Posted on 08/12/2005 3:25:54 PM PDT by hang 'em
Who is/was the WORST U.S. PRESIDENT EVER? Carter? Clinton? Make your choice and state your reasons.
The Top Five
1. Abe Lincoln (I'm sorry, but I can never forgive the man)
2. Lyndon Johnson- it was his administration that set us up for the economic cesspit that was the late 70s
3. U.S Grant- his mishandling of Reconstruction had negative consequences that reverberate even today
4. Jimmy Carter- More important than anything he did or didn't do with the energy crisis, he showed a lack of critical thought when he allowed the Shah to go to New York for his cancer treatment, and that led directly to the hostages being taken, and the reverberations from that eventually led to where we are today, in the WOT, he also showed an equally critical lack of thought by not advising the Shah to crackdown on the revolt.
5. Andrew Jackson- The National Bank proved to be a disaster for the country, the failure of which amounted to a minor depression that helped derail the Van Buren presidency, and well, Andrew Jackson took the side of Washington in the South Carolina nullification crisis, prefering a powerful central government in opposition to leaving the power at the state level, where it belonged.
Dishonorable Mention:
Bill Clinton- desecration of the Oval Office
Richard Nixon- I'm sorry, but I can never forgive him for opening up to Red China, while starting the process of gradual distance from Taiwan, decisions which have negatively affected American's place in the world.
No contest, Grant.
Andrew Jackson....
im going with FDR. the founder of the modern welfare state. its been downhill since then. The worst ones, IMHO, are from the 20th century. Carter, Clinton, Johnson, and FDR as a i mentioned
Poster 1 is exactly right. Unfortunately, Old Media will never tell the truth about either of them. . . but then they're exempt from ever having to tell the truth!
You could say the same for Eisenhower to an extent.
Carter, with Clintoon as dishonorable mention.
Why? Out of the myriad of reasons I could pick, having it take 10 minutes to get out of my driveway, because of gas station lines...I could say more, but I don't want to waste space on a waste of space.
Reagan was actually a pushover on immigration issues, witness the 1986 Amnesty.
Please specify whether the Johnson in question is Andrew, Lyndon Baines, or ...
Although Carter was not able to destroy the country economically, history will show that Clinton was from moral, economic, and security perspectives. CLINTON in a landslide.
I think you can safety remove the present tense of the verb. Also, I think "Worst" is a poor choice. If it were "most incompetent", I would say, in my life experience, definitly Carter. He seemded to suck the life blood out of the country, humiliating us abroad and financially destroying us at home.
But from a consevative viewpoint, he was good because I think, the begining of the fall of Liberalism began with him. If he had not been so incompetent, he might have won a second term - Reagan might never had been elected. So he may be the worst but he was good for Conservatism.
Jimmy Carter was by far the worst president and he certainly is the most incompetent person I've ever come across in public or private life.
He's not stupid, he's evil.
Except Ike gets credit for the interstate highway system.
Carter wasn't corrupt he was just stupid. I am going to pick Klinton.
Limiting myself to my lifetime I would have to say Lyndon Johnson.
1. He managed to get sweeping social programs enacted that cost the country trillions of dollars while creating a permanent underclass and creating and entrenching a huge bureacracy that lives solely to suck as much as it can from the productive while ensuring a continuing expansion in the numbers of the unproductive.
2. His stupidity and bungling in the handling of the Vietnam war revived a Left that was dying giving it a new lease on life and supplying it with enough ammo to create a lasting deterrent to effective deployment of American force in pursuit of American interests.
I would put Clinton and Carter in a virtual tie for the next worst president in my lifetime. The damage these two caused is more immediate as they lead in almost a straight line from one to the other. Both are moral cowards whose cowardice has led to the necessity of having to confront ruthless enemies with American military force. But if it hadn't been for Johnson our current president would not be confronted with a Left possessing any real power let alone a Left that controls large segments of the media, dominates in much of academia and with members sitting in both houses of congress as well as the Supreme Court.
-- Wage & Price Controls; Watergate Stupidity [clumsy cover up etc. ultimately leading to a disastrous increase in power by the Dems and the dishonorable mention candidate below -- Jimmy Carter]; Slow motion surrender in Vietnam; Pure Fiat Dollars; & China
-- Eastern Europe; & almost constant and in many instances successful attempts to subvert the Constitution;
Note: Do not take this as any sort of endorsement for Lyndon Johnson; Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter all of whom were spectacular failures. Also note that when the final tally is in either Clinton or Carter could potentially turn out to have done more damage than Nixon.
I know it's been a battle but gotta give it to Clinton only for some good reasons:
1. total damage to country not even factored in yet.
2. no respect for anyone other than himself
3. he brought his terrorist wife with him.
#2 Carter - he was so bad on so many fronts he can't be touched. The only thing he didn't do was surrender to the Soviets. (He was getting to it in a second term.)
But the man was just horrid. And the nice guy myth doesn't hold when you hear how he treats people.
Does that break the tie for #1?
"(2) Andrew Johnson"
I will not give Lincoln much credit at all, but one thing I will give him credit for. He didn't want to punish the South, he didn't want to humiliate the South. He didn't want to make the South the whipping boy of America so that public attention wouldn't be focused on the social ills of the North.
All Andrew Johnson wanted to do was carry out Lincoln's vision for Reconstruction, but Thaddeus Stevens and his unrepentant radicals crucified the man. The only reason that they wanted to impeach him is because he wanted to treat his fellow Southerners as if they were human beings, rather than the evil, rabid dogs that the Radical Reconstructionists saw us as.
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