Even many rational liberals who will objectively rank all the Presidents from Washington to Clinton will suddenly when arriving George Walker Bush immeditaly say “Worst President Ever!”. What is it that makes George W. Bush so greatly hated? Was he really worse than James Buchanan who let the South secede and cause the Civil War or the corrupt administration of Warren Harding? Yes he did make mistakes-he was not one of the best or smartest or most charismatic of the Presidents. But he gave through most of his term economic prosperity and saved the situation in Iraq. He was humane and compassionate-expanded Medicare coverage and tried to bring about a rational solution to Illegal Immigration. He bailed out the banks despite opposition from his own party and has generally stayed out of the way regarding the current Tea Party movements.
I’ll come back after work to address your policy points - but I will say I agree with you that Bush the Younger was certainly not the worst president the Republic has ever endured. That probably would be Buchannan. Second-worst was probably Pierce, then maybe Harding, and there’s a good argument to be made for Jackson (the man was, after all, genocidal.)
I don’t think there are all that many people who believe Bush was literally the Worst President Ever. However, there are a great many - myself includes - who believe he was a very bad president.
Yeah, he was pretty bad. I’d say he ranks in the bottom 5 or 10 presidents ever.
I’ll make a longer post in a minute. However I can’t help but notice the OP failed to mention New Orleans. I’ll give you a hint, Curtis LeMay: think August 2005. “Heck of a job.” Does that jog your memory? 
And you didn’t mention September 11th either. Or Afghanistan. These are MAMMOTH omissions.
Cutting taxes while increasing the deficit is economic madness. It creates the illusion of wealth, but inevitably leads to countries going down the toilet.
He didn’t save the situation in Iraq, he created it. Thousands of US citizens and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dead. Their blood is on his hands.
<Phineas> Why, yes. Yes, he was. </Phineas>
<Comic Book Guy> Shortest. Debate. Ever. </Comic Book Guy>
9/11, torture, Guantanamo, New Orleans, financial meltdown, Iraq invasion, “free speech zones” for protesters, Plame smears, the Merkel massage, Cheney as VP, Afghanistan war botched, enormous deficits…
What’s not to love about W as the worst? Buchanan is not well regarded, but not in W’s league as a fuck up. Jackson’s murders of native Americans is the only thing that comes close.
Is this alternate universe George Bush? In this universe Bush saw us go from a surplus to a deficit, and he launched a pointless imcompetently handled war that has cost us more than 7 billion dollars, thousands of American lives, and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives.
I wouldn’t say he was as bad as Buchanan or even Harding, but he probably does deserve to be in the bottom 5.
I will give him points, as the OP mentioned, for trying to come up with a sensible solution to illegal immigration. The problem was that his party basically fell prey to xenophobic fears and refused to back him up. That was the first issue that most people in the GOP openly dissented from him on.
Actually, the Iraq War is up to costing around $694 Billion - and of course this doesn’t include the long term costs such as disabled vets.
Some of this cost is from the past year under Obama’s reign - but he had no real choice but to clean up Bush’s mess. Quite likely the 2012 winner will still be spending big to clean up the stink.
If I had to pin just one single thing to show Bush was the worst - it would be the launching of the pointless and expensive war against Iraq. Saddam Hussein’s death was worth $694 billion to America?
Was Bush that bad? Yes, he was. I’m occasionally staggered by the fact that his term started with a disputed election, then a historic terrorist attack, and then it got worse. It’s true that compared to Buchanan he doesn’t look too terrible, but that’s the faintest praise I can imagine. Whether you’re a historian or a layman I think it’s a mistake to judge something as recent as his presidency in that kind of historical context, so saying he was the worst ever is premature and not really relevant. Was he that bad, though? Yes. Awful at nearly everything, and almost everything he got involved with was worse for his efforts. It’s true that on most of them, he had help.
The effects of which are disputed. And the prosperity was largely built on sand, as you can see by the enormous financial crash at the end of his term.
You can’t give him credit for “saving” Iraq without acknowledging that he blundered into it in the first place. It was a pointless and unnecessary war, and was compounded for several years by mismanagement. He eventually improved things from that low starting point, but saying he “saved” anything is bullshit.
Don’t use the c-word. You’re probably too young to remember it but his major campaign lie “I’m a compassionate conservative.”
True. He failed at this, but it was a better idea than the one offered by the Tancredos of the world.
