Worst President Ever?

I just spent a few days at Yale University with about 25 scholars, talking about slavery, freedom, emancipation, and modern problems of human trafficking. Not surprisingly, at dinner someone asserted that George W. Bush was the "worst" president in American history. That led me to think about the criteria for such a title or award.

I have heard this said about every president since Lyndon B. Johnson (or Lying B. Johnson as we used to call him -- the man who invented the credibility gap). Johnson - he of the Great Society and the Civil Rights Act -- looks pretty good these days. Even Vietnam seemed to have more of a purpose than Iraq. But, with more that 55,000 Americans killed and maybe a million Vietnamese, it is hard to argue that Iraq, at least at first glance, is a greater catastrophe than Vietnam. But, historians know that we need some perspective on these things. In the first half of this year the United States imported $1.8 billion worth of clothing from Vietnam. Last year a close friend of mine went there for vacation and got to shoot AK-47s in front of a tunnel from the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Our enemies are now our trading partners who also provide us with entertaining vacations. Soon they will be our friends. So, if all is well that ends well, Vietnam was not the catastrophe we thought it was at the time. But I lost classmates there for no good reason, and however it turned out, at the time it was a huge mess. I was wearing a shirt that said made in Vietnam the other night when I was approached by a homeless vet from that war. We have surely not fully recovered from the War and for some Americans and many Vietnamese there will never be a recovery. The good of civil rights, Head Start, and a host of other great programs may in the end balance out the bad of Vietnam. Johnson was not the greatest president since World War II, although absent Vietnam he might have been. But surely he was not our worst.

Nixon was a crook and surely a threat to the Constitution, but in the end the system prevailed. He left office, his henchmen went to jail, and we tried to reform the political system. Meanwhile, we got the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and even the War Powers Act. Nixon opened up China and began the process that led to peace between Israel and Egypt after the Yom Kippur War. He also kept Vietnam going for more than six years after he said he had a "plan" to end the War. A lot of young men died for no good reason there while Nixon was figuring out what that plan was.

Ford and Carter were so-so at best. Ford was hardly in office long enough to do anything, although at the last minute he tried to send more troops to Vietnam. His greatest legacy was Justice John Paul Stevens. He pardoned Nixon which for many was unforgivable and also pardoned draft evaders, which for many was unforgivable. Carter was barely competent in the White House and the best we can say for him is that he did not start a war with Iran. He was mean spirited, sanctimonious and politically inept. He did not do much that we remember fondly, but somehow managed to get us through four years of drifting policy and sometimes absurdly high inflation. He set the Democratic Party back a decade at least.

Reagan looks less bad over time, except for his politicization of the Courts. He was genial even though his policies were mean spirited and in the end harmful to those who have the least in society. He thought he ended the cold war -- and maybe in another fifty years we will have access to the documentation to prove or disprove the argument. The first Bush had the good sense not to send the army into Baghdad and to overthrow Saddam. He bequeathed us David Souter and Clarence Thomas -- sort of wash! Bill Clinton brought us prosperity and Monica Lewinsky. Not a great president but surely not the worst of the lot, despite what the professional Clinton haters would have us believe.

Now there is George the Second. In many ways he is far worse than any of his immediate predecessors. It is true that Iraq has not cost us as many lives as Vietnam, but it is also true that there was even less of a reason to start this war than to go into Vietnam. We sent troops to Vietnam because a friendly government asked us to, and because everyone believed in the domino theory of the spread of communism. The first troops went in under Eisenhower, and Kennedy expanded them a little. There was never a plan to turn it into a war, it just sort of happened, gradually, a few troops here, a few there.

Iraq is different. Not since we fought Mexico in 1846 or maybe the war against Spain in 1898, has the United States ever wanted to start a war. But from day one of the Bush administration the president and his advisors were looking for an excuse to go to war with Iraq. No one knows why. Did they really believe there were weapons on mass destruction? It is hard to imagine they could have in the face of so much intelligence to the contrary. It was not to bring freedom and democracy to Iraq -- that explanation came later. It might have been over oil, although we surely could have bought all the oil for much less than the war cost. It was not over 9-11 because the idea of a war in Iraq was in place before 9-11, and everyone knew that Al Qaeda hated Saddam as much or more as it hated the United States. If we were looking to avenge 9-11 we should have invaded Saudi Arabia, where all those terrorists came from. Possibly we invaded Iraq to avenge the insults Saddam had made to Bush's father. Some day we may better understand the administration's thinking -- or lack of thought -- in starting this war. Many of us knew the war was pointless from day one, but Bush pushed forward.

The wars with Mexico and Spain had clear goals, they were quickly won, and they when they were over we had acquired new lands and destroyed an old colonial empire. There is no end in sight for Iraq, no enemy to defeat - or to make peace with - and nothing apparently to be gained from the war. It is surely our worst foreign policy adventure since Vietnam and may end up being our worst foreign policy adventure ever.

