Who is the worst U.S. President ever?

[8ballrollin]

Great T-shirt...

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[BYU71]

Originally Posted by BarbaraGordon

I don't know why the graph's not showing up for you.

If you notice in my post, I stated that I don't think it's fair to infer the quality of a presidency from popular approval at the time.

I was pretty much in agreement with you. I have a bad habit of responding to someones post, but the dig is intended for someone else.

Another old age thing.

[UtahDan]

Originally Posted by Tex

Anyone who says that Bush is the worst president in history before his presidency has even finished has historical myopia. They have a name for it ("Bush Derangement Syndrome") and they have treatment for it too, SU.

I agree complete with you here, and would say that those who are voting for Carter or Clinton are suffering from some short sightedness as well. In fact, I would say that if you didn't vote for Grant you ought to do some reading up on him.

I think that Bush has been a poor leader, which is not to say a bad president. I think that any president during this time would have been faced with the same problems he has been and would have struggled to solve them as he has. There is part of me that roots for a Democrat to win the whitehouse so that the left will have to confront the fact on the issues they hate Bush the most for (foreign policy) the options are remarkably few. This is why foregin policy shifts remarkably little even when a new party gains the whitehouse. Witness also the radical changes and reforms the new Democrat congress has brought to foreign policy since the last election. Oh wait, they haven't changed anything (and don't tell me the Republicans stopped them, they haven't yet had the guts to do what most of them say they want because it means cutting off funding...again the rhetoric can never match the policy because the choices in the real world are few).

On the other hand, a better leader would have been more candid, less of a spin doctor, and more pusuasive. When Regan was president, the left was equally insensed at him over escalating the arms race. They used the same kind of overheated rhetoic (which incidently the right used and still uses agasint Clinton for different reasons). He was a good enough communicator to pursuade many of the people that he was right. Bush has none of these talents. Clinton was also superb at making his case.

I think that one of our great strengths/weaknesses as Americans is that we assume not only that there is a solution to everything but that we can figrue it out. I feel at this point that any choice we made post 9-11 would have been fraught with problems and that the only real choice was between which set of problems we would have had. I would urge that if you are on either side of an issue saying "why don't they do this, it seems so obvious" you are not truly grasping the issue, whatever it is. I'm not saying that what we have done was great or right in hindsight, what I am saying is that to believe that there has ever been some other guilded path we could have taken, if only we would have, is just naive.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by Tex

Anyone who says that Bush is the worst president in history before his presidency has even finished has historical myopia. They have a name for it ("Bush Derangement Syndrome") and they have treatment for it too, SU.

I cop to the possiblity of suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome. It's likely a real malady caused by real trauma.

[il Padrino Ute]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

Kennedy was corrupt and did a lot of injury, even starting us down the Vietnam road. But his civil rights record was stellar. He signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act into law.

Umm, perhaps like Barbara, I'm too young to know what I'm talking about, but a President who was assassinated in 1963 couldn't have signed a bill in 1964.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by il Padrino Ute

Umm, perhaps like Barbara, I'm too young to know what I'm talking about, but a President who was assassinated in 1963 couldn't have signed a bill in 1964.

You're right but he was an architect of it. It went through a great deal of deliberation in Congress. It was very controversial and it's constitutionality was dubious back then.

[il Padrino Ute]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

You're right but he was an architect of it. It went through a great deal of deliberation in Congress. It was very controversial and it's constitutionality was dubious back then.

I agree that Kennedy was the architect and it was because of him that the bill came to be. I was just giving you a bit of a hard time.

[BarbaraGordon]

Originally Posted by il Padrino Ute

Umm, perhaps like Barbara, I'm too young to know what I'm talking about...

FTR I was kidding about that. Seattle never said I was too young...he said I was discounting Kennedy's civil rights record and exaggerating his mistakes in foreign policy. Or something like that.

[SeattleUte]

So everyone agrees with me Truman is the best modern president?

[YOhio]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

So everyone agrees with me Truman is the best modern president?

I love Truman. He was one of a kind. We'll never again have a president who was so willing to put his neck on the line like he was.