I much preferred the Journal of American History's "All-Time Top 500 Rock Albums" issue.

Heh.

I have to confess, I still think Andrew Johnson is worse. But only because we know Andrew Johnson's fumbling away of Reconstruction is partly responsible for Bush, and we don't know what Bush is going to turn out to be responsible for.

I wish more conservatives were like Gaijin Biker, and instead of resorting to smearing their opponents when they knew they had lost an argument, resorted to saying something funny instead.

You know, GB, we could use your keen wit and mad phat punning skillz on a certain other thread I know about . . .

I wish more conservatives were like Gaijin Biker, and instead of resorting to smearing their opponents when they knew they had lost an argument, resorted to saying something funny instead.

I wish more people period were thus.

Well, he wasn't making an argument, so couldn't very well lose it. But teh funny trumps partisanship, to be sure.

As far as knowing I've lost this argument, surely any reasonable, non-partisan person would agree that it's premature to call someone the worst President of all time when his presidency is not even 3/4 over.

In fact, even after Bush leaves office, we will not be able to dispassionately place him in his proper historical context for years, if not decades. There's a reason why they make baseball players wait a few years after they retire before they're eligible for Hall of Fame honors. I figure we should be at least as cautious in ranking our leaders as we are in ranking our athletes.

But if any of you disagree, then by all means, please email me your picks for the best-performing stock of 2006. I could use some easy money.

Beef stock.

Hey 'dja guys catch the big news in today's Post? Not only is Michael Moore fat, but -- psst! -- BILL CLINTON IS TOO!!1! -- And, effeminate.

Definitely the worst president in history, and many of us feared this even before he was first inaugurated. Only the most passionate of partisans would deny the many ways is which Bush, the neocons and the Republican Congress have screwed this country for short-term partisan and private gain.

GB, you seem to be distancing yourself from passionate partisanship, but your desire to withhold judgment is hardly even-handed. Bush, Cheney and their administration have their hands on the ship of state and have been driving it at full speed onto the rocks. Responsibility in this case demands judgment and action, not sitting back and weighing this like consideration of a retired Hall of Fame candidate. Bush and Cheney are still at the helm, and still pose a threat to us all.

That's why droves have been deserting from the right, adding to the Republicans and Democrats who did not deny the unmistakable signs of the long train wreck from which we continue to suffer. Recent defectees include Larry Wilkerson, Matthew Continetti, George Will, Andrew Sullivan, Francis Fukuyama, William F. Buckley, Bruce Bartlett, Bob Barr, Brent Scowcroft, Richard Haass and Stephen Bainbridge.

These defectees join other longtime dissenters from the right, such as Clyde Prestowitz and Paul Craig Roberts.

The judgments of these and other people are what is fuelling calls for impeachment from Carl Bernstein and Harpers and Elizabeth Holtzman, and has led to resolutions for impeachment from seven towns in Vermont, as well as the introduction of joint resolutions for impeachment in the state legislatures of Illinois, California and Vermont under Section 603 of Thomas Jefferson's Manual of the Rules of the United States House of Representatives, which "allows federal impeachment proceedings to be initiated by joint resolution of a state legislature."

Yes, history will be a judge, not only of Bush, but also all of those who either supported him or stood aside.

Despite my succinct title to this post, it's hard to flat-out declare one guy the worst president of all time, because circumstances are so different over 200+ years, just like the greatest hitters from the 1920s would absolutely faint to see what a top pitcher looks like in 2006.

However.

Some guys you know are going in the Hall of Fame on the first ballot, no matter what. GWB is one of those guys. You can make a compelling argument for Buchanan or Johnson or a few others, but regardless, Bush is on the short list.

I haven't read through all of the numerous articles you linked, TT, but I doubt if a single one of those pundits has named Bush the worst president of all time. Which is what we're talking about here.

And I keep forgetting... how many towns in Vermont are required to impeach?

Just one small Vermont town to get the ball rolling, GB. Things seem to be picking up steam; could we be at a tipping point?