But unlike Johnson, Bush will have no other accomplishments to redeem his presidency. He has not led the nation to new concepts of justice or civil rights. He squandered a huge budget surplus and left us with monstrous debts. Under his watch the rich are richer than ever; the poor are poorer than they have been since the Great Depression. All positive social indicators are down. Internationally the United States has never been so disrespected. We have seen an American administration perpetuate torture and defend its use, making the United States seem barbaric to the rest of the world. Indeed, we have never been hated by so many people in so many places.

What happens after Bush leaves office will in some ways determine his place in history. If the next president figures out how to extricate us from Iraq and how to repair our image abroad, Bush will, ironically, not look so bad. One test of a failed presidency is how quickly the nation recovers from the damage and how much the damage cost. By this standard, Bush is likely to be the worst president since World War II, because it will take us so much longer to recover from his misguided foreign policy and his domestic policy of callousness and greed.

Having said all this, my guess is that Bush will be remembered as the third worst president in history. The highest place of dishonor will still belong to James Buchanan. Under his administration the United States shrank - as seven states declared themselves out of the Union while he was in office. He did nothing to stop or even discourage them for doing so. Rather, he presided over the collapse of the nation and seemed to favor the outcome. If any president could have been tried for treason, it might be Buchanan. While the South talked of secession he authorized the shipment of arms to southern states for their militias. We might have avoided a civil war (at least at that time) if Buchanan had acted forcefully and confronted or even negotiated with the secessionists. Instead, he did nothing. Even if the war had come, different policies by Buchanan would have enabled the United States to win the war faster and with fewer lives lost.

The second spot will still belong to Andrew Johnson. His racism and incompetence encouraged the rise of white terrorism after the Civil War and undermined the freedom of former slaves. He pardoned former Confederate leaders without exacting some sort of support for black freedom or reunion. He vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Freedmen's Bureau Act and refused to fully enforce them when passed over his veto. Thus, he prevented the implementation of a Reconstruction that might have altered race relations and protected black liberty and the safety and lives of southern unionists. He turned his back on U.S. Army veterans when they were shot down by southern white extremists and terrorists. It took the nation a hundred years to recover from Johnson's unwillingness to support black freedom in the wake of slavery.

In a few years -- or a few decades -- will learn the full extent of the damage of George Bush's presidency. Meanwhile, we can probably say with some certainty that he is the worst president of our lifetimes, even if you are old enough to have lived through Warren G. Harding and Herbert Hoover. He has surely carved out a space for himself that will get him lots of coverage in the history books. It will probably not be the coverage he would like.

Comments

[RTIII]

"If any president could have been tried for treason, it might be Buchanan."

Only read the Main Stream Media? Apparently.

In the last four weeks or so evidence has been mounting very nearly DAILY about the treasonous acts of Bush Jr. I could literally go on for ten pages about it all - those who read here on HufPo already know what I'm talking about.

In thinking about why Pelosi won't even CONSIDER impeachment one has to seriously look at the wiretapping and consider the very real possibility that the "spineless Dems" are in fact Blackmail Victims!

Frankly, I think it's apparent that George needs not only impeachment but to be put on trial for treason - Cheney ahead of him.

RTIII

[foreffectivegovernment]

This post has among the best answers I have seen about the current President but Bush bashing is not really the point. He has only used the basic Republican policies more efectively than past Republican Presidents. Even though Pat Bucannan says Bush is not a true Conservative because he "spent money like a drunken sailor", so did Reagan and remember Iran-Contra. George HW Bush used Alberto Gonzales type testimony to get him and Reagan out of that one and Oliver North took the fall but got off on a technicality. All others got pardoned. Sound familiar?

Will the voters never learn that there is no such thing a "I vote for the man". You voted for George Bush but got Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, and other Republican retreads. Why would any person who suffers from the effects of "Trickle Down Economics" continue to vote for a policy that is obviously not in their best interest.

[Centaur]

Here is what your title should be..
"Worst President Ever! Why should there be a question mark.

[bushisatraitor]

He is certainly the most un-American president ever, a coward and a traitor.

[arcturus9797]

For many reasons outlined above and by other posters, Dubya will be remembered as the worst president in modern history if not all American history. But considering the circumstances surrounding the "elections" of 2000 and 2004, historians will put an asterisk next to his entire presidency. Here's a statistic for the history books: 43*.

