IS GEORGE BUSH THE WORST PRESIDENT -- EVER?

[RBHam]

By Richard Reeves
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucrr/20051203/cm_ucrr/isgeorgebushtheworstpresidentever

snippage:

There are some numbers. The History News Network at George Mason University has just polled historians informally on the Bush record. Four hundred and fifteen, about a third of those contacted, answered -- maybe they were all crazed liberals -- making the project as unofficial as it was interesting. These were the results: 338 said they believed Bush was failing, while 77 said he was succeeding. Fifty said they thought he was the worst president ever. Worse than Buchanan.

This is what those historians said -- and it should be noted that some of the criticism about deficit spending and misuse of the military came from self-identified conservatives -- about the Bush record:


He has taken the country into an unwinnable war and alienated friend and foe alike in the process;


He is bankrupting the country with a combination of aggressive military spending and reduced taxation of the rich;


He has deliberately and dangerously attacked separation of church and state;


He has repeatedly "misled," to use a kind word, the American people on affairs domestic and foreign;


He has proved to be incompetent in affairs domestic (New Orleans) and foreign (Iraq and the battle against al-Qaida);


He has sacrificed American employment (including the toleration of pension and benefit elimination) to increase overall productivity;


He is ignorantly hostile to science and technological progress;


He has tolerated or ignored one of the republic's oldest problems, corporate cheating in supplying the military in wartime.

Quite an indictment. It is, of course, too early to evaluate a president. That, historically, takes decades, and views change over times as results and impact become more obvious. Besides, many of the historians note that however bad Bush seems, they have indeed since worse men around the White House. Some say Buchanan. Many say Vice President Dick Cheney

[Oceansaway]

1. without a doubt......

[AuntPatsy]

2. Need you ask? Actions speak louder than words, his has proven

he is beyond a shadow of doubt.

[barbtries]

3. he is

the worst president, ever, ever.

[donheld]

17. Welcome to DU barbtries

:hi:

[newyawker99]

65. Hi barbtries!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Ron Green]

4. Worse than Pat Buchanan?????

:+

[sabbat hunter]

6. i believe you mean

james buchanan

president pat buchanan ? heaven forbid

[Ron Green]

8. It was a yolk....

[RBHam]

Poor James Buchanan

more snippage:

Poor James Buchanan, the 15th president, is generally considered the worst president in history. Ironically, the Pennsylvania Democrat, elected in 1856, was one of the most qualified of the 43 men who have served in the highest office. A lawyer, a self-made man, Buchanan served with some distinction in the House, served as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and secretary of state under President James K. Polk. He had a great deal to do with the United States becoming a continental nation -- "Manifest Destiny," war with Mexico, and all that. He was also ambassador to Great Britain and was offered a seat on the Supreme Court three separate times.

But he was a confused, indecisive president, who may have made the Civil War inevitable by trying to appease or negotiate with the South. His most recent biographer, Jean Clark, writing for the prestigious American Presidents Series, concluded this year that his actions probably constituted treason. It also did not help that his administration was as corrupt as any in history, and he was widely believed to be homosexual.

Whatever his sexual preferences, his real failures were in refusing to move after South Carolina announced secession from the Union and attacked Fort Sumter, and in supporting both the legality of the pro-slavery constitution of Kansas and the Supreme Court ruling in the Dred Scott class declaring that escaped slaves were not people but property.

He was the guy who in 1861 passed on the mess to the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln. Buchanan set the standard, a tough record to beat. But there are serious people who believe that George W. Bush will prove to do that, be worse than Buchanan. I have talked with three significant historians in the past few months who would not say it in public, but who are saying privately that Bush will be remembered as the worst of the presidents.

[RBHam]

5. Was the Pope a Nazi?

My favourite snappy comeback to a stupid question...

[mcscajun]

7. Worse than Buchanan, worse than Harding. Worst. Ever. Period.

Without doubt.

[shaniqua6392]

9. Ummm ......Let me think about this for a minute.

YEP.