Until we get to the impeachment calls, you may have noted that all of those I`ve noted have loudly expressed their dissatisfaction with Bush are Republicans, many from the Administration. That tell you anything about the quality of policy coming from Bush and his Administration? If those on his own side of the fence think he`s a dangerous idiot, then I guess he may be a shoo-in for worst President.

But I can see you`re hardly cheering Bush or Cheney on yourself; wouldn`t it be nice to have a real leader in the White House, with a clear and persuasive policy agenda?

could we be at a tipping point?

Nah. Not unless he goes and bombs Iran without a Congressional authorization. Impeachment isn't a real remedy, mostly because it won't ever pass barring an utterly unlikely electoral tidal wave in November, but also because you'd just be trading seats. The line of succession goes Cheney, Dennis Hastert, Ted Stevens, Condoleezza Rice, John Snow, Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzalez. Snow's the only guy in that list who wouldn't be just as bad or worse and that's solely by dint of having zero foreign policy experience and therefore no record to examine. Plus, he's widely expected to be replaced in a few weeks anyhow.

Bush is much more deserving of impeachment hearings than the prurient silliness of the Ken Starr Anti-BlowJob Commission, but that still doesn't mean it's a good idea. For good or for bad, we don't have a parliamentary system with a vote of no confidence option.

And in my capacity as historian, I feel GB's comment compels me to explain that the best rock and roll song of all time is the Clash's "Should I Stay or Should I Go."

That's not an explanation, that's an assertion.

That's not an objection, that's a quibble.

That's not a comeback, that's a variation on a theme.

So okay, do you really need an explanation, or does the assertion actually, as I imagined, carry the force of self-evidence?

It's not even the best song on that album.

I think Dubya is a total fuck-up, and I think anybody who thinks he's just super is probably brainwashed by their own flavor of fundamentalism (whether partisan, economic or religious), but worst of all time? No way. We've survived worse and we'll survive this, too.

I do, however, take some small and terribly petty pleasure in seeing him prosecuted as Teh Worst EVAR in the media.

See, you're just wrong, Weiner.

We've survived worse

Pony up, yo. Who and why?

The combination of Bush's own lack of ability in the job: knowledge, curiosity, diligence, attention, hell just say character, with the effectiveness of the Republican political machine in this period is what leaves me flattened. Is it because of or in spite of this dichotomy that they are so successful? Would they be more or less successful if Bush was better?

I can think of two, Grant and Nixon, right off the top of my head. Now, I Am Not An Historian, and thus I would welcome correction.

Grant, mainly for the scandals that went on in his administration and about which he did nothing. If I remember correctly, a quick summary of his administration's negative qualities will sound pretty familiar. His administration was rife with scandals, about which he was either ignorant or feigned ignorance until after the fact: stuff like the Whiskey Ring, the whole gold market thing, economic crises, and when people he appointed were criticised for their obvious and proven wrong-doing he would attack the critics rather than do something about his administration. He even made a big "anyone guilty will be held responsible" statement regarding one particular scandal (a huge conspiracy to defraud the treasury) only to have a direct underling exposed as a mastermind, then went out of his way to pardon several of his staff who were involved. So why is that worse than Bush? Because no one from his administration who was involved was held responsible for anything, it all went on right under his nose, and his obviously deserved reputation as a war hero provided total insulation against political attack. At least now we can criticize the shit out of Bush and 2/3 of the country can disapprove openly and the guys who are responsible for a lot of stuff - or at least the guys who pulled the trigger on a lot of stuff - can be held accountable in a court of law. In Grant's administration, everyone walked, none of the contemporary criticisms stuck and now it all gets glossed over in Civics class.

