Worst…president…ever

December 5, 2005

Carpetbagger regulars know that we discussed this exact issue just a few weeks ago, but it’s nevertheless a good sign when Peabody-Award winning journalist Richard Reeves devotes his syndicated column to the question of whether George W. Bush is the worst president in American history.

[T]here are serious people who believe that George W. Bush will prove to …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.

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.

If we put Bush aside for a moment, Buchanan’s status as the worst president ever is fairly secure. As Reeves noted, Buchanan ran a hopelessly corrupt administration and hastened the Civil War. Buchanan’s most recent biographer concluded earlier this year that his actions as president probably constituted treason. Whenever historians rank the nation’s chief executives, Buchanan is not only the consistent choice for the worst ever, he’s also the easy choice.

And yet, Bush seems poised to give Buchanan a run for his money.

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.

OK, that’s not exactly a record to be proud of. But worst ever? It’s probably too soon to say; Bush is, after all, still in office and might manage to embarrass himself even further.

For my money, Buchanan will be tough to beat, but I’ve learned it’s a mistake to misunderestimate Bush.

As Brad DeLong says, the Bush administration is worse than you can imagine, even when you take account of the fact that the Bush administration is even worse than you can imagine.

Worst president ever.

  • I’ll admit I don’t know the ins and outs of Buchanan’s term, but times have changed since the Civil War and Bush is the worst president imaginable for the modern day. If he’s done something right since the Supreme Court selected him, I can’t think of it.

  • Poised to give his a run for his money? I think Bush has already won, hands down.

    Buchanan didn’t personally cause the US Civil War. The North-South division was there from the founding of the American colonies. From the beginning the North was port-based industry (fishing, small manufacturing for trade with England); the South was plantation-based agriculture (tobacco and cotton). Religiously, New England was congregational (local election of ministers, etc.); the South was Anglican (diocesan bishops). Town government flourished in the North, County governments in the South. North and South were two different worlds for well over 250 years before Buchanan came along. From the founding of our nation onward, perhaps the major theme of Congressional action was developing “compromises” between the conflicting lifestyles of North and South. There remains a powerful risidual division of this nation to this very day. Buchanan was a worthless boob, but he didn’t cause the war.

    In contrast, Bush was handed the most powerful nation in the world, a booming economy, virtually no political division (certainly in comparison with the party extremes of other advanced nations), a public beginning to accept serious change (environment, gay rights). The 9/11 attacks actually added to Bush’s strength (which began fading as soon as he took office): in the period immediately following the attacks, all the citizens, and all the world’s nations, were as one in condemnation and support. He launched an attack on Afghanistan to get the ones who directed the attacks with virtually unanimous global and national approval. His ratings were sky high.

    From there on the whole catastrophe is Bush’s personal fault and he fully deserves what history is going to give him, the very lowest place in Hell. So, of course, does the whole BushGOP Crime Family, but he’s the one Constitutionally responsible.

  • Buchanan didn’t personally cause the US Civil War.

    Ed’s nailed it (again). Buchanan was hapless and indecisive and let the US drift into a tragic war. Bush pushed us into one, ignoring good advice and accurate warnings because he wanted the war from the start.

    That’s worse.

  • This might be a little o/t, but it’s interesting to me that this is even up for debate. For 50 of 415 scholars to believe Bush is definitely the worst of all time tells us that this guy must suck really bad, whether he’s worse than Buchanan or not.

    Stephen Colbert (jokingly) asks his guests whether Bush is a great president of the greatest president. He’ll need to expand the options a bit!

  • While it may not be possible to call Ronald Reagan the “worst President ever,” he remains my least favorite because he created the CONDITIONS favorable to the rise of a George W. Bush.

    Bush could never have existed as President without Reagan. Reagan ramped up the military-industrial complex big-time; he allowed surrogates to circumvent Congress illegally in Iran-Contra; he whittled complex policy issues down to sound bites like “evil empire”; he proved that lies, fabrications and half-baked anecdotes could pass for fact with a craven US media; he got the Republican attack machine up and running (his ending the Fairness Doctrine gave rise to Rush Limbaugh less than a year later), and he bewitched Middle America with his dumbed-down Hallmark-card sentimentalisms. He proved to Dick Cheney that “deficits don’t matter.” Not to mention the fact that his Veep and eventual successor was Bush’s dad.

