Who Makes the Cut for the Worst Presidents Ever? (What a Question)

Townhall.com ^ | February 13, 2013 | Michael Medved

[Kaslin]

As President Obama prepares his State of the Union Address and the nation looks forward to a Presidents Day holiday, Americans should consider the warning examples of our worst chief executives.

While few of Washington and Lincoln's successors could hope to replicate their epic achievements, every president can — and must — focus on avoiding the appalling ineptitude of John Tyler, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan and their feckless fellow travelers on the road to presidential perdition. The common elements that link our least successful leaders teach historical lessons at least as important as the shared traits of the Rushmore Four: Broken promises and gloomy temperaments lead inevitably to an alienated public.

All the chief executives unmistakably identified as failures displayed a self-destructive tendency to violate the core promises of their campaigns. Take Tyler, the unbending Virginia aristocrat who won election to the vice presidency in 1840 and assumed the highest office when his predecessor died just a month after inauguration. The new chief executive, dubbed "His Accidency" by critics, used 10 unpopular vetoes to block implementation of his own party's longstanding ledges. Most of his Cabinet resigned in protest, and eventually they all quit while the hostile Senate voted down four new Cabinet appointments — a record that stands to this day.

Between 1853 and 1861, Pierce and Buchanan completed back-to-back disastrous terms in which personal weakness and pro-Southern sympathies shattered confident promises of unifying leadership. Buchanan pledged to stop "agitation of the slavery question" and to "destroy sectional parties." By the end of his term, seven Southern states seceded from the union and the nation lunged toward the Civil War.

After that war and Lincoln's assassination, Andrew Johnson (Lincoln's vice president) defied members of the martyred president's Cabinet and congressional leaders, ignoring commitments to lead former slaves to dignity and full civil rights.

In the 20th century, Herbert Hoover's slogan promised "a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage," but he presided over the beginning of the Great Depression. Similarly, Jimmy Carter's 1976 platform pledged to reduce unemployment to 3%, but Carter ran for re-election with more than twice that rate.

No wonder that Hoover and Carter, like other unsuccessful presidents, came across as gloomy, self-righteous sufferers. Hoover's secretary of State said that a meeting with him was "like sitting in a bath of ink." Carter staked his presidency on a notoriously sour televised address that became known as "The Malaise Speech," warning the appalled public of a "crisis of the American spirit."

None of our least successful presidents displayed the self-deprecatory humor of Lincoln or the sunny dispositions that powered the Roosevelts (Theodore and Franklin) and Ronald Reagan. A visitor described the Pierce White House as a "cold and cheerless place," noting the isolation of the invalid first lady, in deep mourning for three dead sons.

When Buchanan welcomed successor Lincoln, he plaintively declared: "My dear, sir, if you are as happy on entering the White House as I on leaving, you are a very happy man indeed."

The result of the depressing and erratic leadership of our six most conspicuous presidential failures is that all managed to estrange a once-admiring electorate within the space of a single term. Tyler,Pierce, Andrew Johnson and Buchanan all earned rejection by their own party, failed to win their own party's nominations, entering retirement as discredited figures. Hoover and Carter appeared on national tickets and campaigned vigorously but got wiped out in historic landslides, with each incumbent carrying a mere six states.

Democrats, who denounce George W. Bush as the worst president ever, along with Republicans who apply the same ugly title to Barack Obama, can't explain away the inconvenient fact that both of our most recent incumbents won re-election with 51% of the vote. Regardless of controversies blighting Bush's second term, or setbacks that might afflict Obama's, their legislative and electoral successes place them in a different category from the White House worst.

This baleful history should warn the current occupant and all successors against visibly disregarding commitments while encouraging voters to steer clear of presidential candidates with dour, inflexible temperaments. By selecting aspirants with clear, consistent agendas and cheerful, persuasive personalities, we'll face fewer shattered presidencies that leave reviled incumbents and a disillusioned electorate.

[sitetest]

Worst to less worse:

1. Kenyan anti-Christ.
2. Carter.
3. Wilson.
4. FDR.
5. Jackson.
6. Clinton.
7. Buchanan.

[Jack Hammer]

Already, no one can touch Obama in this category, and he’s only half finished.

America, meanwhile, is completely finished - thanks to him.

[big'ol_freeper]

Google your screan name. Might find them.

[Iron Munro]

Washington, Lincoln and Reagan stand at the top.

Washington towers far, far above all others.

Don't think much of Lincoln as he lead us into civil war with 600,000 dead and 500,000 wounded. That equaled about 2% of the entire population at the time.

