Worst President in your lifetime?

[SportsDino]

I dunno, Carter may have been embarassing in Cold War and Iran relations, but at the same time we didn't end up in an economy draining war with soldiers dying every day because of it either. I give the overall failure to Bush Jr. on that vote.

W easily wins the worst in my lifetime vote, he managed to take political evil to the level of an artform, and hide it under the facade of incompetent boobery... or his handlers did anyway.

As for the whole 'China' tangent someone went on above... W's actions strengthened China's position, pretty much across the board. They own our debt after all, and arguably are the biggest winner of the oil crash of a couple years ago (stockpiling while prices are low instead of hyping the end of the economy on CNBC FTW!).

Both parties are responsible for the house of cards economy, I'd argue W handled it worst than Clinton. A lot of the stuff during Clinton's time also comes from a Republican majority congress, and the big evils perpetrated are, surprise, surprise, new laws sent out from Congress. You could argue Clinton should have gone veto happy, but why would he when he is bribed too?

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

Ironically, much of what Bush did in response to 9/11 has since been judged (a few times by the Supreme Court, no less) outside the constitutional remit of the chief executive.

You obviously would have been a Copperhead during the Civil War (opposing Lincoln and his many unconstitutional orders), as well as a Republican during the New Deal years (when FDR stacked the courts).

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by SportsDino

I dunno, Carter may have been embarassing in Cold War and Iran relations, but at the same time we didn't end up in an economy draining war with soldiers dying every day because of it either. I give the overall failure to Bush Jr. on that vote.

I think that's a vaild view, logical and reasonable. Would you say LBJ was a worse president because he went into a war that killed even more Amercans and divided our country even more?

[SportsDino]

Originally Posted by Abe Sargent

I think that's a vaild view, logical and reasonable. Would you say LBJ was a worse president because he went into a war that killed even more Amercans and divided our country even more?

I hate LBJ, but I wasn't alive during his presidency.

Warren G. Harding really pisses me off too (obviously I hate corrupt elites), Nixon ironically is a mixed bag... an evil minded guy who did the right thing brilliantly once in a while (from a game theory sense at least). I still vote negatively on him.

Carter I think was a crappy president, but a good guy, who unfairly gets blame for more than he deserves (those deserving of some blame), while Reagan unfairly gets praise for more than he deserves (but deserves some praise).

It gets difficult for me to grade presidents, since I try to judge based on particular issues, and most presidencies have a mix. W pretty much across the board seemed to always take the self-serving and evil option... so he's my worst in my lifetime.

[fantom1979]

I saw this on wikipedia and it reminded me of this thread:

United States presidential approval rating - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Order	President	P/M[13]	Highest Approval	Lowest Approval	High - Low	Highest Disapproval	Approval Average [11]
35[22]	Kennedy	1.2	83 (3/8/62)	56 (9/12/63)	27	30 (9/12/63, 11/8/63)	70.1
34[23]	Eisenhower	1.2	79 (12/14/56)	48 (3/27/58)	31	36 (3/27/58)	65.0
41[16]	Bush (G.H.W.)	2.8	89 (2/28/91)	29 (7/31/92)	60	60 (7/31/92)	60.9
44[2]	Obama	29.2	69 (1/22/09)	45 (4/11/10)	24	48 (3/17/10, 4/11/10)	56[1]
42[15]	Clinton	2.5	73 (12/19/98)	37 (5/26/93)	36	54 (9/6/94)	55.1
36[21]	Johnson	1.3	79 (2/28/64)	35 (8/7/68)	44	52 (8/7/68, 3/10/68)	55.1
40[17]	Reagan	1.4	68 (5/16/86)	35 (1/28/83)	33	56 (1/28/83)	52.8
43[14]	Bush (G.W.)	2.9	90 (9/21/01)	25 (10/3/08, 10/10/08, 10/31/08)	65	71 (10/10/08)	49.4
37[20]	Nixon	1.4	67 (1/26/73)	24 (8/2/74)	43	66 (8/2/74)	49.1
38[19]	Ford	1.2	71 (8/16/74)	37 (3/28/75)	34	46 (4/18/75, 11/21/75)	47.2
39[18]	Carter	1.9	75 (3/18/77)	28 (6/29/79)	47	59 (6/29/79)	45.5
33[24]	Truman	0.7	87 (6/1/45)	22 (2/9/52)	65	67 (1/6/52)	45.4

[fantom1979]

One of the things I find interesting is how quickly things can turn for a president. George HW Bush went from 89% (gulf war) to 29% (recession) in 17 months. Ford went from 71% (right after taking office) to 37% (continued backdraft from the Nixon pardon????) in 7 months. Nixon went from 67% (start of the end in vietnam) to 24% (watergate) in 19 months.

[Senator]

This thread always cracks me up. Politics is one of those subjects that a person can be very limited in knowledge about but feel like they are without peer in their opinions.

[flere-imsaho]

Proof that elitism isn't contained merely to the liberal coasts.