Is George W. Bush the worst president in 100 years?

[scandium]

Is George W. Bush the worst president in 100 years?

"On March 16, Iraqi insurgents fired a mortar shell into the U.S. army base in Tikrit, landing near two members of the 101st Airborne Division, reportedly as they stood waiting for a bus. The explosion killed Sgt. Amanda Pinson of St. Louis, Mo., making her the 2,315th U.S. soldier killed in Iraq since the war began three years ago. She was 21.

A few hours later in Washington, the U.S. Senate voted 52-48 to increase the ceiling on the national debt, by $781 billion, to $9 trillion (all figures US$) -- or roughly $30,000 for every man, woman and child in the country -- thus avoiding the first-ever default on U.S. debt. The House of Representatives then approved another $92 billion in federal spending to support the war effort in the Middle East.

That night, Gallup wrapped up its latest opinion poll on Americans' attitudes toward the White House, showing just 37 per cent approve of the President's performance, versus 59 per cent who disapprove -- a drop of five percentage points in a month -- one of the worst scores of any president in the modern era.

Just another day in the life of the world's last superpower under the leadership of President George W. Bush."

Full article: http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/po..._125323_125323

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by scandium

Is George W. Bush the worst president in 100 years?

I don't know but I wouldn't conclude that soley based on the Bad News Bears report you just posted.

[scandium]

Originally Posted by The Avon Lady

I don't know but I wouldn't conclude that soley based on the Bad News Bears report you just posted.

I posted the link to the full article along with the first four paragraphs. Here's the next two and there is much more in the full article.

"With deficits and debt swelling to epic levels, an economy showing massive cracks, and support for America crumbling abroad, the Bush administration finds itself increasingly isolated. With mid-term elections looming in November, the President is now widely seen as a political liability. Republicans are actively distancing themselves from Bush, and joining Democrats in strident critiques of the White House. And things may be getting worse. Last week, court documents emerged showing Scooter Libby, former chief of staff to Vice-President Dick Cheney, testified that Bush authorized the leak of sensitive intelligence to shore up support and discredit critics of the Iraq war, raising, for the first time, the possibility that the President may be personally implicated in a scandal.

These are more than just the normal travails of a second-term president fending off the slings and arrows of partisan attack. Bush's constant battles at home and abroad are taking on historic proportions, hardening perceptions that his administration is defined by failure on multiple fronts. Just over 16 months have passed since George W. Bush was elected for the second term that eluded his father, but already historians and pundits are beginning to debate whether he just might be the worst U.S. president in a century."

[Konovalov]

Probably best to wait till the conclusion of his eight years in office before passing judgement and even then you might want to wait ten to twenty years more before trying to determine what his legacy and impact was on the USA and the world.

[The Avon Lady]

It doesn't change my opinion. maybe if I were 120 years old, I could assess this correctly. Here's a list:

25 William McKinley
26 Theodore Roosevelt
27 William Taft
28 Woodrow Wilson
29 Warren Harding
30 Calvin Coolidge
31 Herbert Hoover
32 Franklin Roosevelt
33 Harry Truman
34 Dwight Eisenhower
35 John Kennedy
36 Lyndon Johnson
37 Richard Nixon
38 Gerald Ford
39 Jimmy Carter
40 Ronald Reagan
41 George H. W. Bush
42 Bill Clinton
43 George W. Bush

Go figure if he was the worst.

I'll agree that he's far far away from the best, that's for sure!

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by scandium

Is George W. Bush the worst president in 100 years?

Naw what about Warren G. Harding? Calvin Coolidge? Herbert Hoover? Richard Nixon?

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Naw what about Warren G. Harding? Calvin Coolidge? Herbert Hoover? Richard Nixon?

Nixon was bad for his abuse of office and power. Would you say, however, that his foreign, domestic and economic policies were also bad?

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by The Avon Lady

Nixon was bad for his abuse of office and power. Would you say, however, that his foreign, domestic and economic policies were also bad?

Indeed his escalation of the Vietnam War in to Cambodia being probably the best example, but their also was the coups he helped along in South America.

Also his views on Africans and Jews were well quite 'out there'...

[scandium]

Originally Posted by The Avon Lady

Nixon was bad for his abuse of office and power. Would you say, however, that his foreign, domestic and economic policies were also bad?

This goes to the heart of the article. Nixon, among others, is mentioned but they point out that his presidency had some redeeming features (for instance his opening of dialogue between China and the US). In W's case though its a sea of bad: the blackening of America's image as a champion of human rights with the Abu Ghraib scandal and the ongoing controversy surrounding Gitmo; the domestic spying controversy; the failing war in Iraq; the massive government spending and record deficits at home; the isolation resulting from the clash and bickering between the US government and staunch allies France and Germany (among many others); and on and on.

[Mike 'Red Ocktober' Hense]

Americans usually get what they ask for... to blame everything entirely on Bush would be to take a very narrow view of the picture... in my opinion...

he wouldn't have been elected, or reelected, if there wasn't a sufficient number of people who chose to vote him into office... and support his stance on many issues mentioned above...

regardless of my opinion on the President, one thing is apparent... we all (Americans) share the 'blame', to one degree or another, if indeed there is any to be shared...

to ignore this fact, and to place the entirety of everything on Bush's shoulders, is obviously flawed and deluded 'thinking'...

