# Who has been worst - Bush or Obama? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 30, 2014, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-been-worst-bush-or-obama/699979 "2014-09-30T16:54:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Citizen5](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b77776/32.png) [@Citizen5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Citizen5)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-been-worst-bush-or-obama/699979/201 "2014-10-30T09:25:24Z")
FDR’s New Deal was the beginning of socialist state control of the banking and industrial sectors. He was the great confiscator of gold at $20.67 and then turned around and reset its value at $35.00 after he had stripped the average citizen of every ounce they held resulted in stealing peoples labor and wealth through devaluation of the dollar. Wilson, by his own admission had been the most destructive president to date to the American people. "“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.” Obama when he pushed through the NDAA successfully reduced the constitution to ruble. When the system that the people have created takes over the right to detain anyone they chose without charges, for as long as they chose they have become tyrannical. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-been-worst-bush-or-obama/699979/202 "2014-10-30T11:50:51Z")
> [@Citizen5](#): > > FDR’s New Deal was the beginning of socialist state control of the banking and industrial sectors. He was the great confiscator of gold at $20.67 and then turned around and reset its value at $35.00 after he had stripped the average citizen of every ounce they held resulted in stealing peoples labor and wealth through devaluation of the dollar. Anyone else think this is worth getting into? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-been-worst-bush-or-obama/699979/203 "2014-10-30T12:28:07Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Anyone else think this is worth getting into? Goldbuggery? No thanks. I at least prefer to engage people who have some basic understanding of how society & economies work. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-been-worst-bush-or-obama/699979/204 "2014-10-30T12:32:07Z")
> [@Citizen5](#): > > Wilson, by his own admission had been the most destructive president to date to the American people. > "“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. > A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. > Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, > therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. > We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely > controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. > No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by > conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by > the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.” However I will point out when a [fabricated or misrepresented quote is being made:](http://www.salon.com/2007/12/21/woodrow_wilson_federal_reserve/) > [@](#): > > “I can tell you categorically that this is not a statement of regret for having created the Federal Reserve. Wilson never had any regrets for having done that. It was an accomplishment in which he took great pride.” ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-been-worst-bush-or-obama/699979/205 "2014-10-31T06:00:33Z")
I don’t know if this has been mentioned yet but the Wiki page of Historical Rankings of Presidents lists a slew of [scholar Surveys](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States#Scholar_survey_results). Most of them were done before either of them were in office long enough to be included, but the one survey that included Obama has him near the top third of all Presidents (15th out of 43) whereas Bush was included in six surveys with a high rank of 19th, a low of 39th and a median of 33.5. The aggregate is a little convoluted since Obama was only in one survey, however in it, Obama finishes tied for 14th place (with James Monroe and LBJ) and Bush places 34th (between Benjamin Harrison and Zachary Taylor). It’s also possible if not probable - that history will change how they are viewed. For example, Bush’s presidency has looked worse the farther away from it we’ve gone. His rankings have gone from 23rd and 19th in studies from 2002 and 2005 to 37th, 36th, 39th and 31st in the four polls since then. However, Obama would have to either do something horrific or some policy of his would have to turn out to be a tremendous blunder (such as if the ACA falls apart in the manner many Republicans predicted a couple years after he leaves office) to reach the low level of Bush. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-been-worst-bush-or-obama/699979/206 "2014-10-31T06:03:41Z")
What would continuing reports of mismanagement and scandal from various government departments do to his rankings? I realize that historians tend to look at the broad sweep of history, but I don’t see how you can ignore the performance of a President’s basic constitutional duties in judging him. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-been-worst-bush-or-obama/699979/207 "2014-10-31T06:16:00Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > What would continuing reports of mismanagement and scandal from various government departments do to his rankings? I realize that historians tend to look at the broad sweep of history, but I don’t see how you can ignore the performance of a President’s basic constitutional duties in judging him. Bush and friends went out of their way to make the government do as bad a job as possible, including actively sabotaging it in cases like FEMA and the response to Katrina. _And_ they did a good job of driving out people who had any level of either competence or integrity. An inevitable result of putting blatantly corrupt, anti-government, incompetent people in power _over_ the government. Obama is a long, \*long \*way away from managing to do as bad a job as Bush. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-been-worst-bush-or-obama/699979/208 "2014-10-31T06:50:15Z")
