Is Bush the Worst President Ever?

[Redbear]

I think it is fairly close with Tricky Dick, but I think it is Bush by a quickly growing nose.

[BlueEyedSon]

1. You mean President Cheney?

[MADem]

2. He makes his ancestor, Franklin Pierce, look like a statesman! n/t

[Zynx]

3. Franklin Pierce of the Kansas-Nebraska Act fame? I don't think so.

Pierce is arguably more responsible than Buchanan for the outbreak of the Civil War. I'm sorry, but nothing Bush has done even compares to the Civil War. Bush may well end up in the bottom five, but Buchanan, Pierce, and a couple of others are very tough competition.

[Sammy Pepys]

6. Franklin Pierce was something else....

I still think he takes the cake for worst Prez.

[MADem]

10. Well, Monkeyboy ain't done yet!!!! He has a few years to go,

And apples generally don't fall far from the tree!

We'll just have to see what the next terra alert brings, I guess...

[Zynx]

15. I won't rate presidents based on possibilities.

I will only rate based on actions. Bush has a lot of ground to cover to surpass Pierce in craptasticness. Bush is pretty darn craptastic and possibly bottom five material, but Pierce and Buchanan are something else altogether.

[ladjf]

31. Oh, please don't say that. It's difficult to imagine that things could

get even worse. But, you are probably right. "Monkey boy ain't through yet". Maybe Amurka has pissed God off and he's punishing us. (I don't believe that. Just a joke.)

[formerrepuke]

4. Andrew Johnson usually gets that honor.. which is worse? failing to

reunite a deeply divided nation, or deeply dividing a fairly united one?

[MarianJack]

5. When he was first in office,...

...one of my stidents asked me who I thought was the worst president ever, I said Harding, but I thought that my opinion may change shortly.

BOY HOWDY has it EVER!

[BrklynLiberal]

7. He is the man who will end the existence of this country and its govt as

we know it...so the answer is YES.

[Initech]

8. I think Bush is the child of satan sent here to destroy Earth.

[FSogol]

9. Bush is the worst, but Reagan did more long term damage to the US. n/t

[Astrad]

11. Truman was pretty bad

Killed over a half million Japanese civilians through firebombing and the atomic bomb. Carpet bombed Germany killing hundred thousands more. Then got into Korea, a thoroughly useless war. Also didn't demobilize the US military after WWII creating the basis for the military-industrial-complex we see now.

[Yollam]

14. Oh dude, are you gonna get flamed.

I totally agree, though.

[Zynx]

21. If the bombing of civillians is the criteria, then you must think FDR is a

really horrible president.

[RufusEarl]

22. Please read a bit of american history,

before you lump President Truman with the likes of Bush.

[Zynx]

24. Indeed. A lot of the hard core types in our party like to trash Truman

for keeping Henry Wallace off the national ticket in both 1944 and 1948, but the fact of the matter is that Henry Wallace would have been a disasterous president.

I won't bother debating on WWII. There is so much historical revisionism on these boards it's sickening.

As for Korea and containment, North Korea was the aggressor in the war, not the United States and in the long run South Korea is much better off because we intervened. Just because a lot of our Cold War actions were terrible doesn't mean all of them were. Western Europe is much better off today because Truman bolstered their economies with the Marshall Plan and prevented any further spread of Communist regimes. Compare Western Europe to Eastern Europe and tell me that we did wrong by strongly opposing the Communists in the West.

[Astrad]

25. Depends on what you call lousy then

The war was effectively over when Truman took over. He still conducted it at full bore with little regards for human life. From the point of view of the hundreds of thousands who were killed, in my view unnecessarily, Truman was a lousy President. North Korea may have been the agressor but the argument that it was in the american citizen's interest to stop them is lame. Stop them why? The US didn't stop Indonesia in East Timor. Aruging the merits of intervention is what Bush did vis a vis Iraq. And maybe forty years from now someone here will be saying, 'well it's a damn good thing we stood dowm Islamo-facism (or whatever) there.' Who know what would have happened if we left Korea alone. No one.

[Zynx]

32. We know what Kim Il Sung was and we can easily hypothesize what

he would have done to South Korea. North Korea is a dystopian hellhole if there ever was one and I am proud that we stopped that from happening to South Korea.

With regards to WWII, I will defend what Truman did since:

1. At the time it was thought to be necessary.
2. It was simply a continuation of the very policies implemented by FDR. There was nothing different about his policies at all. If you are going to call Truman an evil man, you MUST say the same about FDR. There is no fine disntinction. The war with Germany only lasted one more month and most of our agregious bombing there had already been done. With regards to Japan, it was never clear if they were going to surrender or not. In fact, the military was still going under the assumption that Japan would continue to fight even after the atomic bombs were dropped. We would have invaded Japan if we hadn't done what we did and many millions more would have died.

You cannot say that the bombing of Japanese civillians was unnecessary while also saying that the use of atomic weapons was unnecessary since the regular firebombing had brought Japan to her knees. Those statements contradict one another. A conventional land war with Japan would have resulted in many times the slaughter for both the Japanese and our troops.

Truman did very few things wrong in his presidency.

[T Town Jake]

36. Downfall. Operation Olympic. Operation Coronet.

...300,000 American dead (projected); 2.5 million Japanese dead (projected).

Please at least allocate a little time to read a bit about the subjects you're discussing before you unburden us with your post-modern angst about American military actions during World War II with your "commentary."

Thanks.

[Zynx]

37. Indeed. I am sick and tired of historical revisionism.

Historical revisionism is a tool of totalitarian regimes and has no place in our country.

[blindpig]

26. My beef with Truman.

He acciquesced to the entrenchment of the military industrial complex. That was unforgivable.