Nixon, for all of his dirty tricks, obviously. Yes, they were exposed, yes, he was forced to resign or face impeachment, yes to all those things, and in that respect it can be argued that Bush is worse because he's getting away with everything and, arguably, that what Bush is doing is actually more evil (endless detentions without recourse, active use of torture, etc.). Still, at the time, I think Nixon's behavior was more shocking. I think Nixon really kicked the shit out of the idea of the Presidency as a respected institution. After Nixon, anything was possible. After Nixon, no matter how good or bad a politician is, we will always suspect them. People with real ideals will be classified as naive or soft or detached from reality and people with no scruples whatsoever will be regarded as simply what we can expect from someone who wants that sort of power. Nixon made the Presidency into something to suspect or mock. The wingnuts can claim that it's all Clinton's fault all they want, but they're just choosing to ignore one of their own one-time knights when they do so.

That is, however, without checking any history books. Maybe I've exaggerated Grant's scandals. Maybe I've exaggerated Nixon's psychological effect on the nation. Still, if asked to name someone even worse than Bush then they're the ones who pop immediately to mind.

But the Grant scandals, while not inconsequential, especially to the public purse, didn't kill lots of people. So, pretty tacky, but "worst ever" material? Also, Grant did help put down the (first) KKK and his Secretary of State was a genuinely war-abhorring multilateralist. Plus, Yellowstone National Park!

Nixon, I agree, is definitely WPE material, for his wholesale disregard for the Constitution, and for the getting people killed (almost certainly) unnecessarily.

Franklin Pierce is unfairly neglected in these discussions.

the Grant scandals... didn't kill lots of people.

Very true! In some ways it's a poor comparison anyway, because it's one naive war hero vs. one inept deserter. ;)

Both Grant and Nixon were lucid, insightful, had shown discipline, mastery of a difficult craft, grasp of a welter of facts, and a great capacity for hard work. The president who most resembles Bush in ability is Harding, who died in office within a couple of years.

Yeah. Nixon, while being a classic paranoid who shamefully expanded Vietnam into surrounding countries, was pretty middle of the road when it came to policy matters. He was nasty business when it came to electoral politics, but as a president? Eh.

Snow's the only guy in that list who wouldn't be just as bad or worse

You don't think Condi would be a better president than Bush?

The Googlebombers have struck again.

Policies can be reversed and indictments served and most mistakes undone, eventually. (The big exception being that lost lives will never be restored.) What remains potent through history, though, is how one represents and executes the office itself, how they act to change the nation or the world. I would argue Nixon's dramatic doin's will be bigger in history's eyes than Bush's and that Grant was an even more incompetent administrator. The Boyf has been known to marvel over the fact that Nixon ran so middle-of-the-road, but I couldn't tell you what those policies were because they aren't what ended up mattering about his presidency; likewise Grant's fuck-ups as compared to any conventional policy positions he might have held. Still, as GB rightly said, it ain't even over yet. We've got 999 more days to see what kind of messed up hogwash Bush can still serve up for posterity's sake.

That said, if we want to start applying the historical lens now, it's best to compare him to other Presidents who made huge impacts on history (and I don't doubt for a second that the Iraq War has set the stage for some very significant history) and try to compare the flavor and substance of those impacts. What defines "a huge impact" is in the eye of the beholder, however. As such, I was just trying to look at it in terms of the psychology of the Presidency and their gifts (or lack thereof) as administrators. It's hard to point at one president or another and directly compare them - Reagan and Clinton, the two rock stars of the last 40 years, aren't even really comparable given the different worlds in which they presided - and the further apart two Presidents are the harder the comparisons are to make.

Speaking tangentially of the Iraq War creating some interesting history, however, I don't think even that will get Bush remembered particularly one way or the other. American history does not celebrate fuck-ups and losers, and it does not reward incompetence with bright lights. I had to Wikipedia Franklin Pierce in order to learn why he should be a candidate for WPE (and hoo-howdy, he certainly sounds like a contendor). Perhaps that's merely my own ignorance showing, but I suspect it's because we have associated the Civil War with Lincoln as the President who won it rather than with anyone who had a significant hand in starting it. There are probably just as many lessons to learn from the Pierce presidency as there are from the Lincoln administration - chiefly about why it's a bad idea to elect someone because he is bland, athletic and affable despite being utterly incapable of handling the job, I suspect - but nobody mentioned that in any of my Social Studies classes.