[greiner3]

10. And 77 think he's doing OK? n/t

[CottonBear]

11. Yes. Yes. Yes. Worst. President. EVER. n/t

[madmark]

12. Yes

[PurpleChez]

13. Is Bismark a herring?

* is gallingly inept. Just nice to see the experts weigh in on it.

[stop the bleeding]

14. Yes he still is - nothing has changed since the last 2 times this story

was posted here since Friday.



The thing that gets me is that people seem to only read your headline and then answer it without too many people actually commenting on the article. Same thing happened when this was posted the last few times. I wish people would take time to read these threads instead of just spitting out "knee jerk" responses that are obvious to people here at DU.

Of course we know he is the worst, but people failed to see that article is stating why he is, and MORE important is the fact the MSM might be waking up to this idea.

My point is there is a lot more to this thread than a simple: YES n/t message that seems to be prevalent as a response to the original message.

[RBHam]

15. snark

sorry.

[stop the bleeding]

19. no apologies needed see my update to the post and I am glad that

you posted this again, cuz it shows that MSM is finally getting the fact the we have known for 5 years. That is why a responded to give this thread a kick and nomination. This "worst president ever idea" needs to be hammered into people like "average joe smith" that lives in BFE that may not be as hip to news and events like we are.

[RBHam]

21. I'm with you.

This war criminal needs to be impeached before they can steal the '06 mid terms.

[Joe Turner]

16. Yes, hands down the Worst

The question is: Can America survive another 3 years of this most corrupt, incompetent, evil, reckless, treasonous president? He has got to be impeached for the sake of our nation......

[pbca]

18. He has competition

The monkey is obviously too stupid to really understand what he's doing - it's the people behind him that are causing all the problems. U.S. Grant was in the same situation, except that he wasn't stupid, just drunk and he also had a very unsuccesful administration. He didn't do the same damage to the US but he certainly did comperable damage to the Southern U.S. and the civil rights of the newly freed slaves.

[endarkenment]

20. well there is always the possibility that some time in the future

somebody worse will come along. meanwhile, yes of course he is.

[tomg]

23. While I agree that someone

worse could come along, if George keeps going at his current pace of sheer lunacy, we might not have to worry about someone else coming along. There simply might not be a country to come along to. I never thought I would look back to Nixon in less than utter revulsion.

[endarkenment]

28. Nixon, in rertrospect, was a liberal on many issues.

A nasty corrupt coldwar hawk, domestic police state fascist, but on many issues he was far to the left of our current Democratic media-annointed 'leaders'.

[NoAmericanTaliban]

36. You know you are bad when Nixon looks better

he did start the Environmental protection agency & wanted universal health care for everyone - he may have had that if it wasn't for Watergate.

[tomg]

39. You are right about Nixon.

being a nasty, corrupt coldwar hawk, domestic police state fascist.
What is really depressing, though, is that you are also right that he was to the left of what passes for some in the leadership in the Democratic party.

[LuCifer]

22. NO! BILL CLINTON IS! BECAUSE HE GOT A BJ AND CHEATED!!!!!

:sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm:

Of course Goddamn DUHbya Dipshit BU$Hitler is THE WORST! He's the WORST "leader" EVER! OF AN NATION!!! It's a damn NO BRAINER!!!!!!!!

Lu

[natrat]

43. clinton the worst dem pres cuz he let these freaks in

[NoAmericanTaliban]

24. * star is falling while Jimmy Carter's is rising

but history will ultimately decide if * is the worst & in my book he is. Of course if I got a 15k tax break - I might think otherwise. What do you expect from a lying drunk crackhead. What makes me laugh (& sometimes cry) is that some folks believe that Jesus wanted him to be prez.

[MN ChimpH8R]

25. Chimpy even has a lap on

Harding, Grant, Buchanan and Nixon and that's saying something. His Chimperial Majesty is unquestionably the worst president in US history.

[ieoeja]

26. No

Or maybe. The jury is still out on this one. Until I see what ultimately results from his Mideast maladventure, I still have to back Andrew Jackson as Worst President Ever.