Helluva job, Abe.

[KevinDavis]

Even though the Confederacy fired the first shot.. Jefferson Davis (No relation) was a crossdressing coward..

[Iron Munro]

Worst to less worse:

1. Kenyan anti-Christ.
2. Carter.
3. Wilson.
4. FDR.
5. Jackson.
6. Clinton.
7. Buchanan.

In terms of worse presidents rated by damage done to the country I think LBJ belongs in there around #2.

He was certainly more damaging than Carter.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

There is at least one notable exception:

“Under Coolidge, the economy grew strongly, even as the federal government shrank.”

http://www.american.com/archive/2013/february/the-scrooge-who-begat-plenty

[Gay State Conservative]

In my lifetime....Osama Obama worst *by far*....that peanut farmer is currently the next worst.I’m too young to judge Truman and Eisenhower but sincerely doubt they were *nearly* as bad as the two mentioned above.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

It is hard for modern students of economics to know what to make of a government that treated economic weakness by raising interest rates 300 basis points, cutting tax rates, and halving the federal government — so much at odds is that prescription with the antidotes to recession our own experts tend to recommend. It is harder still for modern economists to concede that that recipe, the policy recipe for the early 1920s advocated by Coolidge and Harding, yielded growth on a scale to which we can aspire today. As early as the 1930s, Coolidge’s reputation and way of thinking began their decline. Collectives and not individuals became fashionable. Sensing such shifts, Coolidge at the end of his life spoke anxiously about the “importance of the obvious.” Perseverance, property rights, contracts, civility to one’s opponents, silence, smaller government, trust, certainty, restraint, respect for faith, federalism, economy, and thrift: these Coolidge ideals intrigue us today as well. After all, many citizens today do feel cursed by debt, their own or their government’s. Knowing the details of his life may well help Americans now turn a curse to a blessing or, at the very least, find the heart to continue their own persevering.

[rockrr]

Helluva job, Abe Jeff.

. FIFY

[sitetest]

Dear Iron Munro,

Remember that as conservatives, we are ants looking up at monumental skyscrapers of evil. It is difficult for us ants to determine which skyscraper is, indeed, the tallest, most evil.

That being said, I'd probably add LBJ as 8th to the list, but frankly, the top 8 or 10 worst (all Dems) are almost interchangeable. Atrocity after atrocity, abomination atop abomination, enormity heaped over enormity.

sitetest

[AtlasStalled]

Thanks for the clarification about government size shrinking under Coolidge

[<1/1,000,000th%]

FDR
James Buchanan
Jimmy Carter

[MeOnTheBeach]

Worst to less worse:

1. Kenyan anti-Christ.
2. Carter.
3. Wilson.
4. FDR.
5. Jackson.
6. Clinton.
7. Buchanan.

Yup...can't touch that list.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

I have to lay some flowers at the Plymouth Notch town cemetery, next time I’m in the neighborhood.

[HIDEK6]

Instead of worst, I rank them as most evil:

Lincoln
FDR
Johnson
obama

[BroJoeK]

the OlLine Rebel: "Lincoln is overrated and possibly the worst in terms of carnage and tossing out principles of our government."

Kaslin: "judge them based on the amount of damage they did... Lincoln..."

Pontiac: "I would have to agree with the OlLine Rebel in post 13 that Lincoln would be the worst by far.
On his watch over 600,000 US citizens died...
...I would put Lincoln at the top. "

US Navy Vet: "My own personal list for WORST US Presidents... 9. Abraham Lincoln"

februus: "Glad you dropped Lincoln on there somewhere."

Neoliberalnot: "No one, not even Davis, expected Lincoln to turn out to be such a savage killer of fellow Americans."

Iron Munro: "Don't think much of Lincoln as he lead us into civil war with 600,000 dead and 500,000 wounded."

To all our Lincoln-haters, you are badly misinformed by blatant pro-Confederate propaganda.

The truth of the matter is that not one single Confederate soldier was killed directly by any Union force, and no Confederate state was "invaded" by any Union army until after the Confederacy first started war, then formally declared war on the United States, on May 6, 1861.

Blaming Lincoln, and saying he should have ignored Confederate war against the Union is like blaming President Roosevelt for Pearl Harbor and saying he should have ignored Hitler's declaration of war against the United States.

Lincoln simply did what he had to do, as a wartime commander in chief.

[Kaslin]

What about that arrogant pos occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave? Are you so blind that you do not see his desire to destroy this great country?

[rashley]

You are right; Lincoln should be the worst.

[rashley]

You are right; Lincoln was the worst.