Worst U.S. president in your lifetime and recollection

[susanann]

Yes, as Bush continues over the next three years to make a mindless mess of nearly everything and anything .

Of course bush will continue.

The Patriot act was initially created as a temporary measure for a temporary emergency.

By bush making the Patriot Act permanent, means that bushes mess will be permenent.

 

[TScott]

2. He is also the most liberal president we have ever had - spending more than any other president in history while taking away more of our personal freedoms and privacy thru his Patriot Act than any other president ever infringed on us.

Taking away personal freedoms has nothing to do with liberal vs. conservative. Taking personal freedom away has to do with authoritarian vs. libertarian. George W. Bush doesn't have a liberal bone in his body. He is a complete and total reactionary, which by definition makes him a conservative. He's an authoritarian-conservative.

 

[susanann]

Taking away personal freedoms has nothing to do with liberal vs. conservative. Taking personal freedom away has to do with authoritarian vs. libertarian. George W. Bush doesn't have a liberal bone in his body. He is a complete and total reactionary, which by definition makes him a conservative. He's an authoritarian-conservative.

conservative has always meant :

"Favoring traditional views and values( United States Constitution), traditional or restrained in style, tending to conserve, preservative, keep within sensible limits, etc. "

Politically, conservatives in this country have been isolationist, advocates of a strong defense, minding our own business, reducing government and federal spending, staying out of foreign wars, defenders of the Bill of Rights, a strong dollar, a strong domestic industrial economy, etc.

Bush is no conservative.

Bush is a liberal.

 

[JGL53]

conservative has always meant :

"Favoring traditional views and values( United States Constitution), traditional or restrained in style, tending to conserve, preservative, keep within sensible limits, etc. "

Politically, conservatives in this country have been isolationist, advocates of a strong defense, minding our own business, reducing government and federal spending, staying out of foreign wars, defenders of the Bill of Rights, a strong dollar, a strong domestic industrial economy, etc.

Bush is no conservative.

Bush is a liberal.

By your definition, Bush, Jr. is certainly no conservative. However, he is a reactionary and an authoritarian, it would seem, as was pointed out.

Bush is certainly not a liberal, in the original definition of "classical liberal" - which is what the term "libertarian" has replaced nowadays.

Bush is quite liberal in giving away the farm to his corporate friends, no matter what it takes - e.g., extending the socialist boondoggle of Medicare to enrich his pharmaceutical company friends, spending money like a drunken sailor and wiping out all surpluses and creating an unprecedented national debt

I think the liberal vs. conservative debate is as ridiculous as the christian vs. atheist one. We need some new words here - everything evolves, even language. (Maybe we could ask Bush to help us out - he's a genius when it comes to producing neologisms, on the spot.)

 

[TScott]

conservative has always meant :

"Favoring traditional views and values( United States Constitution), traditional or restrained in style, tending to conserve, preservative, keep within sensible limits, etc. "

Politically, conservatives in this country have been isolationist, advocates of a strong defense, minding our own business, reducing government and federal spending, staying out of foreign wars, defenders of the Bill of Rights, a strong dollar, a strong domestic industrial economy, etc.

Bush is no conservative.

Bush is a liberal.

Please, your being ludicrous.

Liberals in this country are against the death penalty. Not Bush.

Liberals in this country are pro-choice. Not Bush.

Liberals in this country are pro-labor. Not Bush

Liberals in this country are for universal health care. Not Bush.

Liberals in this country are for gun control. Not Bush

I will give you that Bush is not a fiscal conservative. He's following the same voodoo economics of Ronnie Raygun, which is let the future generations worry about the deficit.

 

[susanann]

Please, your being ludicrous.
Liberals in this country are against the death penalty. Not Bush.
Liberals in this country are pro-choice. Not Bush.
Liberals in this country are pro-labor. Not Bush
Liberals in this country are for universal health care. Not Bush.
Liberals in this country are for gun control. Not Bush
I will give you that Bush is not a fiscal conservative. He's following the same voodoo economics of Ronnie Raygun, which is let the future generations worry about the deficit.

1. The death penalty is a non-issue. It affects less than a thousanth of 1%. Texas averages only 15 death penalties a year. Bush has no power to give the death penalty except for federal crimes, and we have seen no increase in death penalties since bush took office.

