How many years have I been saying this? This is beyond partisanship. The president is too important in the world, much less the US, to have incompetents elected to that office. And lest righties (many of whom are embarassed by the current office holder) think I’m just bashing Bush, I had no love for Kerry. The past few years hopefully have shown both parties that they need to nominate and elect people with at least a passing ability to do something. Anything.
But as Bush shuffles the deck chairs on his ship of state, I’m not optimistic.
The Worst President in History?
George W. Bush’s presidency appears headed for colossal historical disgrace. Barring a cataclysmic event on the order of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, after which the public might rally around the White House once again, there seems to be little the administration can do to avoid being ranked on the lowest tier of U.S. presidents. And that may be the best-case scenario. Many historians are now wondering whether Bush, in fact, will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history.
In early 2004, an informal survey of 415 historians conducted by the nonpartisan History News Network found that eighty-one percent considered the Bush administration a “failure.” Among those who called Bush a success, many gave the president high marks only for his ability to mobilize public support and get Congress to go along with what one historian called the administration’s “pursuit of disastrous policies.” In fact, roughly one in ten of those who called Bush a success was being facetious, rating him only as the best president since Bill Clinton — a category in which Bush is the only contestant.
Gotta agree with Uncle Dave. I voted for Al Gore in the first election, and Dubya in the second (Kerry is apparently even less qualified than Bush, from what I can tell–I was voting for the lesser of two evils). There have been some pretty bad presidents in the past–Harding comes to mind. Not sure if Dubya tops him or not–I’ll leave that to the historians.
Thank God this links to a respected source of presidential journalism like RollingStone or I might think this was just another biased on the President by a disgruntled lefty.
And I wonder what political leaning most of these historians might hold. If you really want an unqualified disaster as a President look no further than Jimmy Carter.
“Doctors Without Borders” — sadly under-reported
“Apologists Without Apology” — just sad
Carter was in the usual mold of “me too” presidents that can switch between Republicrats and Demlicans. Uniform enough in foreign policy — as an example — you wonder if the same cookie cutter was used to stamp out their education.
Of course, Carter spends his post-presidency trying to make up for it all. Bush will probably go back to handout jobs from his daddy’s buds.
At least Carter started FEMA. Which got better and better — until Homeland Insecurity and the current thug in the White House.
Hmph… He’s just a legend in his own mind.
And, even tho I’m not Dem OR Repub., Carter was the last HONEST Pres. we had…
Sure, Carter did stupid stuff, BUT HE WAS HONEST.
moss, stamp out whose education?
The FEMA thing would probably be a good cage match. FEMA responded to Katrina faster and better than they did to Andrew, but they get ripped. People need to remember the the Feds come last in the authority chain, not first. They don’t even have authority to move in until requested by the Governor. That request didn’t get made in a timely manner because the idiot Governor and retarded Mayor were too busy having their own pissing match. At least as far as New Orleans goes.
Carter is trying to rehabilitate his rep. It took 8 years of Reagan to rehabilitate the US.
Well, prior to being twice elected governor of the great state of Texas, Bush’s two biggest accomplishments in life were marrying Laura Welch and quitting drinking. Obviously, he seemed well qualified to be president, and I think he’s doing a heckuva job! So if you think Bush is the bottom of the barrel, you just haven’t scraped the barrel hard enough, mister.
stamp: form or cut out with a mold, form, or die
Never been around a factory with stamping presses, eh?
You guys think that if in ten years or so if the Iraq war spawned a new democratic peace in the middle east due to an american influenced awareness for human rights that Bush will not get the credit and it will go to whoever that is in office in ten years?
I think as the greatest nation in the world, even an off the cuff move into Iraq can and will turn out for the best. My friends and classmates are over there right now working on it right now.
So lets say their efforts arn’t in vain, and this war is the turning point in a long chain of events that leads to peace. Will we all know deep down it was Bush that started it, but give someone else credit because we are to stubborn to admit that we wern’t giving support to what could be the downfall of radical arab states .
Only one thing has to be remembered about the retardedness of President Bush, and that is his reaction to the second plane crashing into the Twin Towers on September 11th. He remained sitted. HE SAT! In other words he DID NOT ACT. Everyone I ever spoke to about 9/11 says that they INSTANTLY knew that AMERICA WAS UNDER ATTACK after the second plane flew into the tower. The LEADER of our country remained sitting reading “The Pet Goat” to kids for the next twenty minutes. THE POWER bestowed on him as President to PROTECT us was non-existent. It wasn’t until his puppeteer came back from the toilet stall to string him out of his seat did the president move at all. THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR HIS INACTION. NONE.
If you believe he was protecting the kids then you are more retarded than him. Historians will look back and see how half our nation are so dumb that they would pick the next president from a police line up.
Bush is a boy. He is being controlled by the devil himself, Dick Cheney. I really believe Bush believes he is doing the right thing. Bush is good in an innocent way. The man who really is president is the vice president Dick. Bush is just a prop attached by strings to the hands of the real master, Dick Cheney.
moss, as a matter of fact I have been in a number of factories. My question was whose education: Republicrats or Demlicans or both?
Ah yes, people whining and complaining about Bush. OK, sure, it’s fun and easy, but YOU ELECTED HIM TWICE. If he actually has the worst presidency ever, why did people vote for him the second time? Masochistic nation perhaps? Somebody, somewhere thinks he’s doing a good job.
Spike thread. How cute.
It’s probably a bad sign for Bush when The Rolling Stone gets in the game far enough use the dunce graphic on their cover. Since there isn’t a Walter Cronkite or Edward R. Murrow around today, I guess The Rolling Stone will have to do. They have as much credibility anyway as most of the large news orgs, and likely more influence, shutter.
