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The worst president ever?
The Metro West Daily News ^ | Sunday, December 4, 2005 | Richard Reeves

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.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: carterworstbyfar; historians; jimmycarter; presidents; rating
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To: bkepley

this difference between this Reeves and the other Reeves is this one is dead from the neck up. the other one is just dead.


61 posted on 12/07/2005 11:27:07 AM PST by Rakkasan1 (Peace de Resistance! Viva la Paper towels!)
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To: woofie

Jimmah Cartah, in a land slide.


62 posted on 12/07/2005 11:27:19 AM PST by TheForceOfOne
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To: 2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten

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.


63 posted on 12/07/2005 11:28:20 AM PST by midwyf
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To: woofie
"...his real failures were in refusing to move after South Carolina announced secession from the Union and attacked Fort Sumter,"

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.

64 posted on 12/07/2005 11:28:23 AM PST by joebuck
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To: woofie
[ President John F. Kennedy was considered a historian because of his book "Profiles in Courage," ]

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..

65 posted on 12/07/2005 11:29:09 AM PST by hosepipe (CAUTION: This propaganda is laced with hyperbole..)
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Comment #66 Removed by Moderator

To: 2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten
But I'm sticking with FDR as a lock for the number one position.

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.

67 posted on 12/07/2005 11:31:08 AM PST by yankeedame ("Oh, I can take it but I'd much rather dish it out.")
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To: woofie
The worst president ever?

FDR, His administration was knowingly full of communists and he ushered in many of its tenets that we are still fighting today.

68 posted on 12/07/2005 11:31:34 AM PST by RJL
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To: woofie

Worst president ever. lincoln. Followed closely by FDR, Wilson, and then maybe LBJ


69 posted on 12/07/2005 11:33:00 AM PST by billbears (Deo Vindice)
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To: woofie

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.


70 posted on 12/07/2005 11:35:07 AM PST by Soul Seeker (Mr. President: It is now time to turn over the money changers' tables.)
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To: JennysCool
The moon landing turned out to be one of the most overrated events in U.S. history. It made for great PR, but the lunar exploration program was so useless (and generated so little interest after the first mission) that they ended up cutting it short in the early 1970s.

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.

71 posted on 12/07/2005 11:35:17 AM PST by Alberta's Child (What it all boils down to is that no one's really got it figured out just yet.)
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To: midwyf

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.


72 posted on 12/07/2005 11:35:49 AM PST by 2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten (Is your problem ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care.)
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To: Alberta's Child

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.


73 posted on 12/07/2005 11:36:18 AM PST by kidd
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To: woofie

Treasonous, corrupt and gay!?

If he were alive today, no doubt he'd be the defacto dem front runner for '08.


74 posted on 12/07/2005 11:36:56 AM PST by Pessimist
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To: TonyRo76

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.



No question about it. But it's worse than that. We essentially had an unwritten rule that you didn't serve more than two terms. It was only after FDR that this had to be codified as the ?? amendment. By deliberately going against this rule in my mind he was doing the same thing as when he packed the court - destroying the country and its institutions to further his own ends.


75 posted on 12/07/2005 11:37:58 AM PST by 2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten (Is your problem ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care.)
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To: frankenMonkey

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.


76 posted on 12/07/2005 11:38:06 AM PST by Alberta's Child (What it all boils down to is that no one's really got it figured out just yet.)
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To: yankeedame

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.




No haven't read it but it all makes perfect sense to me - if you want to ruin a country/economy you institute social/economic planning - by 2005 we should all know this lesson by heart.


77 posted on 12/07/2005 11:39:41 AM PST by 2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten (Is your problem ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care.)
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To: woofie
Worst President Ever (vote)
78 posted on 12/07/2005 11:39:42 AM PST by hang 'em (Is Devil Worship "one of the World's Great Religions"?)
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To: kidd

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.


79 posted on 12/07/2005 11:40:34 AM PST by Alberta's Child (What it all boils down to is that no one's really got it figured out just yet.)
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To: hinckley buzzard
Very true. The AHA has gone from a pretty orthodox organization of centrist liberals to a PC nutjob outfit obsessed with 'marginalized groups' race, gender, and cultural marxist approaches to history.
80 posted on 12/07/2005 11:40:43 AM PST by robowombat
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