An invasion on a Pacific island nation would have cost thousands, maybe 10s of thousands of American soldiers.

No one at the time was thinking beyond ending the war as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Ontir

12-01-2006, 12:23 PM

Japan was on the brink of collapse before we dropped the bombs. They couldn't have maintained the war for more than a month, and both sides knew it. Nuking Japan was actually about letting Stalin know that we had the bomb, and we were willing to use it, so he ought to be careful of how far he pushed.

Serik

12-01-2006, 12:27 PM

Current Fed chairman Ben Bernanke believes the federal reserve caused the Great Depression. He said as much at Milton Friedman's 90th birthday:

"Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again."

Japan was on the brink of collapse before we dropped the bombs. They couldn't have maintained the war for more than a month, and both sides knew it. Nuking Japan was actually about letting Stalin know that we had the bomb, and we were willing to use it, so he ought to be careful of how far he pushed.

I agree. The US could've easily destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki with a fleet of conventional bombers. But the point was showing Stalin that we could cause the same amount of damage with just one bomber and one bomb.

Rob on the Job

12-01-2006, 12:33 PM

Arrjay

12-01-2006, 12:35 PM

I can't believe we're arguing about the end of World War II.

Yup.

Silly really isn't it?

Gordon Smith

12-01-2006, 12:36 PM

Okaaay.

The war ended with literally two air missions, each with a single bomb. Neither costing a single American soldier.

One should not forget that at least ten American servicemen being held as prisoners of war in Hiroshima are reported (http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2004/02/13/photo_of_us_hiroshima_victim_in_display?mode=PF)to have been killed during the first atomic bombing.

An invasion on a Pacific island nation would have cost thousands, maybe 10s of thousands of American soldiers.

Agreed. Had Operation Olympic gone forward and had the Japanese resisted invasion, the death toll on both sides would have been staggering, at a minimum easily numbering tens of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Japanese, many of the latter being helpess civilians.

No one at the time was thinking beyond ending the war as quickly and efficiently as possible.

I credit Truman as being motivated by this end, but I think he was terribly dishonest in minimizing (when not outright denying) the fact that the bombs mostly killed civilians.

Arrjay

12-01-2006, 12:37 PM

Also, hasn't the U.S military poured more time and effort into this pathetic new Iraq effort than it did to World War II? I'm pretty sure we've now been in Iraq longer than we were involved in WWII.

Serik

12-01-2006, 12:41 PM

Time? Yes. Effort? Hardly.

Corrina

12-01-2006, 12:50 PM

Invading Japan would have put us in a very similar situation to Iraq--an antagonist with great knowledge of local terrain and the ability to fade into the woodwork--except, unlike Iraq, the Japanese wouldn't be fighting a civil war at the same time.

There's a big difference between knocking out a country's military and being able to govern that country in the long term--see Iraq. What the dropping of the nuclear bombs did was force the Japanese into unconditional surrender.

Also, bear in mind the Japanese *didn't* surrender after Hiroshima, which is a pretty good indication of their determination to stand fast. We waited eight days, no surrender, and then dropped the second one. *Then* they surrended.

You can argue whether it was a moral thing to do, certainly. But it seems pretty clear the use of the atomic weapons prevented a very bloody long-term ground invasion.

Agent Helix

12-01-2006, 12:51 PM

Jesus, have we really been stuck there that long?

cactusmaac

12-01-2006, 12:54 PM

Actually, I believe that Harding's deregulation and Laissez-Faire is what I named. I didn't even mention the specific scandals because I believe that what happened legally was much worse. Add his 40% tariffs on European goods and the man rode the bus of depression.

And yes, I hold the POTUS who did the most to cause the Depression to be more culpable than the POTUS who didn't really know how to handle it. That's like saying that the incompetent fireman is more culpable for a fire than the arsonist.

I would also say that a lack of a social safety net, the gold standard and the collapse of the banking industry were huge factors in the length and severity of the depression.

Coolidge was Pres for six years after Harding, so if anyone deserves blame it's him. The deregulation and laissez-faire were what got the economy roaring in the 20s. The problems which led to the Depression didn't have anything to do with that but with Federal Reserve policy, as Serik pointed out. Monetary policy was kept very loose in order to help the British with their balance of payments after World War 1, so they could keep their currency at the gold standard level it was at before the war, and to keep the boom in construction and stock prices going.

That led to a speculative bubble in stocks which eventually caused the Crash. That wasn't where the damage was done. That happened when monetary policy was tightened up when it should have been kept loose.

The gold standard was a big factor as said before - I just know Tages is going to go apeshit over that - but the collapse of the banking system was due to the tight money and its' effects on the wider economy. It was a symptom and not a cause.

As for the tariff on goods, it was the Smoot-Hawley tariff passed in the midst of worldwide Depression that did the real harm, not what Harding did when he was around.

The lack of a safety net didn't have an impact at all.

This is worth reading if you're interested in the issue.

http://www.amazon.com/Rethinking-Great-Depression-American-Ways/dp/1566634717

cactusmaac

12-01-2006, 01:01 PM

How did Harding's tightening of the American money supply cause the Depression in Europe, South America and Asia? Or were there other factors to play in those areas? How did Harding cause the German economy to collapse several times in the 1920s and early 1930s?

Huh? What are you talking about? Harding didn't have anything to do with the money supply. That was the Federal Reserve's fault.

What an apologist for moral bankruptcy. Did you work in the Clinton White House?

I work in the real world where human beings have their weaknesses.

The Teapot Dome and other Harding scandals were the worst in US history until Watergate ... and they still dwarf everything else but Watergate.

FDR and Kennedy both had friendly presses who didn't look too deeply at their shenanigans. If Harding had lived, the scandals would have blown over.

Rob on the Job

12-01-2006, 01:14 PM

Valmore

12-01-2006, 01:27 PM

He had his critics during the first World War deported or imprisoned.

Plus he swore up and down for his entire campaign that the US would not enter the war in Europe, and then almost instantly after taking office, entrenched the US in the conflict.

Bad President.

Helped push forward women's suffrage, as well as other different programs, and paved the way for the modern day U.N. by creating the League of Nations, which only failed because Congress would't let America join in. Helped END World War I with American involvement and set up the Treaty of Versailles.

Sorry, Wilson wasn't nearly as bad as people think. He wasn't great, however, he's not the worst or even that close to it.

Ontir

12-01-2006, 01:28 PM

I can't believe we're arguing about the end of World War II.

Nuclear weapons were used.

We will ALWAYS be arguing about the end of World War II.

Tages

12-01-2006, 01:38 PM

JDogindy

12-01-2006, 01:59 PM

Let's see...

We got Calvin Coolage, who put idiots known as his "friends" in vital Cabinet positions...

