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.
Don't forget: Amnesty for Vietnam draft dodgers.
[How about JFK sending 14000 ground troops to Vietnam, thus starting the Vietnam War.]
This is a bad example. The cause was just and noble. It was but one theatre of the cold war. We simply didn't fight to win. The hippy Baby Boomers got to self absorbed in their sophisticated selfish world and wimped out, therby rendering elected officials impotent.
In the end, congress wrote the rules of the war and managed it from DC rather than committing to victory and charging our mitary leaders with the responsibility of maintaining freedom for the Vietnamese. In the end, our vain efforts cost the lives and freedom of untold thousands.
I think that it should be in the top 5. You can lay the current Iranian impass right at his feet.
As if the Civil War hadn't been building since before the United States even existed as a country. Or as if Buchanan could have changed Taney's insane reasoning in Scott v. Sandford, written before he even became President. It is ridiculous.
But sadly for these "historians" it isn't even the stupidest thing on the list.
The historians are correct on Wilson--though in hindsight, these world organizations that are supposed to promote peace but are populated by dictatorships and totalitarian regimes are bogus anyway. (see: United Nations)
I have to agree with the historians on Nixon, too...his might even be higher than Wilson, though we might still be too close to the events of Watergate to judge. The respect and honor of the Presidency was tarnished by Nixon's actions (Clinton's too!). Of course, Ronald Reagan did repair that somewhat--and that is why I believe the media created and participated in a Congressional attempt to make an issue out of the Iran-Contra affair. The Reagan deal should not be in that list...it was bogus.
Carter's entire presidency (Camp David Accords being the lone exception) was a mistake. Pardoning draft dodgers, not being able get along with an all Democrat Congress, the high inflation, the high interest rates, the unemployment, the humiliation of America in the Middle East for 444 days (Carter's ineptness and unwillingness to stand by the Shah of Iran fueled the Islamofacist fires and was one of the BIGGEST FACTORS in creating what is a continent-wide phenomenon today--they saw America *blink* when Carter backed down, and they were encouraged!), the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and his biggest move was to withdraw from the Olympics, the "rabbit attack", the stalling of nuclear energy...you name it.
Someone else mentioned GHW Bush's "no new taxes" pledge and him going back on it. They're probably right, too--that helped give rise to Ross Perot, and eventually, the regime of Impeached42 and Hitlery. Ugh.
As for the others, I'd have to study up a bit on them before offering an opinon.
RD
You're right.
I think this would make for a lively discussion among historians. But it's all pretty pointless. All Presidents have made both bad and good decisions, and it usually takes years to sort out which is which.
IMO, the worst Presidents are the ones who avoided making decisions if at all possible.
Carter's every act was exactly what he wanted: the weakening of America to help the world, even though it actually didn't.<<
U know!...I think you're onto something! We're still paying for some of his "vision of America"
Yalta agreement, anyone?
Not for me, thanks. Nor any of these either:
Henry Wallace
Harry Dexter White
The OSS
The New Deal
Social Security
The NLRA
The NLRB
I'll agree with #2 and #5, but these are Missing:
1. 1945: The Yalta conference
2. 1939: Bullying Britain as a price for agreeing to covert actions against Hitler
3. 1938: Stacking the Supreme Court
4. 1938: The Ponzi basis of Social Security
5. 1965: The Great Society
6. 1994: Deliberately purging the South of pro-lifers and gun-rights Democrats
7. 1994: HillaryCare
8. 1998: Bin Laden? Nah, you can keep him.
9. 1973-74: Nixon's attempts to buy off Watergate-minded Democrats by trying to out-flank then to the left.
10. 1990: No New Taxes... unless the Democrats make me.
and, of course:
ANNOINTING VICENTE FOX DE-FACTO EMPORER OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!
(Mexican Invasion? Karl Rove didn't tell me about no Mexican Invasion?)
"NRLA
NRLB"
We actually like the NRLC (National Right to Life Committee). :^D
Also the NLRD - "Naturally Right to Like Dangus."
Ronald Reagan made no blunder in Iran-Contra. We SHOULD have been opposing the spread of communism into Latin America/Central America.
Had Ollie North and others been encouraged, we might also have rid the world of Osama bin Laden a long time ago.
Jimmy Carter's total weakness and appeasement during the Hostage Crisis should be on that list; also his economy was the worst in history since the depression.
Shouldn't the depression be on that list someplace.
Finally, if Buchanan had appeased the southern states, as this suggests, wouldn't slavery have endured some time afterwards?
These scholars, imho, are political hacks.
Technically, they were troops but in reality they were advisers. LBJ sent in the first combat troops in 65.
I know you didn't address Johnson but his escalation of the war was not an error - it was "wag the dog" so as to divert the attention of the American people from the soon to be released Warren Commission Report - - which he had a hand in.
LBJ - the complete error - should be #1 on the list.
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.
ML/NJ
Hoover triggered the Great Depression by telling the Federal Reserve to take actions that caused the stock market crash. His wage supports caused massive unemployment. What makes Hoover so bad is that those actions were unofficial. That way he could maintain that he was was a typical hands-off Republican president. His persona as an engineer ended up being disastrous for a president. The presidency was his first elected office.
Don't forget Alger Hiss. FDR owns him too.
I forgot about SS. It ranks up there pretty high.
I don't do stock analysis. I used to do lots of statistics and numerical analysis, but not on markets.
Occupations are rarely pretty.
ML/NJ
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