2. bush has not proposed nor campaigned for any federal anti-abortion law or anti-abortion ammendment. Bush has done nothing to end abortion - either in Texas, or nationally.

3. bush is not only against labor, he is against Americans having jobs - he wants american jobs to be replaced with foreign workers. When we did not lose enough jobs from china and NAFTA, he then relentlessly campaigned for CAFTA to send more American jobs to central america. We have lost manufacturing jobs in every year since bush became president.

4. bush came up with medicare prescriptionsm , which will cost from $300 billion to $600 billion and old people dont even understand bush's legislation. It is worse than universal health coverage.

5. bush is not pro gun, he is anti gun. bush pledged he would sign any gun control bill that reached his desk.

6. you are right about bush being fiscally irresponsible, but he is not like other presidents - bush has spent and borrowed more than any other president in history, in addition to having the largest balance of trade deficits in history.

Bush is more liberal than any republican, or democrat we have ever had.

 

[ONEGod]

JGL53
Regular Member
56


Reputation: 104
Health: 100%
Blessings: 240
Posts: 250

Quote
Originally Posted by: Br. Max
Why are you getting mad at Bush for what TERRORISTS are doing?? Blame the Terrorists. No one FORCED them to make bombs and blow people up. No one forced them to leave their homes and go to Iraq. Put aside your irrational hate of Bush and blame the people DOING the crimes not Bush...



All the rest of your post is an attempt to rationalize Bush’s actions vs. Iraq/Saddam. The fact is that Bush had decided to invade Iraq at the beginning of his presidency and used the 9/11 attacks as a pretext to do it – he knew there was no connection between Saddam and the hijackers.
[ONEGod:
Why is it you sound like your parroting thae hard left's talking points without an effort at thinking the issues through ? Prove that FACT that the President decided to invade at the beginning, AS YOU SAY. I REALLY DON'T THINK YOU CAN.]
As for your point in the above paragraph, I blame the one who are actually blowing our troops up, but I do and will continue to blame Bush for the extant deaths/maiming of the thousands of U.S. personnel in Iraq and the thousands to come. If he hadn’t sent them there, all the terrorists in the Middle East wouldn’t have converged there to target them. Bush set them up.
[ONEGod:
Rather to fight them there, than here. You must be one of those that has already forgotten 9-11, the twin towers TWICE. Osama declared war and waged it on US FIRST. You should know some of what you speak of.]

TScott
Veteran
58

Quote
Originally Posted by: Br. Max

You’re right. If Bush had not sent our troops into Iraq then the terrorists wouldn't have converged there - they would have converged HERE in American instead - and instead of soldiers who signed up willingly to fight to defend our way of life and our lives dying - it would be women and children dying.


That's really it isn't it. We trade Iraqi women and children dying instead of American women and children dying. I'm sure the Iraqi people don't mind making the sacrifice.
Thanks for illustrating so vividly how bereft of morals we have become under your president.
ONEGod:
We trade Saddams' cruel and oppressive enslavement of the Oraqi people for real freedom, AND freedom from the looming dread of becoming one of the thousands/millions of disappeared, later to be found in mass graves, or the women in rape rooms, or those run through industrial shredder machines. As for bereft of morals, that's what it takes to ignore Saddams inhuman atrocities and those of the Islamofascist as well. I find the left bereft of GOD, morality, and humanity, excpet when they use those issues like toilet paper, discardable.

susanann
Senior Member
40

Quote
Originally Posted by: TScott
That's really it isn't it. We trade Iraqi women and children dying instead of American women and children dying. I'm sure the Iraqi people don't mind making the sacrifice.
Thanks for illustrating so vividly how bereft of morals we have become under your president.


It is even more immoral when you want to have a war, but you dont want it in your country, so you have it in someone elses country.
ONEGod:
Obviously you have conveniently forgotten Osama and the Islamofascist butchers invited themselves into America, with help from the left/slick willy, then we reciprocated by inviting ourselves there. Really makes sense, doesn't it ? If the lefts brainwashing hasn't taken away ALL objectivity.

 

[dignitized]

ALL objectivity.