As such, I suspect that when the Iraq Error is finally corrected, in whatever fashion is required, history will note it under the biography of the President who is in charge at that time, and not of the President who kicked it off as a way to show his dad he's a big boy now.

You know, I have thought it over and I finally agree with you guys. Let's look at the evidence:

(1) We have a president who thrust America into a long, bloody war in which thousands of our troops, and thousands of innocent foreign civilians, were killed.

(2) He did this in response to a single attack on our country which, while devastating, was almost certainly a one-off event, unlikely to be followed up by further attacks.

(3) Some people argue he actually provoked the attack by his arrogant attempt to control natural resources in the region.

(4) His response was to bomb and invade a country that had nothing at all to do with the attack.

(5) As a result of his taking America to war, our national debt skyrocketed to unprecedented levels.

(6) And to top it all off, he has trampled on the constitutional rights of all Americans by claiming, and using, the power to detain them indefinitely without trial and, indeed, without any allegation of a crime.

I don't care how much of a partisan you are; if you add up all these facts, the conclusion is simply inescapable: FDR was the worst president ever, and should be posthumously impeached.

#4 is disingenuous.

And this isn't hardly World War II.

5 out of 6 ain't bad.

Rob McP, I disagree.

None of the other serious WPE candidates are in the Bush league - the key distinguishing factors are that they were President (i) at times of smaller but growing American power, (ii) when the comparative and absolute size of the federal government was much smaller, and (iii) generally with a power split in Congress. As a result, their incompetence, corruption or partisanship was relatively insignificant, was partially checked and did not have lasting consequences.

Bush, on the other hand is at the helm when (i) the US is the only global superpower but our relative power is at an inflection point (more below), (ii) the absolute and relative size of federal government is huge and growing, and (iii) Republicans control Congress as well. As a result, the level of damage that Bush and the Republicans have been able to do to American interests in five years is at orders of magnitude greater than other bad presidents.

We are the only global superpower (with defense spending as large as the rest of the world combined), but we face strategic challenges from a resurgent China, India, Brazil and others, we are at an era of peak oil with significant energy challenges, the world is globally vulnerable to intractable ethnic/religious tensions that grow with economic disparities and to terrorist acts relating to such tensions, there is rising anti-US populism in Latin America, rising ethnic and religious tensions in the US, and global commons and the environment in the developing world are under pressure from continuing population growth, industrialization and consumer demand.

These problems have all been ignored and exacerbated by an Administration that professes a Maicheaen worldview but acts either for short-term political gain or for long-term purposes that are not discussed publicly. Our allies are dismayed, and our strategic adversaries comforted by our mistakes and our shockingly autocratic and anti-democratic policies. We have seen startling decay in our budget and current account deficits, fuelled by uncontrolled, pork-barrel spending for favored corporate interests and creation of new entitlements designed to get votes. Rather than seriously addressing our long-term economic welfare, this Administration simply prefers to spend our money, give tax breakes to friends and to charge future generations for the difference (our accumulated federal debt is to the tune of $150,000 per person). Gerrymandering rigidifies the Republican grip on power, who continue to divide us domestically and to seek wars abroad for domestic political gain. Income disparities in the US, long the greatest of any developed country, continue to grow.

No, no one can hold a candle to Bush, and he will not be forgotten by history but reviled for the manifold ways in which he has helped to undermine our domestic and international strength.

GB, your cleverness in seeing superficial parallels between FDR and Bush is impressive; surely that brainpower is sufficient to see how they, the foreign and domestic threats which they faced, and the manner of their administrations are entirely different?

Or are you suggesting that FDR should also be short-listed for WPE?

Nixon was only middle of the road in his policies because of the context—strong Democratic Party in Congress, coming immediately on the heels of the Great Society and the Civil Rights Movement. It was impossible for him to do otherwise. Listen to the way he talks, and you can tell that he would have been a much meaner SOB given the ideological wave of the 1980s behind him.

