Since James Buchanan is often cited as the worst president, it might be worth recalling his “accomplishments”.
First of all, although Buchanan was from Pennsylvania, he pretty much despised abolition and the free-soil movement, which puts him squarely on the wrong side of the single most important issue of that time. Say what you will about Bush’s policy and American imperialism (and I am no fan of GWB), but I don’t think it’s equivalent to being ideologically pro-slavery (i.e. he didn’t himself own slaves) in 19th century America. Still, there are some eerie parallels between the two administrations:
[ul]
[li]BUCHANAN: Threw his political weight behind the slaveowner-written Lecompton constitution for the soon-to-be-admitted state of Kansas. Buchanan used patronage and cash bribes to get the constitution past the House.[/li][li]BUSH: Threw his political weight behind conservative causes such as education reform (resulting in NCLB) and the Healthy Marriage initiative. Bush used patronage (Armstrong Williams) and cash payments (Maggie Gallagher) to secure testimony before Congress and media promotion.[/li][li]BUCHANAN: In a desperate attempt to settle the territorial dispute over admitting free/slave states, lobbied a Supreme Court justice in favor of the Dred Scott decision.[/li][li]BUSH: In a desperate attempt to conceal industry members of the administration’s energy task-force from a lawsuit, exploited his vice president’s frequent hunting trips with Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia.[/li][li]BUCHANAN: In response to a federal budget surplus in the mid 1850s, his party in Congress passed a large tarriff reduction that benefitted his Southern political base. But thanks to a subsequent economic downturn Buchanan requested that the Treasury be allowed to issue bonds, reversing decades of government monetary policy based on hard currency.[/li][li]BUSH: With the nation enjoying a budget surplus and overall economic growth, his party in Congress passed income tax cuts that benefitted his wealthy political base. Thanks to a subsequent economic downturn he left office with the highest budget deficit in history.[/li][li]BUCHANAN: Sent federal troops to Utah to quell a rebellion that didn’t exist, based on false trumors and suspicion of a particular religious group in the territory.[/li][li]BUSH: Do I really need to say it?[/li][/ul]
My draft lottery number in 1971 was 11. I think it can be said I was fairly well aware of what was going on. (Back then, in my conservative days, I was pro-War. Stupid, I know.) Like I said, there were arguments that it was in our national interest, we were fighting, by proxy, our real enemy, and no one at the time knew that if the NVA won they would wind up making wristwatches for us. Care to offer similar justifications for Iraq? Care to address the contention that the person who directly attacked us might not be laughing at us now in his cave if Bush, Cheney and Rummy didn’t pull resources from Afghanistan?
As for the economy, I graduated from school and got my first job in 1980. I assure you that it was nowhere as bad as today. Sure, inflation was high, but so were raises. And people were not losing their homes. A few people, in states like Texas and Louisiana hit by the oil crunch, walked away from their mortgages. It was not a nationwide problem.
The reason we ding Bush for 9/11 was not that it happened on his watch, but because he had advance warning of the danger and didn’t provide the leadership to do anything about it. We also ding him for taking the high support he had after 9/11 and using it for partisan advantage. Lots of presidents served during the time of slavery, it appears that the reason that Buchanan is so disliked is that he served during the time the crisis was coming to a head, and did nothing.
IIRC, lots of people left it and other federal agencies thanks to his incompetence, unethical behavior, intolerance for dissent, and his desire to pack the government with sycophants.
I’ll object to Airman’s “on his watch” analysis of history. Bush gets blamed for 9/11 because he ignored all the warnings he was given. Richard Clarke was in the thick of this, and in his book he details how he was ignored. The Clinton transition people and a number of ex Bush people are unequivocal in stating that the Bush Administration was told the number one threat was Al Queda and bin Ladin. Terrorism was downplayed as a threat and various agencies were taken off terrorism and put on different topics. Clarke’s book describes this in detail. On Sept 11 when the attacks happened, people who paid attention to the news already knew it was Osama bin Ladin and Al Queda and that they had nothing to do with Iraq. Yet within days the Administration was lying that Iraq was behind it.
Huh. Interesting. I’m similarly struck by those who find it palatable to say that GW Bush was THE worst president ever, despite solid historical evidence that there have been presidents who have done far more egregious things (or nothing at all) during their presidency. The almost frantic assertions almost have an, um, partisan tinge to them…don’t you think? I mean you (as a mere example) are busting the chops of Airman here because HE ISN’T RADICAL ENOUGH FOR YOU! No…he only thinks Bush is bad…but he must have a hidden agenda, because he doesn’t think Bush was THE WORSTEST EVAH!
Does that seem a bit, well, over the top to you? I ask purely out of curiosity…
His deficiencies stand out because they are fresh in our memory. I won’t suggest he’ll ever be considered a top-tier president (because he wasn’t), but I think with historical perspective he won’t be disdained quite as much as his is today. Historians can be more dispassionate. You don’t see many people getting worked up by the Spanish-American War anymore.
So I’d say that in 30 years, he’ll be regarded as below average, even poor, president, most likely in the bottom 10. Probably not the worst.