Herbert Hoover for not responding quickly to the Great Depression...

Nixon, the crook...

Reagan, the liar and malcontent...

Bush Sr., complete with Dan Quayle...

Millard Filmore, who was never mentioned in "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart"*

William Henry Harrison, who dumbly stood out in a storm with a prolonged speech that led to his death 30 days later...

And, of course, Dubya.

Tough choice.

*In one episode, Jon recaped by showing all presidents that were mentioned (Dubya has the most highlights, even though his name isn't mentioned in any of the ones shown). In the end of it, Jon admits that Millard wasn't mentioned. Instead of saying his name, he pwns him in a sort.

Doug Strange

12-01-2006, 01:59 PM

I voted for all of them. They were ALL the worst!

cactusmaac

12-01-2006, 02:22 PM

You and I are just going to have to agree to disagree on the Harding issue, Cactus.

I think his administration was so putrid that its stench still makes historians gag. You tend to take a more modern interpretation.

S'okay.

Cool.

Hope you didn't find my responses too snarky. I'm suffering from car angst.

Helped push forward women's suffrage, as well as other different programs, and paved the way for the modern day U.N. by creating the League of Nations, which only failed because Congress would't let America join in.

That is wrong. Congress didn't sign off on the Treaty because Wilson was pissed the Republicans didn't want his version and so got the Democrats to vote against their's.

I suppose the League did pave the way for the UN by being a woefully incompetent and ineffective world body.

Winslow

12-01-2006, 02:26 PM

Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren for their horrendous treatment of Native Americans deserve to be on the list.

Valmore

12-01-2006, 02:47 PM

Yeah, the Treaty that humiliated Germany and that Hitler used to gain power is such a great accomplishment. So is getting involved in wars with no vital American interests at stake against "enemies" that had no interest in harming the US.

And all at a cost of only ~120,000 dead.

Nice job downplaying that his Administration threw critics of the war in prison, too.

So our allies in Europe mean aboslutely nothing? I suppose you love the current President's "Go It Alone" thing, right?

And who could predict that Hitler would come to power as such - no one's a mindreader.

And hey, FDR threw folks into interment camps simply for being Japanese. And yet I see no real hatred there.

Sorry, but Wilson wasn't the worst President and probably not even in the bottom 10.

anthony!

12-01-2006, 04:05 PM

I'd like to point out that it seems every president is someone's worst president.

Heck I'll come out and say it... President Kennedy...yeah, not really that big a fan. Seriously.

It seems like the only one's everyone could agree on would be Washington and Lincoln! Come on Lincoln-haters...I know you're out there!

Grazzt

12-01-2006, 04:10 PM

Come on Lincoln-haters...I know you're out there!

I hate that beard. I mean, seriously, why didn't anyone tie Lincoln down and shave it off? That's the real cause of the American Civil War right there: Lincoln's beard.

rick

12-01-2006, 05:46 PM

rick

12-01-2006, 05:49 PM

Nuclear weapons were used.

We will ALWAYS be arguing about the end of World War II.

That is not correct.

Atomic weapons were used in WWII, not Nuclear.

They were more powerful then anything before them, but were actually small compared to the Hydrogen bomb and other Nuclear weapons developed just a few years later.

Valmore

12-01-2006, 05:53 PM

Women voting and the UN.

Like I said, Bad President. :)

HA! Okay, I liked that one. :D

Mike Smash!

12-01-2006, 05:53 PM

Helped push forward women's suffrage, as well as other different programs, and paved the way for the modern day U.N. by creating the League of Nations, which only failed because Congress would't let America join in. Helped END World War I with American involvement and set up the Treaty of Versailles.

Sorry, Wilson wasn't nearly as bad as people think. He wasn't great, however, he's not the worst or even that close to it.

Wilson was originally ardently opposed to women's suffrage and was dragged kicking and screaming into supporting it, as he was with just about every other progressive reform. The man was a conservative who played liberal reformer when he needed to get votes and would turn back on a dime if there was something in it for him.

I'd say his record on civil liberties was enough to put him in the Worst category, as he was worse than even Bush and far more forthright in his desire to eradicate or jail "subversives" and leftists. The "Red Scare" under his administration and his Espionage and Sedition Acts that gave people like Eugene Debs ten year prison sentences for anti-war speeches or cutting off mail delivery of materials or publications critical of the government.

And a great deal of the tumultuous collapse of the League of Nations came from Wilson's steadfast opposition and attempted veto of any statements about racial equality in the League's charter.

Or the fact that he enacted the federal government's first policies regarding racial segregation.

Bad president. One of the worst.

rick

12-01-2006, 05:53 PM

So our allies in Europe mean aboslutely nothing? I suppose you love the current President's "Go It Alone" thing, right?

And who could predict that Hitler would come to power as such - no one's a mindreader.

And hey, FDR threw folks into interment camps simply for being Japanese. And yet I see no real hatred there.

Sorry, but Wilson wasn't the worst President and probably not even in the bottom 10.

In 1918 we didn't have allies in Europe.

Those alliances came driectly from the war itself.

Mike Smash!

12-01-2006, 05:55 PM

And hey, FDR threw folks into interment camps simply for being Japanese. And yet I see no real hatred there.

FDR is my favorite president and I adore the New Deal programs, but I still think he should have been impeached and removed from office for the internment camps.

Valmore

12-01-2006, 06:19 PM

Bad president. One of the worst.

I disagree. No matter his personal failings, he had positive accomplishments to go along with his negative ones. That, in amongst itself, puts him above those that accomplished nothing, such as those before Abraham Lincoln, or those that have been abject failures, which Dubya is clearly on his way to becoming. Which is why he tends to rank a bit more favorably in polls of historians.

Mike Smash!

12-01-2006, 06:29 PM

I disagree. No matter his personal failings, he had positive accomplishments to go along with his negative ones. That, in amongst itself, puts him above those that accomplished nothing, such as those before Abraham Lincoln, or those that have been abject failures, which Dubya is clearly on his way to becoming. Which is why he tends to rank a bit more favorably in polls of historians.

Even the worst presidents have a positive action or two. Andrew Jackson, for instance, was instrumental in getting the vote for non-landowners. This was however, overshadowed by the Trail of Tears, many times over.

For Wilson, yes, he eventually came around on women's suffrage, but not until years into his presidency and given his history on switching from "conservative man of the South" to "progressive reformer" and back again, based on how many votes it got him, I have to take his change of heart with a grain of salt.

And I think his civil liberties shredding record, his push for institutionalized racism and his lying about keeping us out of WWI are far greater than any of his positive accomplishments.

Iangould

12-01-2006, 06:43 PM

The war ended with literally two air missions, each with a single bomb. Neither costing a single American soldier.