GB cannot possibly be serious.

FDR did not "thrust" the US into WWII. The US was edging toward involvement from December, 1940, onward; that is, from the bombing of London, the Lend-Lease Act, the skirmishes in the North Atlantic, the Greer incident, etc.

Moreover, polling shows that American voters in November 1940 voted for FDR for an unprecedented third term precisely on the assumption that there would be war.

So, point 2, i.e., he got us into the war in response to a "single attack" is also bogosity.

Point 3, "some people argue" is beyond bogosity. FDR did not provoke the attack. You could, with a little creativity, make an argument that the US provoked the attack by, you know, opening Japan to Western influences (Matthew Perry caused Pearl Harbor!) and by establishing itself as a Pacific empire with its possession of the Philippines. But that's a bit of a stretch and also has nothing much to do with FDR.

Point 4.... whaaa? Not sure what you're alluding to, but of course Hitler declared war on the US before we bombed & invaded Germany.

Oh wait, you're just trolling.

A few responses to slolernr:

(1) There is a substantial body of scholarly thought arguing that the US provoked or pressured Japan into attacking by cutting off its access to natural resources in the Pacific. I don't personally believe anything the US did justified Japan's attack, but people who do can fairly be compared to those who say that the US brought 9-11 on itself through its foreign policy in the Middle East. It's a good analogy.

(2) You can talk about "edging" towards war all you want, but the fact is that we entered WWII in response to Pearl Harbor. You might as well say we were "edging" towards war in the Middle East for years, and the trigger was 9-11.

(3) Germany declared war on the US on December 11 — in response to the December 8 US declaration of war on Germany's ally, Japan. Germany had never attacked, and never did attack, US territory. I believe it was absolutely morally right for America to attack and defeat Nazi Germany, but Germany was not a... what's the word... imminent threat to American security at home.

(4) Do you at least concede that the wholesale internment of Japanese Americans was a worse infringement of Constitutional and civil rights than anything Bush has done?

Personally, I think the comparison is interesting, if not perfect in every respect. Writing it off as "trolling" seems pretty lazy to me, but I guess that's your prerogative.

GB, personally I think the internment of Japanese-Americans was a tremendous civil rights violation and utterly un-American. So, if you want to dig FDR up and impeach him 60 years after the fact, have at it. I'm pretty sure there wasn't any legal justification that excused FDR's policy but does not excuse Bush's use of Gitmo.

The point of the discussion of GWB, however, is not to say that no Democrat has ever been a contendor for WPE. In fact, one of my beefs with the whole "WPE" thing is that it begs us to spend time comparing GWB to past Presidents which is, I think, ultimately a distraction from the mistakes and fumbles and crimes of the present. Who cares how he compares to Grant or Nixon or FDR or Pierce or anybody, ultimately? None of them are going to be showing up on the ballot anytime soon. What matters - or should - is that Bush is fucking us over right now.

"What matters - or should - is that Bush is fucking us over right now."

Exactly; but I do think a comparison is useful in understanding why the fucking is hurting us so much.

GB would have us all enjoy submitting further.

GB, I don't understand how you can still support this administration, except to say that it has shown admirable loyalty to Likud.

I see your admission of the Bush administration's infringement of Constitutional and civil rights - what are we getting in return for that tradeoff? Shall we sell our rights so cheaply for a long, self-sustaining war against "terror", just to keep Republicans in power? And since we're on the topic, perhaps you've noticed Malkin's defense of the Japanese internment, and the potential application to racial profiling and further internments: www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ tg/detail/-/0895260514?v=glance.

GB, I really don't think my characterization of the FDR comparison as trolling is either lazy or unfair. You really do have to be awesomely unserious, and basically trying to provoke, to compare entry to WWII to entry into Iraq, let alone the scale of the threat to American security from the Axis to the scale of the threat to American security from Saddam Hussein.