But Buchanan did a lot to cause the disaster, from personally lobbying Supreme Court Justices to make sure Dred Scott came out the way it did, to not just backing the Leocompton constitution in Kansas, but bribing Congressmen to support it, to, beyond just not taking action when states started seceding, to having a Secretary of War, who knowing that secession was going to happen, sent money and arms to southern states so that, when they did secede, they’d have enough weapons.
Sort of. FEMA was moved under the Dept of Homeland Security, and a lot of its departments were shuffled around as a result. Here’s a relevant article from around the time of Katrina (which actually makes Brown look pretty good).
But I think the real reason Katrina hurt Bush so much was that he’d spend most of the '04 election billing himself as the guy that could keep America safe in an unsafe world. His supporters justified their votes despite rising deficits, questionable wars, etc, by saying that they just couldn’t trust Kerry to keep us safe. Then, when an actual disaster hit, and Americans were in danger, the Federal gov’t response was a mess. You can argue that it would’ve happened under anyones watch, but I don’t think even an identical level of failure would’ve stung other Presidents as much as it stung Bush.
While that’s possible (though I doubt they were leaving in droves before 2005), I find it hard to believe that government workers left FEMA in such numbers as to destabilize it’s functionality. I concede it’s possible, but I’d really need to see some evidence of this, as my own experience (purely anecdotal) is that it’s nearly impossible to get rid of government flunkies even with a crow bar…and contractors are even worse.
Let’s forget about the details of how fast the relief could have been done, and concentrate on this. You really think that the head of an agency is just a figurehead? Than how did the guy Clinton appoint improve things? I don’t know what percent of the top level management of FEMA were career people, and what percent were political appointees, but don’t you think that a hack naming other hacks to top level jobs wouldn’t help. Sure the people who do the work are not political, but they take orders and direction from those who are. They could either get immediate marching orders, or wait a few days while Brownie decides which tie looked best on TV.
And that goes to the top. When Bush got the report on 9/11, he could have been alarmed and order Condi to give him a plan to respond in three days. Or he could have said do something and went off to cut brush. You don’t have to be an expert to light a fire. Maybe this could have stopped it, and maybe not. But the top guy makes a difference. That is why he gets paid more, and why he is worth more if he performs.
It’s like a car advertisement – our car has 10% more storage space than the Camry, 15% more power than the Accord, 15% more legroom than the Altima.
In other words, it has less power and legroom than the Camry, less storage and legroom than the Accord, and less storage and power than the Altima.
My car analogy is slipping away from me, but my point is that Bush may not have been as bad as LBJ when it comes to war, may not have been as bad as Carter when it comes to the economy, may not have been as bad as, I don’t know, Buchanan when it comes to civil rights (one could argue all of those points, but let’s stipulate this for now) – but he was pretty bad at all of those things.
It’s the combination – very bad at prosecuting a war, very bad at shepherding the economy, very bad at civil rights, very bad at competence. He may not have been the worst in any one of those things, but he was pretty bad at a lot of things. [Another bad analogy coming…] What’s worse, a student who gets four A’s and an F or straight D-minuses?
The only thing comparable to the invasion of Iraq under false pretenses, torture is Andrew Jackson’s treatment of native Americans. Yes, it is partisan, but Bush was much worse on a number of fronts because of the activities his administration engaged in. That they happen to be conservative doctrine doesn’t excuse it, rather it is an indictment of conservative doctrine.
To the extent that history may have a different opinion, let’s wait 40 years (when I’m long gone) and see. I don’t think it will change. Deficits, a trashed economy, failed wars, torture and partisan divide aren’t going to look better with time. Putting Brownie, a horse racing official, in charge of FEMA should be mentioned too.
Just because my dislike for Bush admittedly is partly partisan doesn’t mean that his administration wasn’t awful. The facts of it do.
Let me try to parse the meaning out of your rant. Ellipses are not your friend.
If it were as clear as you think as to what in the historical record renders some other presidents as inarguably worse than Bush, there’d be no debate, would there?
In re: Airman Doors, I’m hardly busting his chops. I’m simply pointing out that while LBJ had a war and Carter had a poor economy and Nixon had a frighteningly insular, combative and detatched White House and Reagan exploded the federal debt and so on and so forth, Bush provides all of that in one package.
As for partisan, if you think people are being frantic and desperate here, I think you fit the bill as a reflexive partisan pretty well.
Johnson was a bad President because of Vietnam. It doesn’t matter if you are taking four easy courses and get A’s, if you get an F in the only course in your major. War is always a dangerous undertaking politically, and Johnson blew it. Vietnam was a war that should not have been fought. Johnson fought it mostly because he didn’t want to be blamed for communists taking over Vietnam “on his watch”. He was worried about what the domestic US opposition would do with it. That isn’t a good enough reason to go to war. But Bush’s grabbing oil and running in 04 as a “war president” was even worse.
See, that’s why I limited myself to a more circumspect assessment of W’s presidency. When history finally does pass its judgement on GWB, I’ll be able to point to my post and say “look, I was right, all the way back in 2010.”