Tell that to the American POWs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki who subsequently developed cancer and other radiation-related diseases.

Of course, getting the Japanese to surrender by agreeing to leave the Emperor in place (which te US did anyway) would also have ended the war without further significant US loss of life.

Valmore

12-01-2006, 06:51 PM

Even the worst presidents have a positive action or two. Andrew Jackson, for instance, was instrumental in getting the vote for non-landowners. This was however, overshadowed by the Trail of Tears, many times over.

For Wilson, yes, he eventually came around on women's suffrage, but not until years into his presidency and given his history on switching from "conservative man of the South" to "progressive reformer" and back again, based on how many votes it got him, I have to take his change of heart with a grain of salt.

And I think his civil liberties shredding record, his push for institutionalized racism and his lying about keeping us out of WWI are far greater than any of his positive accomplishments.

While his lying about staying out of WWI was bad, his Administration at least went in and turned the tide, eventually winning Americans allies (like rick posted) and led towards his work for the League of Nations, a groundwork for future cooperation amongst the world. The Nobel Prize committee felt it was good enough to give him the Peace Prize award.

Wilson eventually came around on women's suffrage, and did make the plea for the bill to be passed before the vote came up in 1918, during his second term. It could be viewed either way - that he backed it because he had no re-election to look forward to (since it failed in 1915 on an election year) or he came around for whatever reason. But it did get accomplished. No matter the motivation, he did throw his weight behind it.

His earlier reforms, the FTC and Clayton Antitrust Act, were important pieces of legislation that are still in effect even to this day.

I'm not saying the man is perfect. His racial policies weren't very good, and the alien and sedition acts were pretty damned inexcusable.

But I don't see enough there to rank him in the bottom of the pack when there are plenty of worse Presidents.

Tages

12-01-2006, 06:58 PM

So our allies in Europe mean aboslutely nothing? I suppose you love the current President's "Go It Alone" thing, right?
At the time we didn't have allies in Europe. George Washington had some sage advice on entangling alliances.

Whether the Allies or Central Powers won the war was completely irrelevant to the safety of the United States, and unlike the Second World War two decades later, there was no moral component involved since both sides acted abominably, though at the time there was an enormous double-standard applied to Allied vs. CP wartime actions. Germany trying to starve Britain was atrocious, but Britain conducting a far more successful starvation blockade of Germany was perfectly fine; the completely fictional German atrocities supposedly committed against Belgian citizens only showed the bloodthirsty unreasoning of the Hun, but British soldiers attacking unarmed Irish civilians during a football game? Hey, it's war, shit happens.

And who could predict that Hitler would come to power as such - no one's a mindreader.
Because forcing Germany to take complete responsibility for the entire war was horseshit. Britain, France and the Russian Empire were all responsible in their own ways for causing the deaths of 16 million people as well. Humiliating a nation that was once a great power, forcing them to pay billions in "reparations" for a war they were only one party in starting, and making them cede vast swaths of territory and agree to provisions like an army not to exceed 100,000 strong is practically asking a dictator to march in on promises to return the Fatherland to its former glory.

And hey, FDR threw folks into interment camps simply for being Japanese. And yet I see no real hatred there.
I've mentioned it twice on this thread alone and included him on my list of the worst presidents.

Sorry, but Wilson wasn't the worst President and probably not even in the bottom 10.
Sure, Harding didn't get a quarter million of his countrymen killed and wounded in a war that didn't involve American interests or security at all, nor did he throw people in prison for daring to disagree with him in public, nor was he the first to codify white supremacist segregation policies into law at the national level, nor did he encourage authorities to look the other way while mobs lynched German immigrants for daring to have been born in the wrong country...

But dude, the guy totally was corrupt. That's so much worse.

Anyone defending Wilson's above policies is either in denial or doesn't think much of human life or liberty.

Tages

12-01-2006, 07:05 PM

While his lying about staying out of WWI was bad, his Administration at least went in and turned the tide, eventually winning Americans allies (like rick posted)
So tell me, how many dead, maimed and crippled soldiers is an alliance worth? And do you think, maybe, there would have been a way to earn those alliances without getting people killed?

Iangould

12-01-2006, 08:18 PM

If I were a heartless Machiavellian bastard, I'd argue that it was in US interests in both the First and Second world Wars to prevent EITHER side winning a definitive victory - and that one way to ensure that would be to wait until one side was clearly winning and then intervene on the other side.

But I'm not that cynial and I don't think the US is either.

Iangould

12-01-2006, 08:23 PM

Seeing as this thread has (inevitably) brought up FDR, had a few recent thoughts about him which may be of interest.

Now I was readign an article by a right-wing economsit critical of FDr an he was talkign abotu the increase in taxes under roosevelt which he stated came primarily from an increase in excise revenue.

Gee, I wonder why excise revenue went up - you think maybe it had soemthign to do with the repeal of Prohibition?

For that matter, I wodner how much of the increase in income tax revenue under FDR is attributable to bringing the alcohol industry back into the official economy.

Libertarian critics of FDR in particular might want to consider that Repeal was probably the only major win for liberal principles in the "Drug War" in the last century.

Valmore

12-01-2006, 09:09 PM

So tell me, how many dead, maimed and crippled soldiers is an alliance worth? And do you think, maybe, there would have been a way to earn those alliances without getting people killed?

Considering the war was already going on, and Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare clearly violated open seas rights, do you think there was a better solution? Considering 128 Americans died on the Lusitania in 1915, it's a wonder America didn't go in quicker.

So yeah, World War I clearly didn't have any American interests or security involved. Right. Nice revisionist version of history there, but I'm not buying it.

Mike Smash!

12-01-2006, 09:15 PM

Sure, Harding didn't get a quarter million of his countrymen killed and wounded in a war that didn't involve American interests or security at all, nor did he throw people in prison for daring to disagree with him in public, nor was he the first to codify white supremacist segregation policies into law at the national level, nor did he encourage authorities to look the other way while mobs lynched German immigrants for daring to have been born in the wrong country...

But dude, the guy totally was corrupt. That's so much worse.

Anyone defending Wilson's above policies is either in denial or doesn't think much of human life or liberty.

Wilson is also somewhat famous for his praise of the Ku Klux Klan in his multi-volume "History of the American People".

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Birth-of-a-nation-poster-color.jpg

D.W. Griffith, the filmmaker behind the pro-Klan film, "Birth of a Nation" even used one of Wilson's quotes in his film's title cards:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Wilson-quote-in-birth-of-a-nation.jpg

And I'm sure that a few of you are familiar with Wilson's review of the movie upon seeing it in the White House: "it is like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true."

And in 1914, the New York Times quoted him as saying, "If the colored people made a mistake in voting for me, they ought to correct it."