    So while we rail against Bush and all the terrible things he’s done (and is doing), keep in mind that as history repeats itself, Reagan was the tragedy, and Bush is the farce.

  • I have to think that Nixon is the worst president–in a slight upset over Shrub. He was an active participant in Watergate, while it looks like (at least for now) that Shrub’s laissez-faire approach to management caused Plamegate.

    For my money, I don’t think Buchanan even medals only because criminal activity never occurred in his administration–but it did with Harding and Grant.

  • You really need to include in your bullet points Bush’s environmental record. The President has almost certainly done more to damage the nation’s natural resources than any one person in history. Read RFK Jr’s book Crimes Against Nature – it’s an excellent primer on the Bush Administration’s literally disastrous policies.

  • If it’s true that Bush lied and manipulated us into Iraq,
    and I’m virtually certain that he did, then he wins
    hands down as the worst president ever, and not
    just by the incompetence factor, although he makes
    a strong run on that alone.

    But, ” 338 said they believed Bush was failing, while 77 said he was succeeding. ” which I find utterly astounding. That’s
    nearly 20% of the responding historians thinking Bush
    is a good president. I guess that tells us where rock
    bottom is in the polls, although 37% seems to be it
    among the people – was it not Mr. Flibble who
    predicted that figure several months ago?

  • Gee, how does this designation even get debated on this blog?

    First President to go to war as a “pre-emptive” measure.

    First Administration to “re-define” torture and openly disregard the Geneva Convention.

    Establishment of “faith-based” initiatives that, if anyone bothered to look at closely, heavily favor Christian (evangelical) initiatives over any other denomination or religion. Largest concentrated effort to destroy the separation of church and state.

    I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… Worst President Ever.

  • Bush wanted a legacy……. What is that saying about being careful what you wish for or when the god’s wish to punish us they answer our prayers…..

    Considering he has pretty much been a useless sod for his entire life WORST….PRESIDENT…..EVER is about all he could have aspired to……

  • I have been saying this for years. The only thing I would like to state as a caveat is, W is not directly responsible for any the worst parts. He is merely a tool of the organized crime family whose names he bears, and the cowardly men who surround him.

    He is, of course, indirectly responsible. He is the Worst President Ever.

    W is for Worst

  • Buchanan is indeed a hard bad-act to follow. I’m more familiar with him in regard to the Civil War, so I’m not clear about accusations of near treason. (Regarding the Civil War, I agree with the late Shelby Foote that the CW was virtually inevitable.)

    But Bush trumps Buchanan for the many reasons cited above. Usually presidents are objectively judged decades after their terms. But there seems to be contemporary agreement that Bush is rock bottom — even before his second term has ended.

    I also think JohnnyB’s observation on the Reagan era is a valid point. I would add Lee Atwater as another factor in the dramatic collapse of civility and the polarization of the nation.

    Oh, by the way and off topic, I just wanted to say that Peggy Noonan is an idiot.

  • Maybe I’m downplaying the importance of Watergate because I was a baby when it happened, but in my opinion Nixon is clearly misunderestimated. His administration established the EPA, NOAA, and SSI, and I think had a hand in establishing OSHA, the (now defunct) Office of Technology Assessment, and in funding the “war on cancer.” Not to mention normalizing relations with China. Kind of on the liberal side of things, in retrospect.

  • Reeves forgets about the little thing about outing a CIA officer for cheap political gain, too.

    In the words of Inigo Montoya, “Let me ‘splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.”

    –starting a war basically for the hell of it to settle a Western-style score with a defrocked enemy, and lying to the American people about how he was going to do it.
    –firing, demoting and smearing those who attempted to shed some light on the decisions behind it.
    –outing a covert operative for the purpose of intimidation.
    –reversing long-held state doctrine on torture and shielding those who would otherwise have been held accountable for it.
    –presiding over the worst security failure in the country’s history and shielding those who would have otherwise been held accountable for it.
    –avoid prosecuting adequately those who were indeed responsible for carrying out the attack, instead taking his eye off the ball.
    –cutting down the barriers between church and state.
    –serving the needs of the few against the needs of the many.
    –destroying America’s reputation in the world.
    –being outsmarted by, and playing directly into the hands of, a demagogue who wanted to bait the world’s strongest nation – and at the best times, most prudent in its use of power – into a street-level fight.
    –open hostility to science, technology and knowledge.
    –open hostility to the virtue of work and the working class at the behest of millionaires.
    –destructive tax policies that will prove to ensnare millions of families in the horrific Alternative Minimum Tax while still giving away loads of corporate welfare to big oil and other industries.
    –demeaning most public institutions that simply tend not to agree with this one ideology, be they religious, academic, media, what-have-you.
    –appointing incompetents who carried out their job in an incompetent fashion in one of the nation’s worst natural disasters.
    –destroying the military’s capabilities — its human capital — despite excessive spending and while at the same time hiding behind the rubric of military might to justify their own decisions and own pseudo-patriotism.
    –sacrificing competence for ideology at every turn.
    –generally being a douchebag-f*ckwad.