--Mike

[scandium]

Originally Posted by Mike 'Red Ocktober' Hense

Americans usually get what they ask for... to blame everything entirely on Bush would be to take a very narrow view of the picture... in my opinion...

he wouldn't have been elected, or reelected, if there wasn't a sufficient number of people who chose to vote him into office... and support his stance on many issues mentioned above...

regardless of my opinion on the President, one thing is apparent... we all (Americans) share the 'blame', if indeed there is any to be shared...

to ignore this fact is obviously flawed and deluded 'thinking'...

--Mike

I don't see where the flawed logic is. Reagan famously asked the American people, when he ran against Carter, 'are you better off now than you were four years ago?', and the article simply asks the same questions while attempting to proffer some answers to them. Whether or not the American people are somehow to blame is a separate question and different debate; in fact, logically, before you could even raise this second question you have to ask and answer the first: Is George W. Bush the worst president in 100 years?

[Mike 'Red Ocktober' Hense]

well... using your guidelines to come up with an answer, i would then have to disqualify myself... as i don't know the details of the administrations of the past 100 years...

now if the question was 'Is Bush The Worst President That You Can Remember?"... then i could give you a yes or no reply...

and to respond to you objection about the logic being flawed, all i can say is that the question itself is flawed... not only for the reason i just gave, but for the explanation that i gave above as to why any blame for a negative response, should be shared by the people who gave him the mandate for his actions...

one man doesn't rule America, therefore it would be illogical to expect one man to be responsible for what happens in America... as it would be illogical to judge that one man as being the worst or the best, based on this sorta reasoning...

it's just like asking if Captain Bligh was the worst ships Captain in history... a good response to this would be 'watch The Caine Mutiny'...

especially the last few minutes of it... Jose Ferrar's character gave what would be the definitive answer to a question like this...

a better response would be, that 'i don't know'... for the mere fact that i don't know the details of the commands of all of histories ships Captains...

the ship of state that is America draws some similar parallels... don't ya think...

--Mike

[Torpedo Fodder]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Naw what about Warren G. Harding? Calvin Coolidge? Herbert Hoover? Richard Nixon?

My vote goes to Woodrow Wilson. In fact, I think Wilson is the worst president EVER.

Consider:

*Wilson muzzled the press, made it illegal for the media to criticize the government during WWI. Violators were imprisioned.

*He lied to the voters, running for re-election in 1916 on the slogan "He kept us out of the war", and yet he did precisly the opposite a year later, and 320,000 Americans died for nothing in a war America had no stake in and where neither side had the moral high ground. What's worse is that wilso had already made a secret agreement before his re-election with Britain and France to enter the war on the side of the Allies. The outcome of the war caused by America's intervention set the stage for the rise of Nazism and Communism.
Some of Wilson's other foreign adventrues incluse sending American troops to fight against the Communists in the Russian Revolution.

*He was a racist scum, who re-segregate the government and civil service, and set back civil rights and race relations in the United States by 30 years. He also denied the Japanese request for a clause of racial equality in the League of Nations charter (Wilson hated Orientals too).

There's more where this came from: Read Wilson's War by Jim Powell.

[Skybird]

Is there a thing like "the" presdient? I think of him more as a set of aspects, a set of different views to look at him. voters almost never take the whole package into account, only a subjective and minor number of aspects, highly influenced by habits, parental traditions in their family, and brainwashing. I tend to think of Americans voting for Bush as people who have only a limited view on the man, and are only aware of aspects of him that they like, ignoring the many dark sides of him. They have a problem with their sense of reality that way. By mechanism the American voter functions much the same like the voter in other countries (that'S why the idiotic American way of campaigning more and more is copied in style in Eurpean campaigns as well, Germany no exception). It is, imo, one of the major arguments AGAINST democracy.

I think that Bush probably is one of the most incompetent and ridiculous figures who ever made it into that office, a living proof that you can make it to president even without brains - if you have enough dollars and your dynasty has enough relations to compensate for that physical handicap.

[JSLTIGER]

Originally Posted by Torpedo Fodder

My vote goes to Woodrow Wilson. In fact, I think Wilson is the worst president EVER.

Consider:

*Wilson muzzled the press, made it illegal for the media to criticize the government during WWI. Violators were imprisioned.

*He lied to the voters, running for re-election in 1916 on the slogan "He kept us out of the war", and yet he did precisly the opposite a year later, and 320,000 Americans died for nothing in a war America had no stake in and where neither side had the moral high ground. What's worse is that wilso had already made a secret agreement before his re-election with Britain and France to enter the war on the side of the Allies. The outcome of the war caused by America's intervention set the stage for the rise of Nazism and Communism.
Some of Wilson's other foreign adventrues incluse sending American troops to fight against the Communists in the Russian Revolution.

*He was a racist scum, who re-segregate the government and civil service, and set back civil rights and race relations in the United States by 30 years. He also denied the Japanese request for a clause of racial equality in the League of Nations charter (Wilson hated Orientals too).

There's more where this came from: Read Wilson's War by Jim Powell.

You also forget that he stalled action on the 19th Amendment granting Women's Suffrage for as long as possible.