[Peace-discuss] IS GEORGE BUSH THE WORST PRESIDENT -- EVER?

[Paul Patton]

 IS GEORGE BUSH THE WORST PRESIDENT -- EVER?

By Richard Reeves *Fri Dec 2, 8:13 PM ET*

PARIS -- President John F. Kennedy was considered a historian because of his
book "Profiles in Courage," so he received periodic requests to rate the
presidents, those lists that usually begin "1. Lincoln, 2. Washington ..."

 But after he actually became president himself, he stopped filling them
out.

"No one knows what it's like in this office," he said after being in the
job. "Even with poor James Buchanan, you can't understand what he did and
why without sitting in his place, looking at the papers that passed on his
desk, knowing the people he talked with."

Poor James Buchanan, the 15th president, is generally considered the worst
president in history. Ironically, the Pennsylvania Democrat, elected in
1856, was one of the most qualified of the 43 men who have served in the
highest office. A lawyer, a self-made man, Buchanan served with some
distinction in the House, served as chairman of the    Senate Foreign
Relations Committee<http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news/?p=Senate+Foreign+Relations+Committee>and
secretary of state under President James K. Polk. He had a great deal
to
do with the United States becoming a continental nation -- "Manifest
Destiny," war with Mexico, and all that. He was also ambassador to Great
Britain and was offered a seat on the Supreme Court three separate times.

But he was a confused, indecisive president, who may have made the Civil War
inevitable by trying to appease or negotiate with the South. His most recent
biographer, Jean Clark, writing for the prestigious American Presidents
Series, concluded this year that his actions probably constituted treason.
It also did not help that his administration was as corrupt as any in
history, and he was widely believed to be homosexual.

Whatever his sexual preferences, his real failures were in refusing to move
after South Carolina announced secession from the Union and attacked Fort
Sumter, and in supporting both the legality of the pro-slavery constitution
of Kansas and the Supreme Court ruling in the Dred Scott class declaring
that escaped slaves were not people but property.

He was the guy who in 1861 passed on the mess to the first Republican
president, Abraham Lincoln. Buchanan set the standard, a tough record to
beat. But there are serious people who believe that George W. Bush will
prove to do that, be worse than Buchanan. I have talked with three
significant historians in the past few months who would not say it in
public, but who are saying privately that Bush will be remembered as the
worst of the presidents.

There are some numbers. The History News Network at George Mason University
has just polled historians informally on the Bush record. Four hundred and
fifteen, about a third of those contacted, answered -- maybe they were all
crazed liberals -- making the project as unofficial as it was interesting.
These were the results: 338 said they believed Bush was failing, while 77
said he was succeeding. Fifty said they thought he was the worst president
ever. Worse than Buchanan.

This is what those historians said -- and it should be noted that some of
the criticism about deficit spending and misuse of the military came from
self-identified conservatives -- about the Bush record:

 He has taken the country into an unwinnable war and alienated friend and
foe alike in the process;

 He is bankrupting the country with a combination of aggressive military
spending and reduced taxation of the rich;

 He has deliberately and dangerously attacked separation of church and
state;

 He has repeatedly "misled," to use a kind word, the American people on
affairs domestic and foreign;

 He has proved to be incompetent in affairs domestic (New Orleans) and
foreign (    Iraq <http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news/?p=Iraq> and the
battle against al-Qaida);

 He has sacrificed American employment (including the toleration of pension
and benefit elimination) to increase overall productivity;

 He is ignorantly hostile to science and technological progress;

 He has tolerated or ignored one of the republic's oldest problems,
corporate cheating in supplying the military in wartime.

Quite an indictment. It is, of course, too early to evaluate a president.
That, historically, takes decades, and views change over times as results
and impact become more obvious. Besides, many of the historians note that
however bad Bush seems, they have indeed since worse men around the White
House. Some say Buchanan. Many say Vice President    Dick
Cheney<http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news/?p=Dick+Cheney>
.
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