Posted on 02/18/2006 12:20:02 PM PST by 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.
Wow, no "Bush lied about WMD" made the top ten list.
Maybe these guys are real scholars.
Are they implying if there was no Bay of Pigs the Ruskies wouldn't have tried to pull off the missle thing?
I remember both and perhaps it's just me, but I never linked the two together in any cause and effect way.
Gee. Thanks for that suggestion.
(You must think all of us at FR were born yesterday.)
ML/NJ
IIRC, afterwards Truman justified his abandonment of the Nationalists because of the alleged corruption of Gen. Chang Kaishek, whom he and the appeasement lobby called "Cash My Check." The U.S. could have channeled the aid more directly to the Nationalist forces and found more reliable leaders in the movement. Instead, Truman allowed the most populous country on earth to go communist. This almost certainly lead to the stalemated Korean War and negatively affected our position in Viet Nam a decade later. Red China is now rapidly increasingly its military strength and engaging in an aggressive foreign policy that may result in a military confrontation with the U.S. in the fairly near future.
Truman: A small man in a big job.
[and various replies that the Fed was statutory]
I believe the author's claim is that the Federal Reserve effectively destroyed the economic powers granted exclusively to Congress under I.8.
Never trust a "historian".
John F. Kennedy allowing the Bay of Pigs Invasion that led to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
It was Kennedy's FAILURE to support the BOP that led eventually to the missile crisis.
And no mention of Jimma Carter?
Baaaaaah!
1. Stalin would have ignored Truman...
2. .... but it was immaterial as Stalin's aid was not key to victory...
3. .... and the American government, having pissed billions into a rathole called the Nationalist Government during WW2, when the utterly corrupt Chang Kai-Shek took American military supplies and did almost nothing with them against the Japanese, had had it up to their necks with his ineffective and corrupt leadership.
Calling Chang corrupt is not "appeasment", it was objective and true. There was no stopping Communism in China in the 40s, unfortunately.
Some (most?) historians state that the Bay of Pigs fiasco convinced the Soviets that Kennedy was a weak leader who would not interfere with their placing intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Cuba. This impression was reinforced when Kennedy met Khrushchev in person at a summit. The Soviet leader came away from that convinced that Kennedy was a young, callow lightweight who could be pushed around.
But if the Federal Reserve was created by Congress, how can that be? The Treasury was also created by Congress. How come nobody has a problem with that?
Actually, Kennedy's behavior during the Bay of Pigs--not so much the invasion itself as the failure to provide support after a number of setbacks--may have encouraged the Russians to be more adventurous.
James Reston commenting on the Vienna meeting between Kennedy and Khrushchev in an article for the NY Times (a somewhat different paper back in 1964):
"Khrushchev had studied the events of the Bay of Pigs; he would have understood if Kennedy had left Castro alone or destroyed him but when Kennedy was rash enough to strike at Cuba but not bold enough to finish the job, Khrushchev decided he was dealing with an inexperienced young leader who could be intimidated and blackmailed."
Thanks mostly to that defeatist attitude, we're now faced with trying to stop Chinese Communism in the 21st Century.
Unfortunately.
How could I (or even the most casual student of history) possibly forget Alger Hiss? Every time a new piece of evidence comes out, once again establishing his guilt beyond any possibility of refutation, we get some article in the NYT or like-minded liberal organ describing the case as "controversial."
But kindly reexamine Yalta, if you would. I think you may be mistaken about who owned whom.
Why do you list those as blunders? They were both very effective means of creating voters who could be relied upon to vote Democrat.
Occasionally I am reminded that arguing with a freeper is like arguing with a brick wall.
Except the wall actually serves a useful function (keeping the ceiling up).
Bye.
Was not West Virginia a slave state prior to the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment?
Perhaps, in name only. There were few slaves in West Virginia.
ML/NJ
Most people remember that Carter did nothing to stop the obvious return to Iran and acension to power of Ayatolah Khomeni and thus the beginning of the the Islamic Revolution that has lasting impact and devolved into the terror we see today. But a lot of people forget that it was another action by Carter that directly triggered the taking of the American Embassy and hostages...Carter's refusal to listen to advice to NOT allow The Shah into the US for medical treatment. He did it anyway, and here's a reminder of what happened next...
Beset by advanced cancer, the Shah left Iran in January 1979 to begin a life in exile. He lived in Egypt, Morocco, the Bahamas, and Mexico before going to the United States for treatment of lymphatic cancer. His arrival in New York City led to the Iranian takeover of the American Embassy in Tehran by "Students of Imam's Line" and the taking hostage of more than 50 Americans for 444 days.
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