Posted on 12/07/2005 11:06:54 AM PST by woofie
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 ..."
But after he actually became president himself, he stopped filling them out.
"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 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-Qaeda);
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.
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.
Richard Reeves' column appears on Sunday.
this difference between this Reeves and the other Reeves is this one is dead from the neck up. the other one is just dead.
Jimmah Cartah, in a land slide.
I would have to agree on FDR, he started this country on the gimme road. I'd rank Carter ahead of Clinton. Clinton was there for what he could get out of it easily. Carter thought he was so in touch with everything and still does. He undermines our very security, and gave the terrorists courage to start down this road that Bush Jr. is trying to fix.
It's hard to take a columnist seriously who doesn't even know that LINCOLN was president when Fort Sumter was attacked. (april 1861) - And in a column about presidential history, no less.
That book was ghost written for JFK.. paid for by his father..
Kennedy was a moron, like Al Gore.. or Kerry or his brother Teddy.. his speechs were written for him.. The real brains in the family was his wife.. and she was a Ditz.. like Terry Heinz..
Have you ever read FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression" by Jim Powell.
I'll admitt it's a pretty weak title but a real eye opener. It's a snap to read, being done up in Q & A chapters, i.e. Why did food cost more? Why were taxes higher? Why did the government demand a minimum wage at a time when jobs were so scarce? etc.
FDR, His administration was knowingly full of communists and he ushered in many of its tenets that we are still fighting today.
Worst president ever. lincoln. Followed closely by FDR, Wilson, and then maybe LBJ
LOL! I was reading the beginning and thinking the description fit...
Carter leaving Reagan a mess to clean up.
Clinton leaving Bush a mess to clean up.
He also kept a nuclear threat out of Cuba.
This is one of those events where JFK's role has been deliberately obscured over the years for political purposes. Originally the Cuban missle crisis was used to highlight JFK's qualities as a tough military leader who "didn't back down to the Soviets." The reality -- as we learned years later when records from that era were de-classified -- was that Kennedy cut a deal with the Soviets under which the Soviets removed their cruise missiles from Cuba and the U.S. removed ours from Turkey.
I would have to agree on FDR, he started this country on the gimme road. I'd rank Carter ahead of Clinton. Clinton was there for what he could get out of it easily. Carter thought he was so in touch with everything and still does. He undermines our very security, and gave the terrorists courage to start down this road that Bush Jr. is trying to fix.
Yes the gimme road plus
- all the commies in the administration up to and including
Henry Wallace, Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White and others.
- cozying up to Stalin in WWII at the expense of Churchill.
- Yalta
- The U.N.
- The attempt to pack the court
- running for 4 terms in direct violation of the unwritten rule to only serve 2
- Being a lying, conniving, double-dealing, back-stabbing,
socialist, commie-loving p***k.
I'm kinda neutral on JFK.
He stood up to the USSR/Cuba, made us The technology leader with the moon landing goal and gave a modest tax cut.
OTOH, he botched the Bay of Pigs badly, significantly escalated Vietnam, made the Cold War "colder", and with his infidelity he marked the beginning of a long string of truly horrible presidents that resulted in a lack of respect for the office of the President and government in general.
Treasonous, corrupt and gay!?
If he were alive today, no doubt he'd be the defacto dem front runner for '08.
FDR couldn't stand the thought of giving up the reins of power, until the Reaper finally relieved him of his duties.
What a dramatic contrast to our first president! After stewarding the power entrusted to him as long as he could stand it, Washington could hardly wait to retire back to his farm to enjoy life.
Compared to this cherished American ideal, Franklin Roosevelt comes off pretty...monarchical.
I become more convinced by the day that from 1961-1963 the U.S. managed to survive a brief period of time when our nation's chief executive was a certified loony-tune and maybe even a heavy user of narcotics.
Have you ever read FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression" by Jim Powell.
I'll admitt it's a pretty weak title but a real eye opener. It's a snap to read, being done up in Q & A chapters, i.e. Why did food cost more? Why were taxes higher? Why did the government demand a minimum wage at a time when jobs were so scarce? etc.
JFK can be aptly described as our nation's first adolescent president -- a term (for better or worse) that lay dormant for a while but resurfaced in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations.
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