This plus the civil liberties record or his involvement in WWI -- against his very campaign slogan of "he'll keep us out the war" puts him among the worst.

david r

12-01-2006, 09:31 PM

Woodrow Wilson and FDR being ranked as Worst Presidents?? That seems improbable to me.

Woodrow Wilson is someone I don't like. He was a prissy, cold-hearted man. BUT........Wilson had a vision. His vision would later be the benchmark for American foreign policy for the rest of the Twentieth Century. Both FDR and Truman essentially enacted Woodrow Wilson's foreign plans.

I would rank the Worst Presidents this way:

1) James Buchanan: Hands down the worst President. Was incompetent in dealing with the coming crisis of the Civil War. As his term ended, Congress was running the show.
2) Ulysses S. Grant: The man was a great general, but no politician. He seems to have drank his two terms away, and allowed his Republican friends to do whatever they wanted.
3) Warren G. Harding: One of the most corrupt administrations in U.S. history. Harding also allowed his Republican friends to do whatever they wanted, the stress of it killed him in 1923.
4) Herbert Hoover: Hoover has never gotten his fair shake from history. He was a kind man. But a totally ineffective President. The Great Depression rocked his Presidency, and he could never figure out how to handle the situation.
5) Richard Nixon: As has been noted, Nixon has many good points. But Watergate is the biggest scandal in U.S. history. And Richard Nixon was front and center the man at fault. He was extremely corrupt, and saw enemies everywhere. This destroyed him.
6) Franklin Pierce: Another failed Presidency that was incapable of stemming the tide to Civil War.

Valmore

12-01-2006, 09:35 PM

That so-called review quote has never been proven to have happened, as it was the author of The Clansman, Thomas Dixon, who stated the President said it, as the President did not say anything of the sort in public. Dixon was also notorious for aggressive promoting of the film, including calling it, "federally endorsed" when that wasn't the case.

Mike Smash!

12-01-2006, 09:37 PM

That so-called review quote has never been proven to have happened, as it was the producer of the movie, Dixon who stated the President said it, as the President did not say anything of the sort in public. Dixon was also notorious for aggressive promoting of the film, including calling it, "federally endorsed" when that wasn't the case.

Still, the title card quote is taken directly from one of Wilson's own books. I'd say that quote is worse than the one attributed to him.

david r

12-01-2006, 09:38 PM

Woodrow Wilson is routinely placed in the Top Ten of Greatest Presidents, by historians. So they must know what they're talking about.

But like I said, I really don't like the man myself. Too cold.

Valmore

12-01-2006, 09:39 PM

Still, the title card quote is taken directly from one of Wilson's own books. I'd say that quote is worse than the one attributed to him.

True enough. But Wilson was somewhat of a racist.

Expletive Deleted

12-01-2006, 09:40 PM

Historians debate feverishly over the best president in American history. However, there is little disagreement over who was the worst. His name was Warren G. Harding (1921-1923), and he sucked.

The reasons why he sucked are many and, to be truthful, have been widely catalogued in the annals of presidential history. So, with your indulgence, I'd like to focus instead on the intensity of his sucking.

Warren G. Harding was a worthless piece of shit. Fuck him. His presidency was a taint, not just in the sense of a "stain on the office," but literally a taint - the anatomical area between the anus and the testicles. I hate Warren G. Harding.

-Stephen Colbert, America: The BookWhen he's right, he's right.

david r

12-01-2006, 09:41 PM

I would rank Millard Fillmore, Chester Arthur, Benjamin Harrison, Calvin Coolidge, Jimmy Carter, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Martin Van Buren as mediocre Presidents. Not necessarily bad, just had little lasting positive effect on US history.

Mike Smash!

12-01-2006, 09:42 PM

Woodrow Wilson is someone I don't like. He was a prissy, cold-hearted man. BUT........Wilson had a vision. His vision would later be the benchmark for American foreign policy for the rest of the Twentieth Century.

I can't say that's a ringing endorsement. Twentieth Century foreign policy isn't exactly something to be proud of inspiring.

I recommend you do some research on the Espionage and Sedition Acts that threw anyone wh o criticized the government during WWI into prison. I'd also look up the Palmer Raids/Red Scare on "subversives", labor unions and socialists.

I'd look up some of his statements and policies on race, as well. Until political expediency pushed him towards more progressive policies, the man was a real prick and a reactionary.

Tages

12-01-2006, 09:42 PM

Considering the war was already going on, and Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare clearly violated open seas rights, do you think there was a better solution? Considering 128 Americans died on the Lusitania in 1915, it's a wonder America didn't go in quicker.

So yeah, World War I clearly didn't have any American interests or security involved. Right. Nice revisionist version of history there, but I'm not buying it.
You mean the Lusitania ship that the Germans knew weapons were being smuggled on? The ship that the German government took out ads in every American publication they could specifically requesting Americans not take for that very reason?

Torpedoing a single ship does not make for a threat to American security. It certainly doesn't justify sacrificing 120,000 lives.

david r

12-01-2006, 09:42 PM

My, Stephen Colbert does NOT like Warren Harding. But still, the damage that James Buchanan caused (the Civil War),was worse than the damage that Harding caused.

Mike Smash!

12-01-2006, 09:43 PM

Valmore

12-01-2006, 09:44 PM

Woodrow Wilson is routinely placed in the Top Ten of Greatest Presidents, by historians. So they must know what they're talking about.

But like I said, I really don't like the man myself. Too cold.

Oh he has his personal faults, and some carried over into his Presidency - there's no mistaking that. He was a racist who only offered a couple token government positions to blacks. And the Sedition Act of 1917 was a terrible injustice of civil liberties. Lying to get America involved in WWI was also not a very smart move, other than to get re-elected. Some of the Treaty work wasn't prefect, either.

However, he also affected a lot of positive changes that laid the groundwork for later Presidents.

I don't rank him as one of the worst. But historians also tend to give him a little too much credit as well.

He's somewhere around the bottom of the Top 15 to 20.

david r

12-01-2006, 09:44 PM

I can't say that's a ringing endorsement. Twentieth Century foreign policy isn't exactly something to be proud of inspiring.

I recommend you do some research on the Espionage and Sedition Acts that threw anyone wh o criticized the government during WWI into prison. I'd also look up the Palmer Raids/Red Scare on "subversives", labor unions and socialists.

I'd look up some of his statements and policies on race, as well. Until political expediency pushed him towards more progressive policies, the man was a real prick and a reactionary.

I'm not arguing with you. But if Woodrow Wilson enacted all these policies, why is he always ranked in the top ten of Best Presidents? Often higher than Reagan, Kennedy or Eisenhower?

Mike Smash!

12-01-2006, 09:47 PM

Mike Smash!

