Guest Post by Morbo
I take it as a given that George W. Bush will be remembered as the worst president of the modern era, which I’m defining here as post-World War II. But lately I’ve been wondering if a case can be made that he’s the worst president ever in American history.
I do not say this lightly. The competition is stiff. When historians speak of the worst U.S. president, three names usually surface: James Buchanan, Warren G. Harding and Richard M. Nixon.
For a country that is only 229 years old, the United States has had its share of mediocre and downright lousy chiefs of state. (Franklin Piece, anyone?) In the latter half of the 19th century, the country was governed by a string of lackluster “caretaker presidents” — Chester Arthur, Benjamin Harrison, Rutherford B. Hayes and so on. These guys were poor presidents, but their crimes were more those of benign neglect rather than aggressive crappiness. The bar was a lot lower then, too.
Buchanan, Harding and Nixon were in an entirely different league. Buchanan came into office as the nation was poised to divide over the issue of slavery and did nothing to prevent it. The inept Harding, clearly unqualified for the highest office in the land, allowed his venal friends to plunder the nation. Nixon was a paranoid megalomaniac.
Yet in each case, mitigating factors exist. Buchanan served just one term, seeming to realize he was in over his head. Harding had the decency to die halfway through his term. Nixon resigned.
Bush, by contrast, will probably serve two full terms — giving the nation a full eight years of ineptitude, dishonesty, anti-intellectualism and cronyism.
What makes Bush’s failure all the more startling is that he had an opportunity to do so much more. The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were horrifying, but they also brought about, at least temporarily, the type of national unity presidents rarely see. At first, Bush actually seemed up to the challenge. He gave some good speeches, and the people rallied around him. They were ready to follow him, if only he had articulated a vision.
Bush promptly threw it away, choosing instead to pander to an extreme base of jingoistic fanatics with delusions of empire. Instead of bringing to justice the murderers of 3,000 Americans, Bush invaded a country that had nothing to do with the attacks. By shifting the focus from terrorism to Saddam Hussein, Bush actually made Americans less safe. All the while, he and his top aides knowingly lied to the people, leading them to believe that Iraq was somehow tied to 9/11.
On the heels of that escapade, Bush committed the ultimate sacrilege, as he and his partisan allies, during two subsequent elections, cynically invoked the memories of the dead and used the threat of more attacks to scare people for no other reason than to strengthen his party’s grip on power. The national unity had long since collapsed; Americans were more bitterly divided than ever.
Americans were fiercely divided in Buchanan’s day, too. That division led to a shooting war. Buchanan sat on his hands as states began pulling out of the union. He insisted the states did not have the right to secede — but he quickly added that he had no power to stop them. It was incompetence on a monumental scale. More than half a million ultimately lost their lives.
Obviously the Civil War had been coming for a long time, and we can’t blame Buchanan for the conflict. But his inactivity at a time of national crisis is inexcusable. A bold leader of vision might have been able to find a way out. Buchanan was not that man. He was the wrong man at the wrong time. And for that reason, I have to conclude that Bush cannot claim the dubious distinction of worst president ever. That title still belongs to Buchanan; Bush must settle for second worst.
Here’s what scares me: Bush still has three years left in office. He seems bound and determined to grab the tarnished crown from Buchanan. Given his track record, I’m afraid he just might succeed.