Historian Eric Foner ranks G.W. Bush as worst president ever

We're all gonna die, originally uploaded by Lindsay Beyerstein.

Who's as clueless in a crisis as Pierce and Buchanan, as corrupt as Harding and Coolidge, and, as paranoid and lawless as Nixon, why, it's George W. Bush. But wait, there's more, says Columbia University history prof. Eric Foner:

One other president bears comparison to Bush: James K. Polk. Some historians admire him, in part because he made their job easier by keeping a detailed diary during his administration, which spanned the years of the Mexican-American War. But Polk should be remembered primarily for launching that unprovoked attack on Mexico and seizing one-third of its territory for the United States.

Lincoln, then a member of Congress from Illinois, condemned Polk for misleading Congress and the public about the cause of the war -- an alleged Mexican incursion into the United States. Accepting the president's right to attack another country "whenever he shall deem it necessary," Lincoln observed, would make it impossible to "fix any limit" to his power to make war. Today, one wishes that the country had heeded Lincoln's warning.

Historians are loath to predict the future. It is impossible to say with certainty how Bush will be ranked in, say, 2050. But somehow, in his first six years in office he has managed to combine the lapses of leadership, misguided policies and abuse of power of his failed predecessors. I think there is no alternative but to rank him as the worst president in U.S. history.

[WaPo]

I took this photograph of Foner at Columbia University in early 2006. In this shot he's listening to Sy Hersh outline Bush's plans to invade Iran.

Comments

[The Phantom]

What a shock that a prof from Columbia would say such a thing.

Any discussion of worst presidents has to include Jimmy Carter if it is to have any meaning.

And any discussion of a President's place in history must begin some time after his Presidency, not during it.

[The Phantom]

What a shock that a prof from Columbia would say such a thing.

Any discussion of worst presidents has to include Jimmy Carter if it is to have any meaning.

And any discussion of a President's place in history must begin some time after his Presidency, not during it.

[Eric Jaffa]

The Phantom -

If Jimmy Carter had been listened to about energy efficiency, then we wouldn't be in Iraq, and we wouldn't have the huge trade deficit which importing oil gives us.

[barry in kona]

according to wikipedia, Foner is Karl Rove's favorite historian...got to love that

[Cass]

Polk and McKinley lied America into wars, and slaughtered tens of thousands. But they got away with the loot. We're not going to leave Iraq with anything except a devasted Army, and that's going to damn Junior in the eyes of American historians more than anything.

[The Phantom]

Eric

Noone has said that Jimmy Carter didn't do any good things. I happen to think that his action in giving back the Panama Canal was farsighted, one that turned a potential enemy into a good friend.

But he was completely out of his depth in his attempts to manage the economy--he will be remembered for the long gas lines and stratospheric mortgage rates.

And he was deeply inept with the Iran Hostage Crisis.

The best thing we can say about Jimmah is that he set the stage for Ronald Reagan. For that we give him thanks.

[Sven]

I think Bush will be forgotten like a fart in a whirlwind. The consequences of his reign are gonna come down like a lion's paw on summer, and we won't have the time nor the inclination to debate how such a craven fool could have held high office.

[The Phantom]

Sven

Not that GWB is my favorite President, but I will merely note that Harry Truman was regarded as a stupid bumbler by many in his time. And the Kos Kids set would have clearly regarded him as a satanic monster for the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan.

Yet now, Harry Truman is regarded as one of the very best Presidents. That won't happen to tongue-tied GWB, but making pronouncements at this stage is not a terribly good idea.

We know about the bad situation that exists today. You simply don't know what that situation might have been had another course been followed. Funny thing, history.

[B-Money]

There is definite cause for this finding. We are in a period of very poor leadership and it starts at the top. I would even go so far as to say that since LBJ we have had several of the worst Prez's in history. LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton and Bush 2. The biggest failure is clearly GW but Clinton must rank #2 based on the fact that he was capable of so much more but did nearly nothing substantive in 8 years. (Save the economy references.)

The Shrub, though, does definitely deserve this label.

[The Phantom]

Nixon-do not forget the very great significance of the China opening, as well as the effective dealings with the USSR. These accomplishments will not be diminished, while future historians, esp those from outside the US, will think Watergate as an exaggerated thing.

LBJ- Immense Vietnam catastrophe cannot be denied, but Civil Rights accomplishment can't be denied either.

I'd put these two in the category of tragic Presidents.

Ford can't be a "worst" or "best" President. He was in office for five minutes, and he did keep the national unhappiness with Watergate/Nixon resignation from getting worse.

[The Phantom]

And Reagan was a great President. Not an FDR, but clearly above Bill Clinton, maybe on a par with Harry Truman.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

Harry Truman was regarded as a stupid bumbler by many in his time. And the Kos Kids set would have clearly regarded him as a satanic monster for the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan.

Yet now, Harry Truman is regarded as one of the very best Presidents.

Uh, by whom? I regard him as perhaps a well-meaning man, but he had absolutely no aptitude for foreign affairs, at a time when we needed a President that did. He, as Eisenhower at Suez, ensured that the Cold War was to be fought entirely by us against the communists, that the Russians and Chinese would see our face and no-one else's every time they turned around, that there would be no sphere of influence but Western Europe itself delegated to other liberal democracies, and therefore, that the Third World would know to stare only at the United States and the Communists and yell, whenever toes were stepped on. Truman had no clue. Russia is naturally paranoid, but Truman helped to make them more so.

