Who is the most obscure US President?

c.i., to me that's sorta like blaming Truman for WWII.



timber

Franklin Pierce isn't that obscure. There's even a college named for him in Rindge, Cow Hampshire, my erstwhile home town. The most obscure, hands down, has to be Benjamin Harrison. This dude never even served as president. He died in office from pneumonia he contracted during his inauguration on the steps of the Capitol. Buchanan, I admit, runs a very close second.

timber, One BIG difference. Japan attacked us first. c.i.

In general, the Presidents after Lincoln and before Wilson, were generally non-entities. That was the era of the building of the industrial revolution and anyone that stood in the way of the super-rich accomplished nothing. Thank goodness we've past that now (ah-hem).............

Timder,
...somehow I missed your post earlier. I don't see the paralell between Truman and Bush. Truman would have had to been president in 1941, and mounted a campaign against Italy. (the weakest of the evil "axis")

Well, since I taught American history, I can't choose one, but I can answer a couple of questions:

Andrew Johnson was impeached but not dismissed. A fellow named Edmund Ross was the pivotal vote in the Senate. (Kennedy's Profiles in Courage)

Booman (I think) is thinking of Thomas Dewey, governor of New York who went to bed thinking that he was president. Give em hell, Harry won.

Any other questions? Oh, yes. Polk was a dark horse.

And a little showboatin' here. The first seven presidents were dubbed the Virginia Dynasty and Dubya has been dubbed...er..ah...something or the other.

Merry Andrew: There were TWO Harrisons. William Henry Harrison is the Prez that died one month into his term March 4, 1841-April 4,1841. Benjamin Harrison, his grandson, was the President inbetween Cleveland's two terms, 1889-1893 and did not die in office. Both were obscure as Presidents, but William Henry Harrison was well known as a military leader.

So you see how obscure he was. He was so obscure I got him all mixed up with his namesake!

For all you history trivia buffs (Letty already knows this) -- with two presidents named Bush, we have now had five sets of presidents with the same surname -- 2 Adames, 2 Harrisons, 2 Johnsons, 2 Roosevelts, in addition to the shrubbery.

Yeah, and the way things are going, we may see a Bush trifecta. Given the GOP's penchant for nominating these people, who wants to bet against Jeb running one of these days?

Running yes, but winning - no. I hope America has learned!

We can only hope. In another thread, I speculated on the possibilities re our first woman President. I refer, of course, to Pres. Jenna.

The horror! The horror!

Her first priorty would be to legalize anything a Bush does!

Letty,
...Thanks for that. I remember the full page headline, DEWEY WINS!!!

Bill,
...The American public has already learned. Now if we could just wake up the Supreme Court.

Anointed for life Booman, ain't gonna change anything that Scalia, Reinhquist or what's his name - you know the one that votes for everything right of the death penalty, oh yeah Thomas. Anyway, the SCOTUS will not change for some time!