No doubt he was threatened with all sorts of economic doom. Some excuse, but not good enough. Look where we are now.

[Zynx]

34. That's easy to say now.

Other presidents could have done things differently. You can't hold Truman responsible for their actions. That would be like holding George Washington responsible for the Civil War since he did nothing settle the issue of slavery. If you want to play these sorts of games, we have no business discussing history with one another since we have irreconcilable views.

[blindpig]

39. Hindsight is golden. n/t

[T Town Jake]

35. Excellent post, and I agree...

...but it was FDR who kicked Wallace off of his ticket in '44, not Truman.

Truman was Wallace's replacement.

[Zynx]

38. I never said their arguments were logical.

They feel that Truman usurped Wallace, but it was indeed FDR who made the decision in the end. These critics of Truman never like to believe that FDR didn't want Wallace in there in the event of his death, but FDR knew that Wallace wasn't up to the job and he was right. Wallace would have been a total disaster in those post-war years.

[T Town Jake]

43. Quite right. I responded to your post before I'd read through...

...the entire thread (always a mistake), and I see that you were making the point I was trying to get across. My apologies.

One other very important thing the revisionists conveniently forget in these threads is that Wallace did his damndest to hand the presidency to GOP in '48 with his third party effort against Truman. These revisionists are always making the "perfect" the enemy of the good, at the expense of the latter and in collusion with the genuine bad.

[JohnKleeb]

45. To Wallace's credit he later admitted he was wrong

I think the party made the right decision in '44 by replacing him with Truman, I really do wonder how the world would have turned out if Wallace had been VP in 45 and became president.

[Ignacio Upton]

40. FDR caved in to southern Dixiecrats who didn't like Wallace

Wallace was seen as too liberal, and Truman was ultimately put in as a compromise candidate.

[Zynx]

42. It wasn't just Dixiecrats.

Many establishment members of the party as well as key FDR advisors were frightened to death of the prospect of a Wallace presidency. True, Truman was a compromise candidate between some other choices, but Wallace was never really much in the running except with the party faithful. The opposition to Wallace was very broadly based in many different segments of the party.

[T Town Jake]

44. That's a very shallow interpretation of what actually happened.

(n/t)

[Ignacio Upton]

48. I'd like to know more about it then

nt.

[T Town Jake]

33. That's a load of horseshit.

(n/t)

[Media_Lies_Daily]

47. Oh, yeah...here we go.

[Jack Rabbit]

12. No. Bush lost in 2000.

He isn't president.

[Justice Is Comin]

13. ..

LOL ------------------------------------------------------>only since the great bang and beginning of time.

[hyphenate]

16. While he was a crook and a liar

Nixon did a few good things for our country. On the other hand, I can't think of one good thing to say about the asshole there now.

And let's face it, folks: Ronnie Raygun has to also be included in any poll on the worst President ever. I'd put him above Nixon without hesitation.

[JohnKleeb]

20. Reagan was worse than Nixon

I'll give Dick credit, he didn't destroy The Great Society, I had a research project on Applachia last year, many of the programs initiated by LBJ's great society were later destroyed by Reagan. Nixon established the EPA, OSHA, among other things. He's probably our most unlikable president in history but he's probably also the most complex too.

[hyphenate]

51. Agreed

Although I think history will now read that GWB was our most unlikable president in our history! At least I hope they have enough smarts 50 years from now to realize that! (Unless, of course, those morons are running things again, in which case, we're fucked!)

[Nutmegger]

17. Bush Inc is without a doubt

Bush Inc has turned this country isn't something foreign.

[jaysunb]

18. In my lifetime, YES !

and I've live thru 12 of them.

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

19. Tricky Dick was better than Mad King George

Some of Nixon's domestic and international policies did a lot of good. He wasn't as utterly destructive as Bush, though I'll grant that he was a lying, manipulative, vindictive, secretive, paranoid, delusional...okay, so it's fairly close. :P

[leftofthedial]

23. king george is in a (bad) league by itself

poppy was truly awful too

reagan was second worst

there were other bad ones in the past, pretty much always repukes

[SammyWinstonJack]

28. Funny how that works out, isn't?

..."pretty much always repukes."

[leftofthedial]

29. the capacity of the American public for self delusion

stupidity, ignorance, gullibility and kicking themselves solidly in their own asses

is apparently boundless.

[Pryderi]

27. OMG! EVEN THE WHITEHOUSE.GOV SAYS HE'S THE WORST...

[stop the bleeding]

46. I love Google

Good find

[Swamp Rat]

30. George W. Bush is the WORST so far, but there are other Bushes waiting

to be pretzeldent too who are potentially worse.

[tom_paine]

41. I voted 'yes, but Bushler is NOT President, he is Emperor

and he does not rule the old United States of America (1776-2000, RIP), but Imperial Amerika (2001-?).

Thus, the question is truly improperly framed because you simply cannot compare a man who is the Tyrant King of an Enslaved Nation like Imperial America to those men who ruled the Old American Republic.

If you lump all of America's leaders, the 42 presidents (although Poppy Augustus Bush's reign through the Alzheimered Reagan and his own term, 1984-1992, could be more correctly termed as the First Emperor) and the one Emperor, then yes, without question Tiberus Bush is the worst of the lot)

[deacon]

49. Worst president and worst congress EVER n/t

[DemGirl7]

50. I say YES but I was born in the early '80s , but...

my mother was born under Truman, has lived through both Nixon & Reagan, and has told me since 2001, that she never thought she would see a president worse than Nixon & Reagan, but * has made those two plus his father look not as bad as they once did.

[Nikia]

52. What about Warren Harding?

I think that he has been considered the worst by several historians. He died during his only term of office though where as we now have the misfortune of Bush serving a second term.