Bush absolutely did those things. Yet problems are much more widespread now. What has President Obama done to return the government to pre-Bush levels of performance? I see no evidence that he’s been engaged on the issue at all, even after all the scandals. And there’s more to come. Seems like every month brings reports of a new part of the government falling down on the job. It’s all well and good to blame the initial problem on Bush, but he’s had six years to work on the problem and has made zero progress that anyone can point to. Perhaps he’s just guilty of neglect whereas Bush was guilty of malice. But results matter, and the results are extremely poor in that respect. Given that the performance of the government affects citizens in their daily lives, it’s kind of an important issue on which to judge a President, even if it’s too boring for historians more interested in great sweeping change. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-been-worst-bush-or-obama/699979/209 "2014-10-31T08:28:27Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Bush absolutely did those things. Yet problems are much more widespread now. After years of the Republicans doing their best to do as much damage to the country as they can with the explicit goal of ensuring that everything that Obama does fails, regardless of the harm done. As long as the people keep electing Republicans you’ll continue to see much of the govenrment flailing about doing damage, because that’s what they want. They want the government to fail, as badly and publicly as possible. Again; you can’t elect anti-government people to government positions and logically expect any other result. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-been-worst-bush-or-obama/699979/210 "2014-10-31T08:32:40Z")
Problem is, Republicans don’t control the executive branch. Democrats do. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-been-worst-bush-or-obama/699979/211 "2014-10-31T09:36:10Z")
Which doesn’t mean dick if you can’t be executiving the laws you’d like to, on account of the other side controlling the legislative and/or gumming up the works like it’s going out of style. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-been-worst-bush-or-obama/699979/212 "2014-10-31T09:55:52Z")
The executive branch has 240 years of laws giving it the power to do everything it needs to do to carry out the duties given to it by the Constitution and our nation’s laws. There is no new authority the President needed to make sure the IRS, HHS, CDC, VA, EPA, ATF, and INS are doing their jobs as directed by law. In fact, I don’t think any new laws should be passed until the President can get his head around enforcing the ones we already have. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-been-worst-bush-or-obama/699979/213 "2014-10-31T11:33:39Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Bush absolutely did those things. Yet problems are much more widespread now. No they’re not. Not even close. > [@](#): > > I see no evidence that he’s been engaged on the issue at all, even after all the scandals. When it comes to Obama, you’re blind. Just accept it – you’re unable to see anything but bad from Obama. > [@](#): > > And there’s more to come. Seems like every month brings reports of a new part of the government falling down on the job. I’m sure Hannity says this, but that doesn’t make it true. Leadership doesn’t work the way the hacks on TV think… “just show leadership!” – it doesn’t really mean anything. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-been-worst-bush-or-obama/699979/214 "2014-10-31T11:38:00Z")
Never claimed it did. Besides, “Showing leadership” is actually something he’s good at. It’s the nuts and bolts of governing that he hasn’t quite figured out yet. We’ve been over this many times before, so to avoid derailing this thread, let me just go back to the point that how a President does his basic tasks should be an important part of his legacy. Historians actually tend to reward Presidents who break the rules, like Lincoln, FDR, Wilson, and TR, which I think is a bit perverse. But that’s why they are historians, not constitutional scholars. Historians, like the media, love a good story more than they love the boring President who did his job effectively and where nothing bad happened. Historians seem to regard this as “luck”. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-been-worst-bush-or-obama/699979/215 "2014-10-31T11:47:28Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > We’ve been over this many times before, so to avoid derailing this thread, let me just go back to the point that how a President does his basic tasks should be an important part of his legacy. Historians actually tend to reward Presidents who break the rules, like Lincoln, FDR, Wilson, and TR, which I think is a bit perverse. But that’s why they are historians, not constitutional scholars. Historians, like the media, love a good story more than they love the boring President who did his job effectively and where nothing bad happened. Historians seem to regard this as “luck”. What “basic tasks”? There haven’t been any major scandals. There have been a scattering of minor ones… and the more they’ve been investigated, the more mundane they’ve turned out to be. The ACA website thing was dumb. Obama and his team should have been more ready for that. But it was fixed pretty fast, and did no real long term damage to anything but the polling. Benghazi was a non-scandal. It was a tragedy, but not a scandal in any fashion. The VA hospital stuff was stupid and horrible. But how could it have been prevented, and not by some pithy “lead” answer? Maybe the only way would be to blow up the entire VA and start from scratch – that can’t happen, because it would leave veterans in the lurch. A problem of a huge bureacracy with paper recordkeeping. Etc. A handful of minor screw ups, and legacy screw ups from long-term systemic problems. No failure to do the basic tasks of a presidency… whatever that means. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-been-worst-bush-or-obama/699979/216 "2014-10-31T11:59:16Z")