As for internment, sure, that was worse than anything today. Do you know, though, it occurred when we still had various Jim Crow through much of the US (and not only the South), before the Civil Rights Movement, and before the Warren Court's revolution in criminal and civil procedure. I think intervening history matters. There are things that were legal, even constitutional, then that are not legal or constitutional now.

Also, with FDR, it's a piece of cake to point out important and useful successes to go alongside whatever appalling failures you want to cite. Even if you don't want to say, "saved American capitalism" (which I would), I'd still nominate the strengthened Federal Reserve Board, the SEC, the FDIC, the Social Security Act, the TVA and various other infrastructure investments that hauled the South at long last out of the nineteenth century as significant successes.

Whereas, for the current president, I'll still cite the dsquared challenge.

people who do can fairly be compared to those who say that the US brought 9-11 on itself through its foreign policy in the Middle East

I think that's fair, give or take; at least, some of the crazier 9-11 conspiracy theories may be comparable to the Pearl Harbor theories. (As opposed to the "9-11 might not have happened if Bush had paid a modicum of attention to terrorism beforehand" theories.)

But those 9-11 theories aren't part of Wilentz's critique, they aren't part of my critique, I don't think they're part of the critique of anyone posting here. So it's not a fair point of comparison for the WPE sweepstakes.

I also object to point 5 as it applies to Bush. The high deficit isn't due to the war; in fact, when the war is taken off budget the deficit still remains very high. The high deficit is due to Bush's disastrous fiscal policy. Roosevelt wasn't crazy enough to cut taxes during the war.

could we be at a tipping point?

Apostropher, I agree with you completely that "Impeachment isn't a real remedy" - it takes too long, and even if he were impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate, he'd just be replace directly by Cheney.

But that's not my point - which is instead that the growing clamor for impeachment is starting to seriously erode the authority of Bush and the ability of his Administration to do further damage, such as by taking us into war with Iran. I think they desperately want that war, but it's increasingly unlikely that Congress would approve it - short of another terrorist attack in the US that could be attributed to Iran.

Iran is unlikely to provide such a justification, but as I noted previously, we have plans in place to target Iran precisely for such an event.

All of this has got to be incredibly frustrating for the Administration - they've got the military muscle and they want to use it against Iran, but the opportunity is starting to slip away. Republicans have already been hyperventilating over Bush's eroding credibility and how that affects our ability to cow Iran, and have already themselves suggested that Bush should resign.

A serious impeachment movement, especially if a Congressional investigation is triggered, would further hinder the ability of the Adminstration to run a foreign policy purely on the worldview of the few who are in charge.

It's a little premature for serious WPE talk. Not that I think that this administration's policies are likely to lead to good, and not that it's a fun game; it's just that I don't know how to value Iraq versus Vietnam versus Korea. I don't know whether oil prices will come back down, or who will win the next election as a reaction to this presidency, and I think future effects are important in all of this.

(Like, if in 10 years Baghdad is a calm, happy state and in twenty it's a leading vacation destination, it's going to be a hard charge to stick. If in 20 years, we're all having to go overseas for medical care because the anti-science streak here meant we didn't train any good doctors, well, it'll stick more.)

Master Pangloss taught the metaphysico-theologo-cosmolonigology. He could prove to admiration that there is no effect without a cause; and, that in this worst of all possible worlds, the Bush ranch was the tackiest of all executive vacation homes, and the Shrub the worst of all possible presidents.

From Wikipedia, on Harry S Truman:

Nowadays, scholars rank him among the best presidents.

BUT...

The [Korean] war and dismissal of MacArthur made Truman so unpopular that he did not seek a third term in the 1952 election. In February of 1952, Truman's approval mark was at 22% according to Gallup polls. This is the all-time lowest approval mark for an active American President.

I'm not saying Bush = Truman. But I am saying that opinions of presidents can change as time passes and historical perspective accumulates.

Gaijin and W, sittin' in a tree . . .