He did authorize the bailout. Of course he otherwise stood on the sidelines during this period, which was a problem. He stood in the background and let the two candidates talk about what should be done, but pretty much stayed out of it.
So what? Ex-Presidents generally stay out of the limelight, which I think is a good thing, but I can’t give a lot of points for it. And if we’re discussing what he did in office, this doesn’t matter.
Adding September 11th - where the Clinton administration had not done enough on terrorism, but where Bush’s did less, nevermind the USA PATRIOT Act absurdities and what happened in Iraq - and Katrina, which local and federal officials also mishandled, but which Bush turned into a historic disaster with the appointment of Michael Brown and his own belated response, and then the fact that New Orleans didn’t get enough help for the next three and a half years of his term, and you have a legitimately terrible record.
I’m not American, but let me offer an opinion:
- Bush was an awful President by any general assessment.
- But he wasn’t anywhere near the worst.
By any broad stroke approach, he was a bad President. The economy was much worse off when he left than when he showed up. He left his country mired in two wars, one unnecessary and the necessary one a failure. He didn’t accomplish any domestic measures of positive substance. He gave more power and influence to religious fundamentalists, a horribly corrosive and destructive force in American politics. He wasn’t wholly evil - his African aid endeavours were very substantial and are shamefully overlooked - but for the most part he made his country less wealthy, less safe from its enemies, and more polarized.
But worse than BUCHANAN? I mean, come on. You might not like Dubya but at least there isn’t a civil war going on. Worse than Pierce? Fat chance. Harding was about as corrupt a head of state as a liberal democracy can have and still come out of it a democracy.
Are you judging them based on the standards set for POTUS during that period? We can all agree that the job is so very different now than it ever was. Certainly, Bush has a high frequency of blunders. But, how does his relative frequency of blunders stack up? Were genocidal policies more blunderific than invasion botching is now? At least, that’s the criteria I would go by.
Guys, tell me why Buchanan was so bad. Yes, his presidency led to the civil war and he did nothing to stop secession. But the civil war began under Lincoln, who is actually praised for having prosecuted it. And it seems to me that the nation’s first four score and odd years were an inevitable path to either secession or civil war. What else did Buchanan screw up? How can you give Buchanan so much grief over secession and civil war when Lincoln is praised so much for the same. And given that Lincoln’s election heightened the tensions that led to them. I’m no fan of Buchanan, but laying the civil war or secession on his doorstep is ignoring historical forces that were put in play at the founding and only kept getting worse.
The thing about the Buchanan/Pierce comparisons is that they both (and especially Buchanan) held the office during a time when there was probably nothing that could have prevented the Civil War; they were mediocrities in times that demanded brilliance, and that can certainly be held against them. But Bush came into office at a time when America was prosperous, more-or-less at peace, and even had its fiscal house more or less in order. There were some underlying problems with the financial system, but nothing building towards an immediate crisis.
The damage that he inflicted on the country was wholly at his own initiative.
By the way, Curtis, you like to talk about how Bill Clinton was an incompetent for failing to take action (whatever that means) after the Cole explosion. What did George W. Bush do after the Cole explosion?
ETA: The above was written immediately after RickJay’s post; I see the Second Stone has made a similar point.
As a foreigner, the reasons to detest GWB:
His administration LIED TO THE GOD DAMN WORLD about the reasons for the war in Iraq and convinced my country to help the US out. It’s now cost probably hundreds of thousands of lives and it’s still unclear if Iraq will be better off when it’s “over” than when it began, mainly because the stated reasons for starting it were complete bullshit.
The torture is the icing on the cake. It completely destroyed the legitimacy of the US in the “war on terror” thing - which Iraq had nothing to with.
Both the Iraq war and the “war on terror” were ridiculously mishandled and the world is worse off because of it. And I say that as someone who probably could have supported a military action in Iraq (on humanitarian grounds) and a steady and level-headed response to “the terrorists”.
Yup. Old W sucked donkey dick.
He and his party pretty much did to the sole remaining superpower what they credit Reagan with doing to the Soviets.
Their “New American Century” is looking more and more like the “Last American Decade” as a major mover on the world stage.
Oh yes. his admin explained how it would cost America nothing because Iraq was an oil rich country. They lied. Who is dumb enough to start 2 wars while cutting taxes. The neo-cons who were running Bush and the country, that’s who.
Of course gutting regulation while announcing big money was self governing and needed no oversight. How did that work out?