Ol' Hickory's refusal to allow Cherokee statehood almost certainly resulted in another 100 years of almost constant warfare with other pre-Columbian nations. There was very serious debate in this country at the time whether or not pre-Columbian natives should/would/could be assimilated into the United States. Had the Cherokee application for statehood been recognized -- and the US Supreme Court had already ruled it constitutionally acceptable -- this would have served as an example to nations further west that peaceful assimilation was their best option.

Instead, Jackson's extralegal actions against the Cherokee cut off the debate which future generations made no attempt to revive.


W's Blunder in Iraq may result in a century of warfare between Islam and western liberalism. But I doubt it. I have a feeling most Muslims will hold W and his followers responsible. In fact, most may well see this as nothing more than a play for personal power between Saddam and W if the United States gets out in a timely fashion.

The movement that took over Iran, aided the Taliban's ascension, initiated armed revolts in the Philippines, Indonesia and various African nations and that had begun slipping guerilla forces into various central Asian countries to foment rebellion there will, of course, use "Remember Iraq" as a rallying cry. But I do not yet believe the vast majority of the Muslim population will heed that cry.

[Tommy_J]

27. Great story! - lets vote it up on Yahoo

[caledesi]

29. I went to George Mason U and I can tell you that

it is hardly liberal, so this speaks volumes about just how bad * really is.

[AzDar]

30. God, YES!!!! and he isn't finished yet.... n/t

[Double T]

31. Absolutely, positively the WORST PRESIDENT EVER..........

and history will record it as so.

[XemaSab]

32. worst AMERICAN president ever

I'm sure somewhere, at some time, there has been someone with the title "president" who was a worse leader.

[ezboardking]

33. Absolutely

George W. Bush is absolutely the worst President the US had ever had. He is the worst human like thing this world has ever seen. Bush takes the cake for his ultimate stupidity, war mongering, cheating, lying, mass murders, WMD and everything else that any repukelican has ever done to this country.

I wonder if Bush can be tried like Saddam Husain. In my opinion, justice would be severed if Bush and Saddam get the same trial and same sentencing with same punishment.

[madinmaryland]

34. Absolutely not.

Jefferson Davis was the worst. He actually managed to split the United States into two countries.

[endarkenment]

38. Well yes but he did not do that as president of the USA.

CSA != USA.

[autorank]

35. YES Makes Pierce, Arthur, Filmore, & Hayes look Great.

I heard him on c-span yesterday and decided to listen for 10 minutes or so. He is beyond clueless, he is completely out of it. It was a painful experience and one that made me ask, how the Hell can this guy be our president? What a pathetic joke.

[YOY]

41. On par with Harding actually...

[autorank]

57. Damn, that's the drunken sot of a President who slipped my mind.

Thanks!

That's him, that's Bush.

[Zynx]

47. Arthur and Hayes weren't that bad. Distinctly mediocre, but not bad.

Bush is bad, but not as bad as some. It's easy to say that a current bad president is the worst, but as someone who has read about all of our presidents in great detail, I can tell you that some of those in the 19th century were worse.

[RobertSeattle]

37. Don't Forget Cheney - Worst Vice President Ever

I'd call it a tWofer.

[YOY]

40. The fact he hasn't done any thing that can be undeniably be called

positive by any stretch of the imagination.

Seriously. What has he done? Hell, at least the economy was done well under Clinton and nobody could deny that.

[driver8]

48. Hey, he "simulated the economy with his stragedy" of tax cuts for

the rich. He let people keep more money in their pockets. The three hundred and whatever dollars I received from the government allowed me to live like a king for a whole year!

(Do I need to put up "sarcasm" or is it obvious?)

[YOY]

49. Hey! By that line of thinking

I can say that he has created an economy that has allowed me to hone my pro-ultra-corporate capitalism survival skills!

Good for me!

[ClayZ]

42. He is not the President. Both elections were fradulant!

Not My President!