12-01-2006, 09:47 PM

I'm not arguing with you. But if Woodrow Wilson enacted all these policies, why is he always ranked in the top ten of Best Presidents? Often higher than Reagan, Kennedy or Eisenhower?

A better question would be why Reagan makes those lists.

My theory -- which applies to many shitty, but popular politicians:

They like the idea of Wilson, the image and reputation of Wilson and just ignore the ugly, wormy scabby and disappointing reality. The whitewashed CliffNotes version of Wilson.

(See also: Hillary and Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, John F. Kennedy and Harry Truman)

EDIT: By the way, it seems you have a terrible sense of backwards logic that you're coming from. Experts typically call Wilson a great president. History says that Wilson did things that would make him a real dick. Therefore, Wilson must not have done those things.

david r

12-01-2006, 09:51 PM

I agree about Ronald Reagan. I feel he's incredibly over-rated.

His fans often site him as the "Man who Won the Cold War." I would say he HELPED end the Cold War, continuing the Containment Policy enacted during Harry Truman's Administration.

Without Gorbachev, Reagan would not have ended anything. Reagan saw Gorbachev as an opportunity, and he took it. He simply got lucky because the Soviet Union was finally decaying from within. He assisted in destroying Soviet Russia, but did not do it on his own.

Valmore

12-01-2006, 09:54 PM

I'm not arguing with you. But if Woodrow Wilson enacted all these policies, why is he always ranked in the top ten of Best Presidents? Often higher than Reagan, Kennedy or Eisenhower?

Well, historians tend to look some of the things that we find more egregious these days in a different light. Racism, for example, gets sort of a sliding scale as you go further back in American History, probably as a result of what the times were at the time.

For instance, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson could conceivably be called "racists" - they owned slaves, had illegitimate children with black female slaves, and did next to nothing to promote black rights. But they get ranked as two of the best Presidents in history.

Wilson probably gets a partial pass from historians for the being the product of the reconstructionist south, which was a breeding ground for discontentment. Could he have risen above it? Yes. But it's not surprising he didn't, given the times and upbringing.

Serik

12-01-2006, 09:55 PM

I'll never forgive Wilson for creating the Federal Reserve System. Based on that alone, I'd rank him as a terrible president.

And the US should've never been involved in WWI (the Lusitania sinking and the Zimmerman Telegraph weren't good enough reasons to sacrifice so many lives). The fact that Wilson said he'd keep us out of the war makes him that much more of a bastard.

david r

12-01-2006, 10:00 PM

What about William Howard Taft?

His Presidency has been forgotten, and I don't believe he's considered terribly effective.

LtMarvel

12-01-2006, 10:14 PM

I don't see how JFK can be on the list of the worst. Just look at the total number of bills he signed into law...

zero With that kind of record, you can't be at the bottom nor the top...

Mike Smash!

12-01-2006, 11:28 PM

I don't see how JFK can be on the list of the worst. Just look at the total number of bills he signed into law...

zero With that kind of record, you can't be at the bottom nor the top...

Well...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/BayofPigs.jpg

Mike Smash!

12-01-2006, 11:35 PM

What about William Howard Taft?

His Presidency has been forgotten, and I don't believe he's considered terribly effective.

Yeah, an ineffective and weak president.

I think Taft was basically a good man, just sort of spineless, weak and uncharismatic. After read James Chace's book on the 1912 Election, and hearing how he wife had a stroke right after he took office and how he was just sort of tossed around like a ping pong ball, I ended up feeling sorry for the guy. The guy's just sad. He's like an Arthur Miller protagonist.

He never wanted to be president (he really wanted to be on the Supreme Court) and caved on alot of Teddy's initiatives and sort of went along with the conservative wing of his own party.

Of course, if Teddy's ego hadn't been so big and he'd simply asked Taft not to run again in 1912, I don't think he would have and stepped aside for Teddy. Instead, Teddy called him out in public and Taft stuck around out of pride and watched him and his close friend get really vicious on one another to the point that Taft just gave up on campaigning and just moped around the White House and waited to come in third place in the general election.

Serik

12-01-2006, 11:56 PM

The election of 1912 went something like this:

"T.R. challenges Taft to bout of 'olde-fashioned fisticuffsmanship'"
"Taft suggests round of golf, confection sampling instead"

Wesley Dodds

12-02-2006, 12:01 AM

I don't know, that description makes me like Taft. It's nice that he just stopped campaigning -- most politicians are so power-hungry they'll keep going no matter what.

Mike Smash!

12-02-2006, 12:55 AM

I don't know, that description makes me like Taft. It's nice that he just stopped campaigning -- most politicians are so power-hungry they'll keep going no matter what.

I think he was sort of depressed about the whole thing and just gave up. T.R. and him were good friends at one point and during the campaign, Teddy was just skewering him at every turn. Sure, the stuff he was saying about Taft was largely true, but the whole thing could have been avoided if Teddy had just asked Taft not to run for re-election to an office that he hadn't wanted in the first place.

I ended up just feeling bad for the guy.

Check out "1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft and Debs: the Election that Changed the Country" by James Chace. Excellent book about four fascinating candidates.

Guts/Batman

12-02-2006, 01:00 AM

I choose Herbert Hoover. I don't remember anything good about that guy. He was the president during the great depression.

The thing about a Depression or a Recession is to me that they are inevitable. In the kind of economy we have, expecting there never to be at least a recession is expecting too much. Nothing ever just increasing forever and ever, time will get it in the end.

While Presidents have the power to do things to lessen it, they don't have the power to stop it from happening because of it's inherited qualities.

Wesley Dodds

12-02-2006, 01:07 AM

Tages

12-02-2006, 04:42 AM

Check out "1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft and Debs: the Election that Changed the Country" by James Chace. Excellent book about four fascinating candidates.

I'm actually reading Freud's bio of Wilson at the moment -- I read a chapter years ago for pol sci and I liked it so now I'm reading the book.

Wilson shares the shit out of me.
Wasn't Freud of the opinion that all Americans were barbaric throwbacks unworthy to kiss the feet of proper European civilization?

I read that he visited the US only once and swore to never return, he hated the experience so much. Appropriately enough, he spent most of said visit in New Jersey.

Wesley Dodds

12-02-2006, 04:49 AM

Yes, he did hate it.

But be fair: this was before you had McDonalds.

cactusmaac

12-02-2006, 05:02 AM

Woodrow Wilson is routinely placed in the Top Ten of Greatest Presidents, by historians. So they must know what they're talking about.

But like I said, I really don't like the man myself. Too cold.

He's about the only college professor who accomplished anything of note in politics, so they're bound to rate him. Humanities faculties are also mostly populated by liberals so they have their own take on which presidents rank as great.

FBHthelizardmage

12-02-2006, 06:35 AM

Oh come on.

