Scholars rate worst presidential errors

AP/beaufortgazette ^ | February 18 2006 | ELIZABETH DUNBAR

[ncountylee]

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - From engaging in sexual relations with an intern to letting the Vietnam War escalate, U.S. presidents have been blamed for some egregious errors. So who had the worst blunder? President James Buchanan, for failing to avert the Civil War, according to a survey of presidential historians organized by the University of Louisville's McConnell Center.

The survey's top 10 presidential blunders were announced Saturday during a President's Day weekend conference called "Presidential Moments."

"We can probably learn just as much - or maybe even more - by looking at the mistakes rather than looking at why they were great," said political scientist and McConnell Center Director Gary Gregg.

Scholars who participated said Buchanan didn't do enough to oppose efforts by Southern states to secede from the Union before the Civil War.

The second worst mistake, the survey found, was Andrew Johnson's decision just after the Civil War to side with Southern whites and oppose improvements in justice for Southern blacks beyond abolishing slavery.

"We continue to pay" for Johnson's errors, wrote Michael Les Benedict, an Ohio State University history professor emeritus.

Lyndon Johnson earned the No. 3 spot by allowing the Vietnam War to intensify, Gregg said.

Where does Bill Clinton's Monica Lewinsky scandal rank? Many scholars said it belonged at No. 10, saying that it probably affected Clinton's presidency more than it did American history and the public.

The rest of the top 10 blunders:

-4: Woodrow Wilson's refusal to compromise on the Treaty of Versailles after World War I.

-5: Richard Nixon's involvement in the Watergate cover-up.

-6: James Madison's failure to keep the United States out of the War of 1812 with Britain.

-7: Thomas Jefferson's Embargo Act of 1807, a self-imposed prohibition on trade with Europe during the Napoleonic Wars.

-8: John F. Kennedy allowing the Bay of Pigs Invasion that led to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

-9: Ronald Reagan and the Iran-Contra Affair, the effort to sell arms to Iran and use the money to finance an armed anti-communist group in Nicaragua.

[ml/nj]

Clinton - Not allowing his Deputy White House Counsel to go public with information he had.

ML/NJ

[Exton1]

If not for Carter we would not have the Middle East problem we have. And Why not mention Klintounge and his failure to get Bin Laden, and the trouble caused by his bombing of Kosova.

[M-cubed]

IMO, the worst Presidents are the ones who avoided making decisions if at all possible.<<<

Yup!...a non-decision IS a decision!

[Richard Kimball]

Andrew Johnson would have ended up with another war on his hands if he had done what the writer of this article suggests. As it was, many carpetbaggers and Yankees were run out of the south. In Texas, the reconstruction government was actually I seriously doubt that Johnson had the political capital to raise another army and begin another invasion.

In 1874, in Texas, the Republican government in Texas was voted out of office. E. J. Davis, the Republican candidate and sitting governor, refused to leave office. Richard Coke, the newly elected Democrat governor, and the new state legislature barricaded themselves on one floor of the capital, while Davis and his contingent barricaded themselves on another, asking for an armed military intervention from the US government to keep them in power. President Grant refused.

The author makes the fatal mistake of looking at history through current lenses, and fails to recognize the political realities of the times. The south instituted guerilla warfare (Klan), and the Union did not have the resolve to maintain a standing army in the south. They wanted out, so they declared victory and left. Slavery was dead, and the Southern states were still in the Union, but the North did not have the ability or desire to enforce change beyond that.

[Moonman62]

IMHO, Neither was striking ART.1 SEC.8 from the Constitution with the installation of the Federal Reserve...

Wasn't the Federal Reserve created by a congressional act?

[Larry Lucido]

John F. Kennedy not allowing the Bay of Pigs Invasion that led to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

There, fixed it.

[Phil Connors]

Forget the "foreign country"! Look at what he did to the north. We had this great government created by Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Admas, etc., and Lincoln destroyed it.>>

The slaves didn't think it was so hot. They were utterly right.

