Historians: Bush the Worst President Ever? C'mon!

Actually the first salvo fired in the destruction of any Clinton health care plan was by Clinton himself when he handed it (the designing of a plan) to his wife...who as far as anyone knows had no actual experience in either health care or insurance (other than how to make oodles of money from insurance matters...money that is, for her and her husband). Hillary Rodham Clinton prepared a multi-volumed health care plan which included recommendations for things in triplicate and quadruplicate and even more. More waste. The bottom line was the plan was too expansive (I said expAnsive not expEnsive) and did not cover a number of things. Additionally even the most learned men and women of the health care and insurance industries were left baffled by it's convoluted twists and turns. What happened next? President Clinton who had sworn up and down, left and right, that he would not rest until there was a plan in place, abandoned it immediately and completely. He did not even attempt to work with the houses at creating a plan which all people could agree on. Have you already forgotten Clinton with that idiotic speech at the start of his Presidency where he waved a plastic card around saying that by the time he left office every American who needed one of these health care cards would have one? For crying out loud BBB get your head out of the sand or the thin air clouds and look at what your sainted guy did....or more precisely what he did not do.

IS GEORGE BUSH THE WORST PRESIDENT -- EVER?
IS GEORGE BUSH THE WORST PRESIDENT -- EVER?
By Richard Reeves
Fri Dec 2, 2005

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 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 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.

Seems to me that the one of the recurring themes is that it is too early to judge the president. It would also seem likely, the only way to judge his adminstration to this point would be to compare him to other 2nd term presidents, at the same point in the term.

If he's that bad of a president, how did he get re-elected?
This is where the left wingers start crying that he "stole it"

This is where the leftists continue crying about everything.

In an interview a month before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, McCarthy compared the Bush administration with the characters in the William Golding novel "Lord of the Flies," in which a group of boys stranded on an island turn to savagery.

"The bullies are running it," McCarthy said. "Bush is bullying everything."

McCarthy was an advocate for a third-party movement, arguing there was no real difference between Republicans and Democrats.

McCarthy's right. I see no qualitative difference between the two parties. It always amuses me when the neocons automatically equate anyone even slightly left of center as a 'Democrat.'

here's the grand prize question:
Where is and what is center on todays political battlefield?

Well, two economists (can't recall names) did a study of policies advanced by the various governments from Eisenhower up to the present. They found that Eisenhower's policies were further 'left' than were Clinton's policies.

A historical survey like that has some value in determining trends. What clearly has no value is the present rhetoric. One relatively young contributor here, and a fellow with not any demonstrated interest in reading history but with lots of interest in attending to loud and angry radio shows, continually speaks of "the radical left". By which he refers to modern democrats and the NY Times. He's never met, for example, a Marxist or a Leninist nor has he bumped into any in his reading. He has no knowledge of the communist newspapers that used to be sold on the street.

But I really don't think the right/left framework is very helpful at all. One ought to attend moreso to matters such as honesty and integrity and carefulness in speech.

I have also seen on here where Bush has been called a bully.
I have also seen on here where Bush has been called a puppet.


Which is he?

A bully puppet of course. Or a puppet bully if you prefer.

a bully puppet with a bully pulpit

The Republicans defeated the Clinton health care plan. I just knew that chrisis was the wrong spelling. Attribute it to the season. Cristmas is in chrisis.

You realize, of course, that it was a Democratic-controlled Congress in 1993-94?



Good answer ... :wink:

Spelling is something that should not be commented on. We all make spelling errors at some point or another.

Speak for yourself, McG.

Some of us just make cronic typos. :wink:

There you go again pointing out the facts...you know darned well that nobody wants to hear anything negative about their golden boy Bubba.

President Bush Clarifies His Newspaper Reading Habits, Sort
President Bush Clarifies His Newspaper Reading Habits, Sort Of
By E&P Staff
Published: December 13, 2005 2:05 PM ET
NEW YORK

Reports on President Bush's reading habits in regard to newspapers have ranged from "almost never" to "six or seven a day." Some have said he does read the paper every day--but only the sports pages. In one of his several chats with the president on Monday, NBC anchor Brian Williams asked him directly about it.

From the transcript:

WILLIAMS: "Once and for all -- and I know you've had some fun with members of the press on this subject -- how much television news do you watch? How much do you read the morning papers, news magazines? How much do you see in an average week?"

BUSH: "I don't see a lot of the news. Every morning I look at the newspaper. I can't say I've read every single article in the newspaper. But I definitely know what's in the news. Occasionally, I watch television. I don't want to hurt your feelings, but it's occasionally. I'm working at that point, as are you.

"But I'm very aware of what's in the news. I'm aware because I see clips. I see summaries. I have people on my staff that walk in every morning and say, 'This is what's -- this is how I see it. This is what's brewing today,' on both the domestic and international side. Frankly, it is probably part of my own fault for needling people, but it's a myth to think I don't know what's going on. And it's a myth to think that I'm not aware that there is opinions that don't agree with mine. Because I'm fully aware of that. . . .

"I read the newspaper. I mean, I can tell you what the headlines are. I must confess, if I think the story is, like, not a fair appraisal, I'll move on. But I know what the story's about."

I normally am careful about my spelling and punctuation here and elsewhere, and I don't mind corrections, because that's how I learn.
I consider A2K and encellect place to hone writing skills, and it is, perhaps, the most practice that many of us get to practice the art. I wasn't, until recently, even aware of the spellcheck option on A2I.

I'm curious whether the spellcheck feature catches "A2I".




No, but it catches "spellcheck."