As orgasmic liberals sharpen their chisels and survey Mt.Rushmore to determine the best placement of Barack Obama’s head shot, their cohorts in academia are working overtime to put a punctuation mark on the election of ‘08: Ensuring that George “don’t-call-me-shrub” Bush is recorded in the annals of history as “The Worst President Ever.”
Oh how the mighty have fallen. Following 911, George’s approval rating soared above 90%. But with an unpopular war, a ballooning deficit and a Dick for a vice president, George wound up his second term less popular than a website hawking used hemorrhoid cushions. In an informal History News Network poll of 109 professional historians (academic “Doctors” who can’t prescribe the stuff that kept Anna Nicole Smith looking so lucid before she kicked) 61% rated Bush Part Deux as the worst in the nation’s history.
Granted, it’s hard to argue the ‘W’ will ever crack the top ten (or even the top forty) list of all time greatest presidents, but worst ever? This is America people. A man (for now) has had to sell his soul so many times over to get a sniff at the presidency that the office, by definition, has attracted some of the most questionable characters of all time.
With no universally-accepted metrics for gauging “worst ever,” the label is so subjective that, depending on your perspective, it can be slapped on just about any president. Consider this:
Worst President Ever – The Libertarian View:
As a closet Libertarian my philosophy is simple: Elect the person who will do the least--and by least I mean expansion of government. Every night I run to the TV set hoping that Obama will drop a Regan-esque: “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” But alas, all I hear is “stimulus” and ‘investment.”
Poll my fellow delusional, took-one-too-many-political-philosophy-classes Libertarian party members and one name rises to the top of the worst: Franklin Roosevelt. While those not delusional enough to see limited government as viable, consistently rank FDR up with Lincoln and Washington (I suspect because he repealed prohibition) Frank New Deal-ed the federal government into the ever growing behemoth that frightens the bejesus out of Libertarians around the country.
Worst President Ever – The Economist View:
Since 1854 the U.S. economy was been through 32 cycles of expansion and contraction. It’s what free market economies do. Yet for some reason we give some president too much credit for the expansions and curse others for the contractions—and economists can’t agree on why.
For every economist who wants to blame Bush deficits and bank deregulation for the current fiscal crisis, you’ll find others that blame Clinton’s pressure on lenders to offer home loans to the economically disadvantaged. Randomly pick economist and you’re sure to find one that pegs Hooverat the worst because of his association with the Great Depression, Carter as the worst for his association with stagflation or Ford as the worst for his association with ever rising golf course green fees.
Worst President Ever – The Dove View:
The historians surveyed by HNN frequently slammed Bush for dragging us into a “totally unnecessary“ war with Iraq. As opposed to the totally necessary wars with Spain, Korea, Vietnam and Grenada? One can argue that Bush believed his own weapons of mass destruction argument. You can hardly say that for Lyndon B. Johnson who, according to recently declassified files, gave a false pretext for The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution which gave him the exclusive right to use military force in Vietnamwithout consulting the Senate.
Vietnam War American Casualties: 58,209. Iraq War American Casualties: 4,257+. (And Google “Filipino civilian casualties during the Spanish-American War” before playing that card.)
Worst President Ever – The “What Happened To My Beachfront Hacienda?” View
Speaking of a false pretext for war, let’s not forget James Polk. Rebuffed in his attempt to purchase the Mexican territories we now know as California, Nevada and Arizona, the mullet-sporting Polk goaded the newly independent nation of Mexicointo a war in 1846 so he could justify the annexation of those lands.
Realizing the great injustice that was done, it speaks well for the Holy Trinity of Liberal Saviors--Barbara Streisand, Susan Sarandon and Sean Pean—that they have collectively agreed to sign over the deeds to their California estates to the first (don’t-you-dare-call-them- illegal) ‘immigrants’ that can trace their lineage trace back to General Santa Anna.
Worst President Ever –The AndersonCooper Metrosexual View:
Tipping the scale at over 300 pounds and the last, to date, commander-in-chief to sport facial hair, no president screams “makeover” like William Taft. Would he even get a sniff in the era of television?
Worst President Ever – The Mormon View:
In 1862 Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act declaring that the practice of polygamy was illegal in all U.S. territories. The same woman every night? I think not.
Worst President Ever – The Anyone with a Shred of Integrity View:
“I want you to listen to me. I'm going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time; never. These allegations are false…” “What do you mean do I remember a blue denim dress?”
Worst President Ever – The April 15th View
After a 10 year trial run in the 1800’s, the Supreme Court declared federal income tax unconstitutional in 1872. Leave it to Woodrow ‘who-names-their-kid-Woodrow’ Wilson and the 16th Amendment to make federal income tax a permanent fixture in the U.S. tax system. Every April we can celebrate the little amendment that gave rise to Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930’s, Johnson’s Great Society of the 1960’s and Obama’s And-You-Thought-Bush-Knew-How-to-Run-Up-a-Deficit Spendfest of 2009.
My worst president ever? Did I mention I am a closet Libertarian?
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