[realpolitic]

Bush is pretty bad if not the worst. He must be the worst modern president. He simply does not believe in democracy. He holds Congress in contempt, as well as the free press and the courts unless packed with "original intent" judges, who yield to his every whim. His Office of Legal Counsel constructed bogus legal theories under John Woo that say that Bush's powers are unlimited in time of warfare and no treaties or laws apply to him. Bush says we do not torture, but again, the law now defines torture when practiced by the CIA as that which "shocks the conscious"- a very wide definition. Bush disrepects science and undermines it whenever he can, so much so that the U.S. delegation was recently booed at an international conference on climate control. His only diplomacy is conducted through the Department of Defense by "shock and awe" military tactics. Bush is a disaster, an unmitigated, free ranging disaster. One would think our country deserves better, maybe it does not. After all, we elected this stooge twice.

[WASanford]

to complete my comment:
Would a good president or even a mediocre one have been complicit in that kind of robbery?
G W BUSH IS OUR WORST PRESIDENT EVER!!

[WASanford]

Mr. Finkelman you said "It might have been over oil, although we surely could have bought all the oil for much less than the war cost."
Here's my idea about this war.
Oil has recently sold for $100 a barrel and that's what this war is about! Saddam sat on the second largest know reserve of oil in the world. Had he been allowed to bring his oil to market, the price of oil would either have remained where it was in 2002 or declined. Keeping Iraqi oil from the market made sense from the standpoint of the oil companies. It was also the greatest bargin in the world for them. A war paid for by American taxpayers to keep the supply of oil small enough to drive up the price of thier product! And, of course, stick it to the necks of their customers, the American people. Haven't you ever wondered how these guys have achieved their historically high profit margins? They did by robbing America blind!

[peterg76]

Little George may not be the worst president *yet*, but he still has time. Remember, Iran still has oil.

[DaytonOhio]

Mr. Finkleman states that from day one the Bush administration wanted war with Iraq and no one knows why. This is just conjecture but I suspect the reason was strategical. Cheney saw that Iraq (which uncoincidentally also contained Saddam and may have had WMD) also lay in between Syria and Iran. That made it a perfect target for his ambition to inject the USA into the Middle East in between two of the bitterest enemies of the West where we, the USA, could cause them untold trouble should the process of invading Iraq succeed as planned. Unfortunately, it did not succeed and we're caught in a bottomless quagmire.

[Miamiman]

Kennedy/Johnson - Worst ever or close to Bush/Cheney

[Kungfublood]

Bullshit! Bush will be known as the most hated man in American history and strangely at the same time cheney will be known as the most hated man in the world.

[Rescisco]

This (worst president ever) is always an interesting discussion. But with Bush winning twice, and a Huckabee "surge," perhaps it is time to have a discussion about the "worst voters ever."

[nanjemoy]

I just have to make a quick comment about Nixon. It is often stated that under him we got the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act.

But we got those in spite of him, not because of him.

The Clean Water Act was won AFTER A NIXON VETO was overridden by congress.

Nixon opposed the Clean Air Act, but seeing that he would be overridden if he vetoed it, Nixon signed it.

These accomplishments were ours not his. He was an enemy of the environment. And we should have this in our history.

[escobar]

Don't worry about Jackson, Bush demonstrated his racism after Katrina. It isn't over yet.
His wars have ruined the standing of the USA in the community of nations far beyond the Vietnam war. Though both were based on lies.
In Afghanistan they are not making things better, unless you like cheap heroin and encouraging muslims to become terrorists. It is a training camp for them at best.
The USA is now seen as a nation that tortures innocent people...no matter that Bush lies about it to school kids, that is what the World sees.
THIS WILL NEVER GO AWAY.
If the USA has a problem with POW's being tortured, citizens kidnapped and held with no charges, we will complain to deaf ears.
Bush and the Neo-cons have trampled on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
They have taken steps to encourage monopolies especially in News distribution.
They award no bid contracts to offshore corporations headed by their cronies raping the taxpayer and not even seeing that the contracts are fufilled.
He financed war with foreign loans postponing hardship, yet the country will eventually suffer greatly.
They have allowed a mercinary army to be formed on US soil.
They have cut benifits to the neediest and rewarded the richest. They fail to protect or care for the men they send into battle.
They do not investigate rape of US citizens by contractors they hire as they lecture on womans rights..
I could go on, but why bother.
You Ivy league people enjoy the smell of each others Farts because they matter and others do not.
By far the worst President in History. he's a world class, worst leader.
He has ruined the greatest country on Earth.
HIS POILCIES CHANDED A PEOPLE OF PERPETUAL OPTOMISM TO A LAND OF FEAR, PESSIMISM, AND DREAD OF THE FUTURE.
THIS COUNTRY HAS NEVER BEEN MORE DIVIDED SINCE THE CIVIL WAR. NEVER SO DESPISED BY THE OTHER NATIONS OF EARTH.
Guess that isn't the opinion at YALE...a place, where even a moron can get a degree, if they come from the right family!