Star Wars is what destabilized Gorbachev's economy; what happened after that was inevitable.

Actually, no, soviet military spending increased no more during Regans time than in anyone elses.

It was simply the bloated ineffiency of the soviet military industral complex that finally sunk them.

Valmore

12-02-2006, 06:51 AM

Wasn't Freud of the opinion that all Americans were barbaric throwbacks unworthy to kiss the feet of proper European civilization?

I read that he visited the US only once and swore to never return, he hated the experience so much. Appropriately enough, he spent most of said visit in New Jersey.

But that was long before Kevin Smith came along.

Drew Van T.

12-02-2006, 07:29 AM

But that was long before Kevin Smith came along.

I'm sure he would have enjoyed psycho-analyzing Kevin Schmitt.

TheTen-EyedMan

12-02-2006, 07:37 AM

But that was long before Kevin Smith came along.

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/freud/images/vc008467.jpg

"SHUT UP KEVIN...SOMETIMES A CIGAR IS JUST A CIGAR!"

heretic

12-02-2006, 08:15 AM

Harding pardoned Eugene Debs.
That earns a bit of respect for him as a person (as an admin and judge of character he was pathetic).

Too bad Coolidge was his VP, given that he was largely responsible for the Great Depression and all....

HTG

heretic

12-02-2006, 08:23 AM

Actually it's kinda easy.
A life is worth the same, regardless of nationality or race.

It only get tricky because were talking about bombing civillians, who were just living their lives, to save soldiers, who's job it is to fight and die.
The reasoning was that _more_ civilians would die if the Home Islands were invaded or starved out.

Some suspect the bombs were merely a tipping point in the incepient coup against the IJA faction within the government anyway.

HTG

heretic

12-02-2006, 08:33 AM

heretic

12-02-2006, 08:49 AM

While his lying about staying out of WWI was bad, his Administration at least went in and turned the tide, eventually winning Americans allies (like rick posted) and led towards his work for the League of Nations, a groundwork for future cooperation amongst the world. The Nobel Prize committee felt it was good enough to give him the Peace Prize award.

Point of Order: What made it so important for Germany to lose WWI (as opposed, obviously, to WWII)?

We had no dog in that fight, and neither side was particularly malevolent rather than stupid (the wankage of the German General Staff was a far cry from what could be expected if they won).

HTG

Drew Van T.

12-02-2006, 09:17 AM

We had no dog in that fight, and neither side was particularly malevolent rather than stupid (the wankage of the German General Staff was a far cry from what could be expected if they won).

The German troops did behave in a more ruthless, nasty manner. They had a kind of death squads roaming Belgium during the invasion and occupation, IIRC, killing civilians. It was the reporting of these aspects that played a crucial role in getting America to the table (again, IIRC. It's been a while...) in addition to the later incidents with the ships...

Serik

12-02-2006, 10:46 AM

Woodrow Wilson is routinely placed in the Top Ten of Greatest Presidents, by historians. So they must know what they're talking about.

But like I said, I really don't like the man myself. Too cold.

Woodrow Wilson was in many ways like George W. Bush. Indeed, neoconservatism draws from Wilson's belief that "making the world safe for democracy" should be done through force…

Wilson and Bush wanted war and in both cases Americans shouldn't have been involved in one. And both men genuinely felt their wars were about saving democracy, yet they supported legislation and policies that disgraced our constitution.

To Bush’s credit, he never enforced laws that jailed dissenters...and the Iraq War hasn’t killed over 100,000 Americans...and his 2000 campaign never centered on how he was keeping us out of war...

I suspect academics look favorably on Wilson because 1.)he was an academic himself 2.)his 14 Points/League of Nations bid are so flowery and idealistic that we might as well brush over everything else the bastard did.

Tages

12-02-2006, 03:02 PM

The German troops did behave in a more ruthless, nasty manner. They had a kind of death squads roaming Belgium during the invasion and occupation, IIRC, killing civilians. It was the reporting of these aspects that played a crucial role in getting America to the table (again, IIRC. It's been a while...) in addition to the later incidents with the ships...
H.L. Mencken once offered one million dollars for anyone who could prove the above, along with the claims that Germans were chopping off Belgians' hands and feet.

The reward was never collected.

StoneGold

12-02-2006, 03:06 PM

Tages

12-02-2006, 08:46 PM

Because they were afraid of having their hands and feet chopped off?
This was after the war, when the heathen Hun had been driven back.

o1pickleboy

12-03-2006, 12:31 AM

1) James Buchanan: Hands down the worst President. Was incompetent in dealing with the coming crisis of the Civil War. As his term ended, Congress was running the show.

So I take it you wanted Fremont to win the election

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Fr%C3%A9mont

Just remember it could have been worse.

StoneGold

12-03-2006, 12:34 AM

This was after the war, when the heathen Hun had been driven back.
What, you haven't seen movies with crazed veterans doing evil shit after the war? Granted, movies were still a pretty neophyte art form back then, but who were some of the few people making them? The Germans. It all comes together so neatly.

Drew Van T.

12-03-2006, 03:21 AM

H.L. Mencken once offered one million dollars for anyone who could prove the above, along with the claims that Germans were chopping off Belgians' hands and feet.

The reward was never collected.

Obviously, the reality of the German behavior was seized upon by Allied propagandists who exaggerated it. The chopping of hands and feet thing, as far as I know, is bull.

The truth is that the German troops, who claimed (probably correcly) to have been shot at by civilians, partially burned down one major city, killed 5000 civilians in all and caused hundreds of thousands to go on the run.

(In other words, it was paradise compared to modern-day Iraq, but...)

Bear

12-03-2006, 10:53 AM

Well, it seems (overwhelmingly) we all agree on one thing at least...

*points to poll*

And that, much to my surprise, indicates also that Nixon and Reagan are neck-and-neck for 2nd.

I was sure that Nixon would be considered worst--just by virtue of the fact he was driven from office successfully.

I've got nothing against Clinton, politically, really. He cheated on his wife, and that will forever make him kind of a bastard in my book; but he wasn't an evil man, I believe, otherwise.

Loren

12-03-2006, 02:04 PM

And hey, FDR threw folks into interment camps simply for being Japanese. And yet I see no real hatred there.

I can't recall if I'd learned this before and simply forgotten it, but FDR didn't even go through normal democratic procedures in enacting the internment. He simply issued an Executive Order (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_9066), and instructed the military to lock up 100,000 Americans.

rick

12-03-2006, 02:16 PM

I've got to thinking about this whole conversation and something hit me.

We can debate the abilities of every last man who became president and argue about their merits as statesmen.

But when we talk about their morals and their more human qualities and maybe decide that George Washington might have been the greatest President ever and George W Bush the worst but also keep in mind which one owned slaves and which one brought the largest increase of minority appointments into the government ever.

