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

[gregapress]

Bush is the worst since his great, great grandfather, Franklin Pierce.

[robiform]

A very thoughtful piece--however, I would disagree as to the makeup of the presidential "bottom three". Certainly GWB and Buchanan are shoo-ins for the bottom 3--we all know what a disaster the Bush presidency has been for this country during the last seven years. And James Buchanan, as Finkelman pointed out, did absolutely nothing to prevent secession and the Civil War which almost ended the existence of the United States. However, the third member of the "bottom three" is Warren Harding, whose administration bears a very strong resemblance to the current one. A president who had absolutely no original ideas, who depended on his political advisers for everything he said, and scandals that implicated just about the entire Cabinet. Does all of this sound familiar?? The only difference between the Harding administration and the current one is that Harding's Vice President (Calvin Coolidge) did not resemble Darth Vader (cf. the current Veep!).

[dexxjones]

the only way bush will ever be properly judged is if the person who replaces him has the testicular fortitude to actually FIND OUT WHAT HE DID.

i am fearful that a president clinton or obama or any of the clowns on the gop ticket will "heal the country" by letting them all get away with it.

if we get edwards and IF he does what he's supposed to do, we will finally get a clear-headed look at this malevolent adminstration and its henchmen.

[realitytrumpsbull]

How about Worst And Most Easily Bullshat American Public ever? The People ARE the
government, at least on paper, and as long
as people drive the Burban, well, someone's
gotta get that oil. That's how an oilman
got elected. Trash on him all you want, but
until you take your foot off the gas pedal,
Iraq is what you're voting for...caus­e and
effect, and all that.

Don't just bash Bush. I don't like him, I think
they did some illegal stuff, but I also look
at why this all happened. And, it all comes
back to the stupid oil.

[BufoAmericanus]

Praetorian/Bushian Gaurd.
If Bush's privitization of everything, including militaries, ends up in a situation where this country becomes dependant upon them (if they do to the military what Federal Express did to the Postal service), then Buchanan can have a pretty good match.

Bush has the ability to be the worst ever.

Hate groups are expanding, trust in government is failing, Bush has sold the country down the river to his Cronies, Corporate power humiliates Federal power on a regular basis. He is the most secretive, retroactively re-classifying even previously declassified American History, ever.
The guy may actually do more dameage to the cradle of Western Liberalism than anyone could have predicted.­.. Like those airplanes "no one could've predicted.­"

[epotruchyeahright]

Excellent perspective, taking in all sides. The rich will look back on this presidency, as they do on Reagan's, and say that this was the golden age of prosperity. Tax cuts, corporate bailouts, environmental rape, no-bid contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan, Halliburton moving offshore to evade US taxes. The list is so much longer. Meanwhile, from the perspective of the poor or those of us in the middle, the Bush presidency was the worst in our lifetimes. Mountains of debt that our children's children will pay for, a dismissive attitude about global warming that will have us paying massively in future years in the area of farming issues, weather/disaster issues, trade imbalances, etc. A dangerous step towards theocracy that threatens to explode into reality if Huckabubba gets elected. No meaningful improvements in health care coverage, poor kids being excluded from health care coverage altogether.
I'm getting depressed now.

[jmpurser]

The fact that a catastrophic wound heals does not make it less catastrophic. The fact that we now trade with Viet Nam doesn't make the lives lost there less of a crime.

[BetterDeadthanRedState]

I would like to see more discussion of what I think history will judge as a blunder almost equal to the invasion of Iraq. That would be the deficit-busting tax cuts which went overwhelmingly to the wealthiest. The country was never better off financially than it was with the tax rates that were in place when Clinton left office. If they needed to be tinkered with it was in the exact opposite direction Dimwit did. Thank gawd we didn't let him have his way with Social Security!

[OkieMon]

History is written by the winners and the jury is still out on whether the present democratic patry can snatch a much needed victory in 08. If they can't win in 08 then it maybe another 20 years before they can regain power, and by then bush will be declared a hero and the middle class in this country will be in shambles.

[richw23]

Reagan??? We have Reagan to thank for the religious right.

I saw a poster many years ago when he was governer which I didn't truly appreciate at the time. It was a movie poster with him pointing a gun into the camera and saying "Thanks for the votes suckers!!!".

[SamanthaJaneSalem]

The problem with ranking our Presidents in this manner is that history is written by the winners, and once it is history, it is etched in stone. Washington, Lincoln, FDR-- saints. Anyone who challenges this is a "revisioni­st."

Yet look at Kennedy for instance. Bush stole the election in 2000 in Florida, but the same shady stuff went on in 1960, only Nixon didn't contest the results. As much as we like Kennedy today, we can't gloss over the fact that he probably wasn't even elected.

And the greatest saint of all, Lincoln: He suspended habeas corpus, shut down newspapers, and illegally expanded the Executive branch, all out of a mystical vision about not allowing the South to leave the Union. They had every constitutional right to leave, and maybe we would be better off today if they had (and a less racist North had welcomed any blacks who would have escaped the Confederate States).

I would say Bill Clinton was our best President. He was not a racist, he understood women's rights and (most of the time) gay rights. He got us out of deficits, more or less kept us from bloody wars-- and all the time fending off the most despicable pack of thugs in Congress we have ever seen, as well as their hired hack Ken Starr.

[nowaterboardUSA]

Good insightful article.

[MarieMeyer]

Great post. However, I'd have to say that, for me at least, Reagan looks more, not less bad over time. When I saw the pictures of the horror in New Orleans in the immediate aftermath of Katrina, I could not help but think of Reagan's "joke" about the most terrifying words in the English language being I'm from the government and I'm here to help. Someone once said something to the effect that Republicans believe that government is a terrible and their reason for existing is to get into power so they can prove it. I think the contempt that Reagan dispensed in his "genial" manner sowed the wind that resulted in the Bush maladministration whirlwind.

[V4Vigilance]

Um, you forgot the periods.

WORST. PRESIDENT. EVER.

LOL

[atlantajoe]

Bush has another year to screw more things up but he still has to rate above carter. Carter had alot to do with the extreme muslims taking over Iran. In fact, carter has never met a dictator he did not like, he even endorsed the election results of hugo chavez even though he and his staff knew of fraud.