Five WORST U.S. Presidents

Now, Dr. Bob,

I agree with your presidential choices, but the slam on Grant as a military man was uncalled for. True, he was neither Patton nor MacArthur as a tactician, nor was he Washington as a man, but he understood the one fact he had to understand--numbers--and he understood that you had to fight to win.

 

And I disagree with two names from your second tier. Were it not for Harry Truman, we would all be working for commissars today--he drew the line. Nixon was certainly a flawed man, but he was the greatest foreign policy genius who ever lived in the White House.

 

I can only speak of who's been president while I've been alive...and I can remember.

And I can only think of two.

1. Jimmy Carter for being such a whimp.

2. Bill Clinton for being such a whimp.

 

Grant (see Bob Griffen's points above!)
Clinton (character)
A. Johnson (inept)
Nixon (power hungry when he had the power)

I might think of some others later.

 

I have been trying to think of a bad president in the last 100 years. I can't think of any in the last 80 years, although there might have been some in the 1920s. I consider Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter and all the others who have served in my lifetime as reasonably competent. That is not to say that they have all had good character, but in spite of character flaws, they have not made major blunders in government, unless it was perhaps the Vietnam war. And even then they were operating under the generally accepted assumptions of the times, that communism had to be stopped. In retrospect that was not true, but it seemed true at the time. So I cannot fault even Lyndon Johnson. Aside from the war, he was a competent president.

 

I've got to agree with Grant, but only based on his complete incompetence - proof of the "Peter Principle." I rate him #3 on my list.

No question of my agreeing with Clinton on moral, ethical, and competency grounds. But he's just #2 on my list.

LBJ is without any doubt (in my mind) the worst president this nation has ever had. His legacy of racial division has florished. His Great Society flop continues to haunt us. His incompetence in Vietnam caused (and still is causing) untold harm from the personal level to the national and international levels.

As for positions 4&5, tough call. Nixon gets negative points for his handling of Watergate and the wage & price freeze. Carter is a very good man, but gets negative points for allowing not-so-good men in as his closest advisors. Andrew Johnson was ineffective all because he insisted on his own cabinet. There's plenty more to throw in the mix for those last two places so I'll just make it a 25 way tie and let you fure out who I don't include.

 

OK, Limey's List #2:-

1. Nixon - liar and corrupt
2 Harding - ditto
3.Buchanan - passive idiot who let the sectional conflicts slide out of control into Civil War
4. Clinton and Kennedy joint 4th for moral fibre
5. Wilson - for not reading the US constitution re the Versailles Treaty and thereby causing us Europeans a lot of bother

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

Surely Hoover must rank in this list?

 

My bottom 5

1. Lyndon Johnson

2. Abraham Lincoln

3. Bill Clinton

4. Ulysses S. Grant

5. Jimmy Carter

 

1. Buchanan

2. Nixon

3. Harding

4. Clinton

5. Grant

Buchanan, because he knew the storm-clouds of the Civil War were gathering but took no action to head it off.

Grant, Harding, and Nixon because each became involved in political scandal. Oddly, their administrations occurred at 50-year intervals.

Both Johnson's could easily be added to the list, but you have to cut somewhere.

Finally, Clinton who never risked any political clout to accomplish any worthy goal.

BTW, if/when the impending crisis in the funding of Social Security hits, I think that history will be unkind to all the presidents who knew the crisis was coming but used no political clout to rectify the situation. Of course, we voters will be looked upon unkindly as well, for any presidential candidate who proposes a solution quickly goes into political oblivion.

 

Since I know more about the presidents during my lifetime, I will restrict my rankings to those.

1. George W. Bush - total disregard for limited government spending.

2. Bill Clinton - poor moral fiber and poor foreign policy on terrorism.

3. George H.W. Bush - raised taxes and blew an easy chance at a second term.

4. Jimmy Carter - very poor reaction to the Iran hostage situation and to simultaneous hyper-inflation and high unemployment.

5. Lyndon Johnson - lied to get the U.S. heavily involved in the Vietnam War and lost his war on poverty.

 

1. Nixon

2. A. Johnson

3. Hoover

4. Reagan

5. George W. Bush

 

Can I gather from this that you don't particularly care for Republican Presidents?

 

>>>>LBJ is without any doubt (in my mind) the worst president this nation has ever had. His legacy of racial division has florished. <<<<<<<

Before LBJ's voting rights legislation, blacks in the south could not vote. Afterwards they could. What part of his legacy do you not agree with exactly and why?

 

Speaking for myself, the only thing Johnson did that was any good was civil rights legislation.

His war on poverty has poured around 2 trillion dollars into the inner cities, only to turn them into wastelands. The anti-family rules of the Great Society welfare programs led to the disintegration of the majority of black families.

His meddling in Vietnam was a nightmare, and it was he who set up the tape system that Nixon later used to his own regrets.

My cousin, Lyndon, certainly belongs in the ranks of the TERRIBLE presidents.

 

1. Clinton : Traitor, liar, murderer, sexual pervert

2. Lyndon Johnson : Got rich, at the expense of GI blood, by maintaining a no-win combat doctrine in Southeast Asia.

3. Truman : Committed US troops to a no-win war in Korea. His administration was infested with Communists while at the same time we were fighting Communists.

4. Woodrow Wilson : Got elected by promising to keep the country out of the war in Europe(WW1) but did an about face as soon as he was elected. He also gave us the Federal Reserve Act which took away Congress's constitutional responsibility of minting currency.

5. U.S.Grant : He was a drunk and was responsible for instituting the reconstruction in the South.

Note: Even though three of my great-great grand fathers were Confederate Army vets, I can't give Lincoln and Andrew Johnson bad marks. It is suspected that the radical Republicans in Congress, had Lincoln assassinated because of his refusal to punish the South.( He believed that the Union would remain in a weakened state as long as one part of the country was being punished ). Only one Southern leader was tried and executed after the war, and that was the warden of Andersonville prison. Andrew Johnson's administration experienced more vetos and veto over-rides than any other administration. He was impeached because he wouldn't bend to Congress's desire to punish the South. I think that he escaped forced removal from office by one vote.

Roy

 

>>>>2. Lyndon Johnson : Got rich, at the expense of GI blood, by maintaining a no-win combat doctrine in Southeast Asia.<<<<<

Comment: I think you will have a hard time proving that claim.


>>>>>>3. Truman : Committed US troops to a no-win war in Korea. His administration was infested with Communists while at the same time we were fighting Communists.<<<<<

This claim is highly exaggerated. To show that, suppose you name the communists in his administration. It is true that McCarthy made claims of many but these claims did not pan out.

 

>>>>1. Clinton : Traitor, liar, murderer, sexual pervert<<<<<<

Who did he murder and what is your proof?