[Octafish]

44. W stands for 'WORST'

The crazy monkey lives to destroy America. Can't get much worse than that.

OK. He lives to destroy the world. But first...

[lakemonster11]

45. "W stands for 'Worst'"!

That's what I should have said to the two idiot women I saw yesterday with a "W is for Women" sticker on their van. I was pissed!

[Zynx]

46. I would say he is in the bottom five, but not the worst.

People forget that the Civil War was, by far, the worst crisis ever to hit this country and Buchanan, Pierce, and Taylor had the biggest roles to play in the lead up to it.

[Time for change]

50. This is amazing!

77 said he was succeeding?!!

These are historians?

What planet are they living on?

[WI_DEM]

51. I'm inclined to believe that Bush is the worst president ever

certainly of the modern presidents. Everything he touches goes rotten.

[long_green]

52. my prayer: that thirty years from now...

I don't have to say "W was bad, but the guy we've got now, yeesh!"

[scarletlib]

53. Yes

some presidents were not good because they were inert, negiligent to their duties or just not up to the job. bush is all of those but even worse -- he acts with malevolent intent. he is destroyint this country.

[biggles1]

54. it was a rhetorical question, right....?

[stop the bleeding]

56. Welcome to DU and no it is not a rhetorical question - it's better than

that. It was an article where the MSM may be waking up to the fact of what state America will/could be in when * is done with us. The article then goes on to point out the different criteria that has been used to judge other past "worst presidents" and the article lets you form an opinion based on that listed criteria - which for any DUer is an emphatic YES.

[Dukkha]

55. He is the Worst AMERICAN Ever!

a traitor in every sense of the term

[opihimoimoi]

58. BushCo ARROGANTLY thought they could actually get AWAY with it ALL

Lie/spin/decieve/distort/sway/twist/cheat/steal/etc....the BushCo has all the negative adjectives in the Book.

[_dynamicdems]

59. Well, this is the only time Bush will ever get my vote: for WORST

PRESIDENT EVER! Oh, yeah. Big time worst.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

60. What about Herbert Hoover,

Who (as I understand it, although I'm by no means an expert on US history) led America into the Great Depression?

Or Ulysses S. Grant, who although a great general in the civil war presided over a fairly inept and corrupt administration (quite possibly not strikingly so by the standards of US presidents, it's just that he's one of the few I know about)?

Or, of course, Richard "I am not a crook" Nixon, who deliberately prolonged the Vietnam war?

Bush is bad, but I rather doubt he's either the worst you've had or the worst you'll have this century, I'm afraid.

[sofa king]

61. Yes, he is definitely the worst already, and it's not over by a long shot.

Presidents who benefitted from stolen/contested elections:

John Quincy Adams

Rutherford B. Hayes

Presidents who provoked wars on false pretenses:

James K. Polk, Mexican War

William McKinley, Spanish American War (McKinley himself opposed going to war, but caved in to public pressure)

Lyndon Johnson, Vietnam War (specifically, the Gulf of Tonkin incident)

Presidencies marred by corruption:

Ulysses S. Grant

Warren G. Harding

Richard Nixon

Presidents who "hit the trifecta":

Just one.

[Hubert Flottz]

62. No but he is a fair election thief!

The Supreme Court Does Not A REAL president make, but they tried and tried!

[Ganja Ninja]

63. When you consider what he started with and where ...

he'll be by the end of his term, I think you have to say he is the worst ever.

[tlsmith1963]

64. He is the Worst

He all ready has the title. He has done many horrible things that I have never seen in my lifetime. This goes beyond partisan differences.
Even if a Democrat did these things, they would be the worst.

Tammy

[Joe Chi Minh]

66. I refer you all to "The Onion" classic at:

http://chak.org/pages/onion/bush_nightmare.html

Read it again, reflect on subsequent events, and if you have any lingering doubts.... you can only stay up a little while longer. It's up the wooden stairs to bedfordshire for you, and off to the land of Nod.

[mvd]

67. By far

Bush's goal is to increase extremist Repuke power. That is all.