It won’t be an official Bad President Triple Crown though until SI puts him on the swimsuit cover in water over his head in a lagoon behind Elle McPherson, or People Magazine features him as #1 on their 10 Least Beautiful Presidents List.
David, What exactly was it that Bush could have done in those 20 minutes that would have PROTECTED us all from another airplane crashing into a building somewhere? You are aware that there is an entire executive branch, and his staff, that perform their daily jobs without him personally managing everything, right?
I also might have missed it somewhere but when did the President become the great savior and protector of the American people in the first place? Is that like when Al Gore kept saying in 2000 that the President is the only person that the Constitution says is “supposed to fight for you”? I know he was talking about something totally different, but he was full of shit in any case.
In case you missed it, here are the responsibilites of the President:
1) ensure that laws passed by the Congress are faithfully executed
2) serve as head of state. i.e. receive foreign officals, negotiate treaties, etc.
3) appoint judges and other officers
4) serve as commander in chief of the military.
Mike:
About time somebody around here read the Constitution. Bravo!
It saddens me to see individuals speak about any branch of goverenment without understanding it’s duties. In my perfect world, any one would be able to vote – as long as they completed and passed a civics class and test. We make immigrants (the ones that came to the country legally – but that’s another rant) do it, why don’t we require natural citizens? Wanna talk conspiracies? I bet it has something to do with the NEA, and the fact that even the ones that are supposed to teach this to students don’t even know…
Presidents are best judged after 25 or more years have passed. In order for an Historian to accuratly judge a Presidents policies they need to be *not of the same era*.
As time passes, we have had to go back and re-evaluate several Presidents performances. Some went up on the good scale, some went down.
Maybe it’s time for a new way to pick the President.
“American Presidential Idol”
-would save money (candidates wouldn’t have to cough up millions!)
-anybody could have their crack at it
-Simon has a new group of people to shred
-ad revenues could go to deficit reduction
-MORE ENTERTAINING than the current process
-get young people involved
-re-ignite interest in politics
-even Nader might have a chance (then again, maybe not
“David, What exactly was it that Bush could have done in those 20 minutes that would have PROTECTED us all from another airplane crashing into a building somewhere?”
Get up off his ass, for one.
If you were sitting and someone whispered into your ear that a 747 crashed into your kid’s school what would you do? That’s right you can’t do anything…so you sit around for twenty minutes to continue reading Dvorak Uncensored…
Wow, all these historians giving him low ratings. Except they study HISTORY, not current events. Bush has actually done something, and it remains to be seen how things will work out. Do you really think CLinton will be remembered for anything 50 years from now? No, because he took the oppposite choice, he didn’t act, not for 20 minutes but for 8 years. Now Clinton has said that he wished 9/11 had happened when he was President, because he understands this point. Of course, similar things DID happen when he was President, and he chose the easy path of least resistance.
“Do you really think CLinton will be remembered for anything 50 years from now? “
Yeah, presiding over the largest period of economic growth this country has ever experienced is nothing compared to attacking a third world country.
Terry, another benefit to your plan would be that the Bells actually know the importance of a paper trail. Of course they would only count votes for candidates that supported “pay-per-click” and then only over their pipe. Plus, if any data was lost the NSA has their backups! Cool.
“Let’s see, monetary policy is controlled exclusively by the federal reserve.”
I never said that Clinton did it, I merely said that he presided over it. 😉
Seriously, I personally think that one of the reasons we had such fantastic economic growth during the 90s was because Clinton was a lame duck for his entire 8 years and had no chance to muck it up.
Politicians all spew hot air and contribute to Global Warming.
Back during the last presidential election, I saw Kerry on Jon Stewart’s talk show. Jon asked him a very interesting question: “Is oil America’s kryptonite?” Kerry sat there and said some shallow political safe words, tried to duck it. Bad move. Hey, what’s the matter with this guy? He could’ve told us what he (maybe) thought about it, waxed eloquent about possible small sacrifices we may have to make as individuals, but effective on a mass scale… “if we all pull together we can accomplish much, people realizing their collective common-sense power” etc. Blow the small-minded Reaganites out of the water. Stuff like that. But no, he prattled on like the typical clueless liberal stereotype. Boo-hoo. So, my opinion of his sorry ass went quite south after that.
sorry, as much as I despise Dumbya, there’s still no competition for worst president: James Buchanan takes the prize. you folks need to remember that American history did not start in 1945.
I would say, as wartime presidents go, Dumbya is worse than Wilson (who was bad – US totally unprepared for WW1), not as bad as Madison (who let the White House and Capitol get burned, presided over numerous failed invasions of Canada), about on par with LBJ (sans domestic policy success, and Iraq not as bad as Vietnam), not as good as Truman, and no competition for the true greats: Roosevelt and Lincoln.
Bush beats Harding (for the worst), but not by much. Regarding cronyism, they were one in the same, though I doubt any of Bush’s appointees will ever be sent to jail or off themselves as in Harding’s.
Gee Fusion you have alot of names. It is the medication?
Bush just dropped to 33%…..but the media has it all wrong as to why. He went below 70% support amoung his own party, and it’s immigration, spending then the war that is causing Republicans to go against him. Up until the last few months his high and solid vote of approval amoung his own is what kept him close to 50%.
Time is still on Bush’s side, it would only take either capturing or killing Bin Laden, or getting some semblence of order in Iraq to change the poll numbers in his favour.
As I said in my earlier post, for historians to be placing him in a spot on the best/worst list is a bit premature.