  • Let’s not forget his stubborn resistance to
    global warming, his failure to deliver a long
    term energy policy to replace fossil fuel use
    with alternative renewables, his refusal to
    even talk about the plight of health insurance,
    to say nothing of delivering universal health
    care to Americans.

    Let’s not forget how the great uniter became
    the great divider, either. Never have left and
    right hated each other so.

    And let’s not forget the damage he’s done
    to science and other intellectual pursuits.
    They’ve become almost as maligned as
    progressivism by half the people in this
    country.

    What’s astonishing, as Biff Usually observed,
    is that he’s managed all this while being a
    mere puppet of a president. And the poor guy
    doesn’t even know that his presidency has been
    manipulated by Cheney, Rove et al. The poor
    fool actually believes he is the president.

  • At least Warren Harding looked the part, in the end, that’s why he got the nomination.Junior’s dismal performance is confirmed in cyberspace. This is not a hoax. Go to google, type “failure”, click “I’m feeling lucky”. Voila!

  • “Worst president ever” may be fun to say, but when Buchanan left office a third of the country was split off from the Union. Bush may leave office with the country weaker, poorer, and more vulnerable to acts of man and nature. But it’s starting to look, ultimately, like Bush will at least be a uniter of sorts, as all Americans come to see what a complete waste of carbon molecules he is.

  • Heck, I started saying he was the second-worst president a long time ago – except, I gave first place to Jefferson Davis.

    (Yeah, I know, Davis wasn’t a “legitimate” president, but do we reallly need to go there?)

    Anyway, I used to say that. Then Bush started defending torture and the stories on the American Gulag broke. Now, I think he even beats out Davis.

    But really, I think we need a new, lowered baseline. Instead of American history, how about Roman? Washington is already often compared to Cincinnatus (noble leader who gave up power). Nixon could be Tiberius (the corrupt old man), Buchanan is Nero (fiddling while Rome burned, and possibly starting the fire himself), and Scrub is – who else? – Caligula. A debauched, incompetent nightmare of a leader, who had delusions of godhood, put into position by a praetorian guard which thought it could control him but which had no idea what a bad idea he was.

  • North and South were two different worlds for well over 250 years before Buchanan came along. The excerpt from Comment 3 would be difficult to justify since the Jamestown colony in Virginia was founded in 1607, exactly two hundred fifty years before Buchanan became President in 1857. There was no North or South at that time.

  • It says something to compare how bad Bush is as reflected in the posts with the fact he was re-elected (or nearly so if you think that).

    On the ‘Supreme Court awarding him the presidency’, the left should stop that falsehood. Clearly Gore ‘won’ the election by the intention of voters, but for all the problems, had the Supreme Court given Gore the limited recount he sued for, he would not have won the election. So stop the falsehood.

    Worst president ever? Complicated question; the question is worth discussing.

    We need to figure out how he was able to get so many votes if we want to protect our country’s democracy, though.

    If he can get elected – how many hordes of better qualified right-wingers can also?

  • The excerpt from Comment 3 would be difficult to justify since the Jamestown colony in Virginia was founded in 1607, exactly two hundred fifty years before Buchanan became President in 1857. There was no North or South at that time.

    No, but there were plantation-based economies in “the South” (in the Caribbean, but the system spread to the mainland), and maritime & trade-based economies in the North. Both of these systems had their beginnings long before Jamestown.

  • Comment 23
    Where do you get your history? Henry Hudson landed in New Amsterdam in 1609. The “Pilgrims” landed in Massachusetts in 1620. The Spanish and French were in the South earlier but were not agrarian-minded.

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