There is very little objectivity in this thread. UNLESS you dicount all those who have voted for clinton and Dubaya. Do that and objectively - Carter is the worst president and that actually agrees with the perspective of the historians.

 

[TScott]

Since 1948 there have been numerous polls of scholars and historians. According to the average of the rankings in all these polls the consensus view of the worst presidents are as follows:

1. Warren Harding
2. James Buchannan
3. Franklin Pierce
4. Andrew Johnson
5. William Harrison
6. U. S. Grant
7. Millard Fillmore
8. John Tyler
9. Zachary Taylor
10.James Garfield

Nixon was ranked 32nd which made him the 11th worst.

Of the modern era presidents the rankings (best to worst)

2. FDR
7. Harry Truman
9. Ike
12. JFK
14. Ronald Reagan
16. LBJ
21. Clinton
22. GW Bush
25. GHW Bush
27. Jimmy Carter
28. Gerald Ford
32. Nixon

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_U.S._Presidents

 

[Agrippa]

I've always wondered what was so bad with Harding's presidency. It certainly wasn't a Lincoln or Washington presidency, but neither was it as bad as Buchanan or Andrew Johnson. I mean, Buchanan sat by and let the country fall apart around him. Andrew Johnson then went and screwed with Reconstruction for personal gain. Yes, Harding had an incredibly corrupt administration, but so did Grant. Harding pushed through the Washington Naval Treaty that ended the danger of an Anglo-American war in the 1920s and stopped an arms race. His predecessor, Wilson, never considered arms control and advocated a huge navy that escalated tensions for absolutely no reason.

I also wonder how it's even possible to judge Harrison. How long was he president? Thirty-odd days? Not enough for a reasonable judgement (unless he did something particularly stupid in his brief tenure that I'm not aware of).

 

[dignitized]

I also wonder how it's even possible to judge Harrison. How long was he president? Thirty-odd days? Not enough for a reasonable judgement (unless he did something particularly stupid in his brief tenure that I'm not aware of).

The fact that he was president for so short a period of time is one of the things that makes him one of the best presidents in come circles He didn't manage to screw anything up!!

 

[TScott]

I also wonder how it's even possible to judge Harrison. How long was he president? Thirty-odd days? Not enough for a reasonable judgement (unless he did something particularly stupid in his brief tenure that I'm not aware of).

I guess he is judged because he didn't do anything, since he got sick right after the innauguration. So that his score was a zero. That would mean the four that they list as worse than him must have been below zero. (They sucked.)

Anyhoo, if these historians are answering the question of this thread: who's the wost president in your lifetime and recollection it appears Nixon would be number one, followed by Ford, Carter and Bush Sr. I don't agree, but that is what the consensus of the polled historians say. I will say this about history, and that is that sometimes it is difficult to judge history that you are living through objectively. Sometimes history is more accurate when seen from a distance.

 

[susanann]

Anyhoo, if these historians are answering the question of this thread: who's the wost president in your lifetime and recollection it appears Nixon would be number one, followed by Ford,

I can understand Ford, since Ford got the least amount of votes of any recent president.

But Nixon, still has the record for the largest number of votes (180 million votes) for national office (pres and vp) in our history, and will hold that record for many many more years.

Anyone who gets 180 million votes and is so hugely popular over a 20 year period has to be one of the best presidents in history.

More people voted for Nixon than any other person in history.

 

[dignitized]

I can understand Ford, since Ford got the least amount of votes of any recent president.

But Nixon, still has the record for the largest number of votes (180 million votes) for national office (pres and vp) in our history, and will hold that record for many many more years.

Anyone who gets 180 million votes and is so hugely popular over a 20 year period has to be one of the best presidents in history.

More people voted for Nixon than any other person in history.

huh? In which election did he get 180 million votes?
in 68 he got 31,783,783
in 72 he got 47,168,710

BOTH are a far cry from the 62,040,610 Bush Got in 2004 and the 54,455,472 Reagan got in 1980.

 

[TScott]

But Nixon, still has the record for the largest number of votes (180 million votes) for national office (pres and vp) in our history, and will hold that record for many many more years.

Anyone who gets 180 million votes and is so hugely popular over a 20 year period has to be one of the best presidents in history.