[The Phantom]

1984

My understanding is that the press was very critical of HST, insulting him as a "haberdasher from Missouri" who followed the great FDR.

Can't quote sources, but I heard this from very politically minded people who lived through the time,etc.

[DAS]

I'll not get into the pro vs. anti-Harry Truman debate, but I will note that many who thought of Truman as a stupid bumbler thought him to be not tough enough in regards to the Commies. But now Harry Truman is held up as the sort of "tough guy" the Dems. should nominate?

If Harry Truman were alive today, the DLCers and similar folk would be blasting him as overly partisan, soft on the threat of the day for wanting to contain it rather than to fight it directly, etc. And yet, his "containment" policy was what eventually "won" the Cold War, nu?

Eisenhower, of course, did give a good speech, but his team's bumbling (including giving us the Shah, the reaction against which gave us the current government in Iran) really takes the cake. And as to the cult of Reagan? I never understood that one ...

[The Phantom]

--And as to the cult of Reagan? I never understood that one ...--

Trust but verify. Good strategy.

Tear Down that Wall. Good objective.

Evil Empire. True statement.

[DAS]

For three good soundbites, one gets considered by many to be one of the greatest Presidents ever? My mom was right comparing Reagan to Eva Peron as depicted in Evita (especially cf. Che's description of the Peron years and state-craft as stage-craft).

I am sure, if I had speech-writers working for me, I could manage to deliver 6 good soundbites -- would that make me twice as good of a president as Reagan?

[B-Money]

I once asked one of my Poli. Sci profs in undergrad if Reagan was, in his opinion, a great president, a good president, or just a great actor playing president. The answer I received shocked me. (I knew my prof to be a life long democrat who had no particular love for Reagan.)

He said that he, and great deal of political observers, viewed Reagan as all three! He was great because he was smart enough to surround himself with people that he knew were smarter than him and not only that, but that he was smart enough to listen to them. Reagan was a novice politician and he knew it.

He was a good president because he brought stability to the office at a very crucial time in the Cold War and as a result, world history. He did not back down from the USSR and perservered in a very tense time.

He was a great actor because he had great scripts from which to read and he executed then flawlessly. He brought comfort to Americans and the world with his perfectly paced delivery and grandfatherly tenor and sterness. He was and is loved because of his image first and foremost, but respected for his ability to lead. Even by many who disagreed with him politically and philosophically.

[The Phantom]

DAS

Wasn't a soundbite. He really did want the wall taken down, etc. He really did think that the USSR was evil.

As opposed to useful dummy Jimmy Carter who thought that the USSR was just a "different" system that we had to accomodate.

In a world of false men, Reagan was the real deal. One of the reasons he attracted very large number of blue collar Democratic votes.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

I certainly wouldn't fault Truman for his haberdashery, but I simply think that, like most of the Presidents since, he had a vague idea of the world outside the United States, and dealt with them ham-handedly. The "too soft" or "too hard" on Communism dichotomy is hard to dissect, since Truman did send in troops to Korea, when North Korea started the Korean conflict, and that was a bitch of a conflict; on the other hand, we did nothing to stop the Russians from invading Hungary. My problem with Truman is that he was too paranoid about Russia, and didn't allow the liberal democracies any sphere of influence in the world.

[Fred Jones]

Lessee.....a university professor thinks the president is bad.

That about it?

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

Meant to add: we _later_ did nothing etc. about Hungary.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

i.e., after Truman was gone

/anal

[The Phantom]

Well, if he was paranoid about Stalin's Russia, that is yet another proof of the man's intelligence.

Don't see how the US could have materially helped the Hungarian freedom fighters without beginning a third world war.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

Russia waited for our response to their mobilization against Hungary, much as Hitler waited for French response (intending to turn tail the minute France challenged them) when he reoccupied the Rhineland. With Russia, it was before they even went in. We did nothing. We did good things with the Berlin airlift, but we failed there.

Stalin's Russia, just like the Czar's Russia, was expansionist, but only gradually, and mostly only on their own borders. We ratcheted up their paranoia unnecessarily. If a paranoid announces that he thinks the CIA is out to get him, s/he's a paranoid, and is in error and dangerous; but it's still stupid to dress in a deerstalker and macintosh and let the paranoid see you taking his/her picture with a miniature camera. We could have handled Communist Russia and China without becoming hysterical about them.

[Njorl]

"But he was completely out of his depth in his attempts to manage the economy--he will be remembered for the long gas lines and stratospheric mortgage rates.

And he was deeply inept with the Iran Hostage Crisis."

No one could have managed the economy that Jimmy Carter inherited. Ford couldn't. The bills for Vietnam were coming due, OPEC was strong and our last friendly oil supplier was overthrown.

The real "hero" of our economic recovery was the Iran-Iraq war which caused the precipitous drop in normallized oil prices. Nothing that Saint Ronny or Greenspan did had nearly the effect of Saddam and the Ayatollah dumping oil on the market as fast as they could to fund their fighting. Had that war not broken out, Ronny would have been a one term failure.