This reality might not even change that Washington was the best President and Bush was the worst, but it does bring up the point that even the best can do great evil and even the worst can do great good.

Tommy

12-03-2006, 03:04 PM

Point of Order: What made it so important for Germany to lose WWI (as opposed, obviously, to WWII)?

We had no dog in that fight, and neither side was particularly malevolent rather than stupid (the wankage of the German General Staff was a far cry from what could be expected if they won).
It wasn't specifically in the United States benefit that either side win the war. At the time there was much disagreement in America about which side we should fight on.

However ending the war as quickly as possible was in the best interest of the entire planet. Every nation involved would have suffered complete political and economic collapse had the war taken any longer. Post war Russia is pretty much what would have happened to the entire continent. A bankrupt nation with plenty of internal rebellion. The collapse of Europe would certainly not be in America's interest.

RickThunderclees

12-03-2006, 03:06 PM

Mike Smash!

12-03-2006, 03:06 PM

Valmore

12-03-2006, 03:36 PM

I tend to think of it as signs of how far we've come morally. That centuries ago, the best of politicians were slaveowners and today, the worst of politicians have black Secretaries of State.

Signs of the times, so to speak. Washington, Jefferson, Wilson, etc. wouldn't be able to get voted in today, because we've come to the point where most of society realizes racism is wrong, and almost everyone thinks slavery is wrong. (Yes, there are some that don't, and sadly, it'll probably always be that way.)

It tends to be why those Presidents get a partial pass, considering the times they were in. If George W. Bush were to not put any qualified blacks on his staff, the country would scream racism and rightly so. But for Wilson or Washington not to was considered normal for the time. We don't LIKE that they did that, obviously, but they're not going to get judged as harshly as more modern Presidents on the issue, because those times weren't as enlightened as we are now.

Kid Kamikaze10

12-03-2006, 04:14 PM

After reading this entire thread, I'm taking the easy choices.

Buchanan and Harding.

But seriously, this thread has really changed my views on politics in general (a real dirty business, but someones gotta do it)........

Then again, I'm from Nigeria. I should have known that initially.

Kid Kamikaze10

12-03-2006, 04:16 PM

Time will truly tell, but so far, Dubya is getting pretty close to my top ten.

Loren

12-03-2006, 04:30 PM

I'll be interesting to see how history treats Bush -- I mean, if Iraq somehow makes it people will have to say he accomplished something positive (whatever his failings).

Barring some other huge policy accomplishment in the next two years, which I think is unlikely with a divided government, I think you're right that Bush's legacy hangs on the eventual outcome in Iraq. If the country can pull together and actually be the start of democracy in the Middle East, then it might end up being in Bush's favor.

However, unless the place devolves into a decade-long bloodbath, I don't think that it'll be enough to consign Dubya to the bottom of the Presidential barrel. Even as it stands now, Iraq doesn't approach the death and destruction that we saw in Vietnam, and LBJ doesn't seem to be topping a lot of Worst President lists.

The problem with Dubya's legacy is that there's not a lot of great accomplishments to lean on. Tax cuts certainly aren't remembered a generation later. After he's been out of office a few years, I think conservatives will bemoan the excessive spending and government expansions of this Administration. And although those same expansions should, in theory, provide huge appeal to liberals (e.g. doubling the size of the Dept of Education, the prescription drug benefit), there was enough of a conservative 'taint' to how those expansions were carried out that the Left *still* dislikes them.

And for all the present-day focus on civil liberties, I think that will definitely fade with time. The extent to which it practically affects people today is limited, and I fully expect that the worse excesses will be undone over the next decade or so. If FDR's legacy can overcome locking up 100,000 innocent Americans, and LBJ's can overshadow the riots and attacks on American protesters, then Bush's can overcome surveillance statutes and Guantanamo detainments.

In the end, I expect that Dubya's administration won't be looked upon favorably by either side. Frankly, I think he'll go down as being on the low end of mediocre, somewhere between Carter and LBJ (to give two recent examples).

Gingold

12-03-2006, 04:37 PM

For all his many faults, LBJ has the Great Society programs and civil rights as part of his legacy. Barring a miracle turnaround in Iraq, I think history will be less kind to Bush II than to Johnson (or Carter, who's post-presidential service earns him points, fairly or not.)

Iangould

12-03-2006, 04:42 PM

Tax cuts certainly aren't remembered a generation later.

No, but the crippling national debt they engender might be.

And let's not forget global warming.

cactusmaac

12-03-2006, 04:50 PM

Don't forget Warren G. Harding's affiliation with the KKK. What a freaking turd.

Affiliation? The man was accused by various white supremacists of being mixed-race during his presidential campaign. He went to Alabama in the 20's as President, spoke out against lynching and called for blacks to have full social, political and economic equality with whites.

The biographer who accused him of being a Klan member was found to have systematically lied and exaggerated throughout his work.

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:FACkJ0zfl1oJ:www.mezomorf.com/magazine/news-20059.html+Hoodwinked%3F++STEPHEN+J.+DUBNER+AND+ST EVEN+D.+LEVITT+&hl=en&client=firefox-a

JeffreyWKramer

12-03-2006, 04:56 PM

Personally I think Lincoln was one of the greats, but there are actually a few people on this board who think he was a dictator.

Both are true, in certain ways.

He certainly misused war powers, such as suspending habeus corpus in order to harass the press and jail political opponents - including Democrats that were on the verge of winning House seats from Republican loyalists.

It's hard to argue against the maintenance of the Union, but he set some bad precedent - some of which Bush is drawing upon right now.

JeffreyWKramer

12-03-2006, 05:34 PM

But if Woodrow Wilson enacted all these policies, why is he always ranked in the top ten of Best Presidents?

See my signature for an explanation.

Loren

12-03-2006, 05:35 PM

No, but the crippling national debt they engender might be.

And let's not forget global warming.

Both of which are bad, but neither of which is even remotely unique to Dubya. And there's a limited amount of what any President could do about the latter that would 1) be acceptable to the American public now, and 2) would actually be memorable later.

On the plus side, it's during Dubya's years that the American public has finally begun to express an actual interest in fuel efficiency. And it's due to simple market demands; as gas gets more expensive, people want to save money.

Serik

12-03-2006, 05:38 PM

On the plus side, it's during Dubya's years that the American public has finally begun to express an actual interest in fuel efficiency. And it's due to simple market demands; as gas gets more expensive, people want to save money.

But the key is that Bush had nothing to do with this and will be remembered accordingly.

Loren

12-03-2006, 06:08 PM

For all his many faults, LBJ has the Great Society programs and civil rights as part of his legacy.