Or, maybe he had an incredibly weak opponent, coupled with no third party push. But I think Nixon was rated low because he was forced out of office due to his abuse of power.

 

[susanann]

Quote

Originally Posted by: susanann

I can understand Ford, since Ford got the least amount of votes of any recent president.

But Nixon, still has the record for the largest number of votes (180 million votes) for national office (pres and vp) in our history, and will hold that record for many many more years.

Anyone who gets 180 million votes and is so hugely popular over a 20 year period has to be one of the best presidents in history.

huh? In which election did he get 180 million votes?
in 68 he got 31,783,783
in 72 he got 47,168,710

BOTH are a far cry from the 62,040,610 Bush Got in 2004 and the 54,455,472 Reagan got in 1980.

1952 33,936,234
1956 35,590,472
1960 34,108,157
1968 31,785,480
1972 47,169,911
---------------------
180,000,000


180 million votes for Nixon is a record that will last probably for another century.


Roosevelt (FDR) is second.

 

[dignitized]

Quote

Originally Posted by: susanann

I can understand Ford, since Ford got the least amount of votes of any recent president.

But Nixon, still has the record for the largest number of votes (180 million votes) for national office (pres and vp) in our history, and will hold that record for many many more years.

Anyone who gets 180 million votes and is so hugely popular over a 20 year period has to be one of the best presidents in history.




1952 33,936,234
1956 35,590,472
1960 34,108,157
1968 31,785,480
1972 47,169,911
---------------------
180,000,000


180 million votes for Nixon is a record that will last probably for another century.


Roosevelt (FDR) is second.

lol OH it's one of THOSE statistics. . . .

 

[susanann]

But Nixon, still has the record for the largest number of votes (180 million votes) for national office (pres and vp) in our history, and will hold that record for many many more years. Anyone who gets 180 million votes and is so hugely popular over a 20 year period has to be one of the best presidents in history.

180 million votes for Nixon is a record that will last probably for another century.

Roosevelt (FDR) is second.

lol OH it's one of THOSE statistics. . . .

Perhaps the most important and revealing statistic/poll available.

The American people wanted both FDR and Nixon as pres (or vp) for incredibly long lengths of time.

No matter what any pretending expert might say, the fact is that the American voters thought most highly of these 2 men and wanted them in power instead of anyone else.

The plain and simple fact is, that from 1932 to 1945, and virtually from 1952 to 1974 no one else in America was as preferred as these 2 men in running our country.

You or I may not particularly like these 2 guys, but we cant ignore that most of America chose them to lead us for an incredible 35 years ( i.e. for 1/3 of the 20th century).

 

[dignitized]

there was a rather large segment of America that wanted Wallace to be preident too . . . what about him?

 

[TScott]

The plain and simple fact is, that from 1932 to 1945, and virtually from 1952 to 1974 no one else in America was as preferred as these 2 men in running our country.

You or I may not particularly like these 2 guys, but we cant ignore that most of America chose them to lead us for an incredible 35 years ( i.e. for 1/3 of the 20th century).

Sorry, but you are distorting the facts here. Nixon was the Vice President under Ike, and being elected vice president has nothing to do with having the American people wanting you to run the country. Being a heart beat away has little bearing in how people vote. Polls have shown that the vice presidential candidate has little bearing on who someone will vote for. Look at Dan Quayle. The '52 and '56 votes were for Ike, not Nixon.

After he lost to Kennedy in '60, Nixons' popularity dropped so low he couldn't even beat Pat "Tap-Dancin'" Brown for the Governor of California in '62. In '68 he saw the opportunity for a rebirth and billed himself as the "New Nixon", the democrats were deeply divided, not so much because of the war, but because the southern dixicrats were rallying behind Wallace. Nixon won in '68 with a plurality, not a majority. His landslide in '72 was as much due to the "dirty tricks" of CREEP than anything else.

I actually disagree with putting Nixon so close to the bottom solely because he was vain (or dumb) enough to tape all of his conversations. Nixon was actually a very effective president in dealing with Breshnev, and even though we had high inflation during his presidency, the GNP stayed up and we enjoyed a fairly stable period of prosperity.