The worst president ever?

PARIS -- President John F. Kennedy was considered a historian because of his book "Profiles in Courage," so he received periodic requests to rate the presidents, those lists that usually begin "1. Lincoln, 2. Washington ..."

"No one knows what it's like in this office," he said after being in the job. "Even with poor James Buchanan, you can't understand what he did and why without sitting in his place, looking at the papers that passed on his desk, knowing the people he talked with."

Poor James Buchanan, the 15th president, is generally considered the worst president in history. Ironically, the Pennsylvania Democrat, elected in 1856, was one of the most qualified of the 43 men who have served in the highest office. But he was a confused, indecisive president, who may have made the Civil War inevitable by trying to appease or negotiate with the South. His most recent biographer, Jean Clark, writing for the prestigious American Presidents Series, concluded this year that his actions probably constituted treason. It also did not help that his administration was as corrupt as any in history, and he was widely believed to be homosexual.

Whatever his sexual preferences, his real failures were in refusing to move after South Carolina announced secession from the Union and attacked Fort Sumter, and in supporting both the legality of the pro-slavery constitution of Kansas and the Supreme Court ruling in the Dred Scott case declaring that escaped slaves were not people but property.

He was the guy who in 1861 passed on the mess to the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln. Buchanan set the standard, a tough record to beat. But there are serious people who believe that George W. Bush will prove to do that, 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.

There are some numbers. 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.

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 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-Qaeda);

He has sacrificed American employment (including the toleration of pension and benefit elimination) to increase overall productivity;

He has tolerated or ignored one of the republic's oldest problems, corporate cheating in supplying the military in wartime.

Quite an indictment. It is, of course, too early to evaluate a president. That, historically, takes decades, and views change over time as results and impact become more obvious. Besides, many of the historians note that however bad Bush seems, they have indeed seen worse men around the White House. Some say Buchanan. Many say Vice President Dick Cheney.

You're right, it isn't the same job it was in the days of Tyler and Harrison. Our earliest presidents, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and maybe Madison did have a tougher job than the late 19th century presidents, though. It wasn't clear what the presidency or the Constitution or the country was to be in those first days, and the nation was caught up in many foreign entanglements -- wars, revolutions, and ideological conflicts.

Of course Washington, Adams, and Jefferson didn't have a massive bureaucracy, billion dollar government programs, and world power, but what they faced was more demanding than what Van Buren or Hayes went through.

Our post-Cold War presidents are also going to be hard to assess. I doubt Bill Clinton had any special expertise at dealing with inflation, unemployment, or budget deficits. It's just that he was lucky enough to be around at a time when such things weren't as troublesome as they were earlier. While he does get some credit, you have to take the times into account.

Clinton spent so much time wishing that he could be "challenged" or "tested" as other Presidents were. Part of his luck -- and ours -- is that he didn't get the opportunity, though in retrospect Bin Laden and his group indicate one real and serious test that Clinton took and failed.

Bush has also had some luck. He did make mistakes in Iraq and elsewhere. But the historians on the survey assume that this makes him as bad as Johnson or Carter or worse. Conditions are different now, though. Without a draft a foreign war is less likely to tear the country apart, and we don't have to worry about the Soviets exploiting our mistakes. So the country is in better shape than it was in 1968 or 1980.

We'll have to wait to see how things develop in the Middle East, but the parallel could be to Truman. In retrospect Korea looks like a successful example of containment, but it was a real mess in the 1950s and the consensus was that Truman had seriously bungled. Madison likewise led the country unprepared into war -- in his case a "war of choice." So far, the results today have been a lot better than they were in 1812-1815.

These popularity polls allow historians to chat about their field without getting serious. The real history starts when one has to look at the actual consequences of historical actions, rather than cheer on this ideology or that, and it will be some time before we get perspective on the Bush presidency.

I thought I was done with you but: You never answered my points. The WPA and CCC were both programs paid for by the taxpayers. That is welfare. I merely suggested you read a book and you replied with insults. Roosevelt did not start SSI, I never said that but you know that. SSI and the socialist program social security are two different things. FDR started Social Security idiot, go read up on it--it is a fact. Morons such as yourself use other issues to hide behind. I can't stand for that. You are a lying, narrow-minded democratic propagandist. You are dismissed.

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