True, Johnson's achievements are certainly of greater note than any of Bush's (whether or not I think they were actually good for the country). But I think Johnson's offenses are considerably greater than Bush's, so that kinda balances out.

Barring a miracle turnaround in Iraq, I think history will be less kind to Bush II than to Johnson (or Carter, who's post-presidential service earns him points, fairly or not.)

By pretty much any measure, Vietnam was a failure of a magnitude several times that of Iraq. The Korean War was just over 50 years ago, and although we lost over 30,000 men and basically fought to a draw, it's remembered more for MASH than anything else, and Truman's legacy hasn't suffered much for it. I think a miracle turnaround in Iraq could salvage Bush's legacy, but I'm not convinced that the lack of one will destroy it.

Loren

12-03-2006, 06:09 PM

But the key is that Bush had nothing to do with this and will be remembered accordingly.

The same way people remember that Clinton didn't have anything to do with the stock market boom?

LtMarvel

12-03-2006, 09:09 PM

The same way people remember that Clinton didn't have anything to do with the stock market boom?
Except GW Bush was responsible for higher fuel prices (the war with Iraq certainly raised prices). In my part of the world, gas was just over $1/gal in Jan 2001...

Nick Soapdish

12-03-2006, 09:21 PM

The same way people remember that Clinton didn't have anything to do with the stock market boom?

I dunno. Clinton never said that a stock market boom was un-American and he was quite happy to take credit for anything the economy was doing while in office.

Dubya hasn't exactly devoted much effort to explaining to the American people that we need to lessen our dependence on oil. I know that recently he's made a few references to that in speeches, but mostly it's been "we need to secure Iraq for oil" or "energy conservation is un-American". Seems like it might be kind of awkward for the president to try taking credit for higher gas prices.

And I'm not sure if I agree with the comparisons to either Truman or LBJ.

We didn't start the Korean War. We stepped in to defend an ally and the ally didn't lose. We didn't annihilate the enemy and forcibly unite the country, but that wasn't why we got involved.

And the Vietnam War was a disaster for us, but three presidents get to share at least part of the blame. (Maybe four, but Ike was barely involved at all.) And as badly as went, the country at least managed to have a government at the end of the conflict and we at least thought that we knew what we were fighting for (Domino theory). In Iraq, we've already had the two most politicized reasons for invasion disproved and the third (making it safe for democracy) is under serious doubt. Securing the region for oil doesn't seem to be holding out too well so the best remaining argument is that by causing the conflict, it's distracting terrorists from attacking us. I'm not sure how kindly the history books will look upon us for removing a brutal dictator and then kicking over the anthill and unleashing total chaos. We might have only lost a few thousand troops, but it was in a war that was supposed to be a slam dunk and over in a few months and then completely paying for itself.

Iangould

12-03-2006, 09:38 PM

Both of which are bad, but neither of which is even remotely unique to Dubya. And there's a limited amount of what any President could do about the latter that would 1) be acceptable to the American public now, and 2) would actually be memorable later.

On the plus side, it's during Dubya's years that the American public has finally begun to express an actual interest in fuel efficiency. And it's due to simple market demands; as gas gets more expensive, people want to save money.

With regard to global warming, the problem is not so much that he didn't try to get Kyoto passed as that he actively lobbied against the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act - which nearly passed despite him - and that he has actively resisted attempts to even discuss any alternative to Kyoto.

Wtih regard to the national debt, it was tracking down when he came to office thanks to his father and Clinton. All he had to do was keep his tax cuts small enough not to push the budget back into deficit.

He failed to do so - and he oversaw just about the fastest growth in non-defence and non-security spending on record. Yes Congress passed those spending bills - but it was a Congress controlled by his party and he signed every last one of them.

Guts/Batman

12-03-2006, 09:43 PM

Both are true, in certain ways.

He certainly misused war powers, such as suspending habeus corpus in order to harass the press and jail political opponents - including Democrats that were on the verge of winning House seats from Republican loyalists.

It's hard to argue against the maintenance of the Union, but he set some bad precedent - some of which Bush is drawing upon right now.

Yep. Lincoln did what was necessary to keep the Union together, and his tactics were ruthless. And AFAIK, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in the South. He neglected to mention the ones in the North.

I've said it a few times, but of all the leaders in the 19th Century he is one of the people I would not want to go to war with that I have studied.

Serik

12-03-2006, 09:43 PM

The same way people remember that Clinton didn't have anything to do with the stock market boom?

Oil prices are still not high enough to warrant a transformation of our energy economy. We won't look back on Bush's terms as a time of crippling oil prices and widespread alternative energy adoption. Energy efficiency improvements are merely the result of the economy's continued drive towards efficiency – something hardly unique to the Bush administration. Indeed, now that oil prices are stable, we're seeing a rebound in SUV and large truck sales.

The Iraq War certainly increased oil prices, but there are dozens of other factors at work. Keep in mind that Iraq wasn’t extracting that much of its reserves before the war.

And if Bush was interested in weaning the nation off oil, he would be against drilling in Alaska. Withholding those oil supplies would at some point increase the price of oil and make alternatives more profitable.

it's remembered more for MASH than anything else, and Truman's legacy hasn't suffered much for it.

Ya, who remembers keeping South Korea from falling to one of the most barbaric and backwards regimes on earth?

anthony!

12-04-2006, 01:05 PM

spoon_jenkins

01-20-2007, 10:12 PM

W's presidency is one that has left itself to the winds of events beyond his control. If W's "axis of evil" or something akin to it materializes over the course of the next 20 years, there's a good chance his presidency and what he warned against will be seen as almost prophetic. If on the other hand terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism and such ebb and flow and eventually putter out, his presidency will be seen as alarmist, manipulative, trigger happy and damagingly paranoid.
Nah, I don't think that's going to vindicate the failure that George W. Bush administration has been. His axis of evil was, I think, largely supposed to be a present-day observation rather than a prophetic remark. In part, it was stating the obvious, and in part it was dead wrong. It was obvious that the governments of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea were unfriendly to the U.S., so that's no great insight. It's wrong to conceptualize them as an axis acting together or as the 3 biggest threats to the U.S. How about Al-Qaeda?! The axis of evil framework took attention away from Al-Qaeda. So their threat doesn't vindicate the axis of evil remark.

Furthermore, future harms caused by "axis of evil" nations might instead be a result of the Bush administration's policies. During the early years of Bush's presidency, with Mohammad Khatami as Iran's president, we might have had an opportunity for repprochement with Iran. So if Iran gets more belligerent toward the U.S., it may be a result of the Bush hard line. And Iraq wasn't much of a threat to the U.S. before the war. The botched war could create a greater threat there.

And regardless of what's happens with foreign policy, we certain to pay lots in the future to make up for Bush's tax cuts for high earners and large estates and runaway spending.