[Donald Meaker]

I would put down
1 buchanan and the run up to the civil war. In particular, he allowed floyd, his secretary of war to move US property to southern locations to be stolen.
2. He allowed Army officers and West Point cadets to resign to go join rebel forces.

3. FDR for supporting the Munich agreement to appease Hitler with Czechoslovakia.
4. FDR for failure to send a brigade to Europe upon the Germans reoccupation of the Rhineland.
5. FDR for the new deal, which kept the US in depression/recession for 8 more years. That weakened the US ability to intervene in Europe which could have prevented WWII or stopped it at the early stages.

,

[ml/nj]

The slaves didn't think it was so hot.

This may true, but we had no slaves here in the North at least in Lincoln's time. (Gee. I wonder how it got outlawed here without a shot.)

ML/NJ

[onja]

I'd vote Woodrow's mistake as number one. We made a Germany that felt very unfairly judged and gave them motivation for another war.

[Donald Meaker]

I suggest that the Reconstruction wasn't tough enough. Grant did not prosecute the traitors such as Lee, Davis, Floyd.

I submit one of the really bad blunders was ending the reconstruction before democracy was well established. The reconstruction was far LESS corrupt than the antebellum southern government, which skimmed money from projects to build fortifications, and gave the money to slave owners as rent for their slave's labor.

[Richard Kimball]

Agree with all yours. Will add:

Jimmy Carter, Iran debacle. The current ME situation is a direct result of that.
John Kennedy, Bay of Pigs. The communist government of Cuba could have been easily toppled. We ended up with the Cuban missile crisis because of his vacillation.

Harry Truman. Mismanagement of Korea. Truman micromanaged the war effort and recalled MacArthur. North Korea has nukes and a starving populace. Allowing MacArthur to finish the job would have created a unified Korea.

Two of these Presidents, Carter and Truman, lost their chance at reelection because of their blunders. If the theory of Cuban involvement in Kennedy's assassination is true, it cost him more.

[Phil Connors]

This may true, but we had no slaves here in the North at least in Lincoln's time. (Gee. I wonder how it got outlawed here without a shot.)>>

Not strictly true. There were slaves in Maryland, Delaware, DC, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York (the latter three states had less than 100 each--'grandfathered' if you will).

[Phil Connors]

Forgot to mention Kentucky and Missouri.

[LiveFree99]

I agree that ol' "Police Action" Harry blew it in Korea, big time.

Another even more egregious blunder by Truman is his failure to prevent the Communist takeover of China in 1949. The Chinese people have been paying for that one ever since then, and we may wind up paying a huge cost as well.

[Phil Connors]

Another even more egregious blunder by Truman is his failure to prevent the Communist takeover of China in 1949.>>

What do you suggest he should have done??!?!!

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

Lee and the other Southern leaders were patriots. While, I don't agree, that breaking up the Union was a good thing, consistent with Lockean principles, succession was legitimate. Further, constitutional scholars will admit that there were good legal arguments for succession.
Go back and read the debate that went on in Virginia concerning succession. Lee and and other Southerners were loyal to their states, which were once considered sovereign. Prior to the Civil War, the Federal Government had much less power than it does today.
As a Southerner who had ancestors that lived during the Reconstruction, I could recite stories from my Grandparents about how bad Reconstruction was. Reconstruction governments were filled with the worst kind of scum and illiterate former slaves.
Interesting that Northern and Southern Veterans frequently had conventions together in the years after the war. All were considered patriots.

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

The Federal Reserve was created under Wilson (I believe).

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

You are right about 4 and 5, but I believe FDR was constrained by public opinion regarding Munich.

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

If you read the history of slavery. Most northern states allowed slavery at the time of the birth of our nation, but had few slaves. Most states, like NY abolished slavery for all persons born after the date of the law (NY- 1800). This was done to avoid paying slave owners for taking of their property. To do that in SC with half the population slaves would not have been possible without the North helping to pay for it.

Read De Tocqueville's "Democracy in America"