The VA problems were brought to the President’s attention long before they blew up in the media. He really didn’t have any excuse. Vets were complaining to their Congressmen, their Congressmen were writing to the President, and then he claims that he had no idea until he read it in the paper. As for the rest of it, if the “minor” screwups are done for the most part, they shouldn’t affect his legacy. Anyone can go through a rough patch. But if the next two years involve several more headlines about agencies failing to do their jobs and the President being uninterested in finding that out for himself until it’s a huge media story, that should affect how history views him. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-been-worst-bush-or-obama/699979/217 "2014-10-31T13:15:43Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > The VA problems were brought to the President’s attention long before they blew up in the media. That’s true. In fact, the VA problems [“stretch back decades before Obama took the Oval Office.”](http://www.nationaljournal.com/defense/who-really-broke-veterans-affairs-20140520) I know you’ve heard this song before, but like a lot of things that he inherited, Obama got a VA that was already underfunded and dealt with a massive influx of veterans who needed assistance under his watch thanks to the influx of injured soldiers sent to Iraq and Afghanistan (something Obama didn’t do, you might recall). [This editorial](http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/010609b.html) was published in the final days of the Bush administration: > [@](#): > > Bush stacked the VA with political cronies, such as former Republican National Committee chairman Jim Nicholson, who as VA Secretary defended a budget measure that sought major cuts in staffing for healthcare and at the Board of Veterans Appeals; slashed funding for nursing home care; and blocked four legislative measures aimed at streamlining the backlog of veterans benefits claims. > > Of the 84,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder by VA, only half, about 42,000, had their disability claim approved by VA. Instead of expediting PTSD claims, Bush’s political appointees at VA actively fought against mental health claims. > > Bush’s appointees also obstructed scientific research into the causes of Gulf War illnesses dating back 18 years to Operation Desert Storm and opposed medical research on treatment for 210,000 of those veterans. > > As for funding, Bush proposed a 0.5 percent budget increase for the VA for fiscal year 2006, which amounted to a “cruel mockery” of Bush’s promises to do everything to support veterans and soldiers, Rep. Lane Evans, D-Illinois, said at the time. > > Evans called Bush’s proposed budget increase for the VA “grossly inadequate,” saying it would force the VA to “ration” healthcare to veterans. > > VA officials had testified in 2005 that the agency needed at least a 13 percent increase to meet the needs of hundreds of thousands of war veterans wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan and others who needed long-term mental health care. > > In early 2007, the Washington Post put a spotlight on the human consequences resulting from the combination of Bush’s wars and the budget squeeze. > > The Post published a series of articles documenting the substandard conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which is located only 4.7 miles from the White House. Wounded vets were housed in rooms with moldy walls, leaky plumage and an infestation of vermin, underscoring how out of touch Bush had become regarding the nation’s veterans. > > In response to complaints that some veterans under VA care were being neglected, Nicholson said in March 2007 that such cases were “anecdotal exceptions.” > > “When you are treating so many people there is always going to be a linen towel left somewhere,” he said. > > In May 2007, the AP revealed that while Nicholson was pinching pennies on treatment costs and coping with a $1.3 billion budget shortfall, he awarded “$3.8 million in bonuses to top executives in fiscal 2006″ — many as much as $33,000. > > Simultaneously, Bush was resisting congressional efforts to beef up the VA’s budget. In May 2007, Bush threatened to veto legislation that sought a 10 percent—$3.2 billion—increase, calling it too expensive. Bush proposed a 2 percent increase, far below what lawmakers and VA officials said was needed to treat a dramatic increase in traumatic brain injury and PTSD cases. > > After Congress passed the legislation with the higher VA spending, Bush backed down on his veto threat but that was largely due to the fact that every Republican in the Senate with the exception of Jim DeMint of South Carolina, supported the measure. > > Amid the growing scandals about substandard VA treatment and inept management, Nicholson resigned in July 2007. Again, please note that this synopsis was published before Obama was sworn in. So even if you do feel that the VA is a black mark on the Obama administration, it’s easy to show that his predecessor did an even worse job but (surprise, surprise) somehow escaped overwhelming criticism from the supposedly liberal media. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-been-worst-bush-or-obama/699979/218 "2014-11-01T00:08:04Z")
The VA certainly had problems. However, there are two reasons Obama deserves blame for the issue. 1. He expanded eligibility despite failing to secure more funding. That worsened the backlog. 2. The wait times fudging was first reported to his administration and was ignored until it hit the media. But this isn’t the place to hash out the specifics of each government failure under his watch. Some of them are his fault, some of them aren’t. I just wanted to point out that if these things continue to occur over the next couple of years, history will regard him as incompetent. If the government performs about as well as usual over the next two years, then this period will just be seen as a rough patch. There’s also the war against ISIS. If he gets us into a quagmire on the ground, then he’s basically LBJ. If he clears ISIS out of all the lands they control, then he’ll be considered a very good President. Then there’s legacy stuff beyond his control. What happens to ACA after he leaves office. If it’s repealed or scaled back, then it turns out that what he did wasn’t all that significant. What if a major recession hits in his last years? That’ll bring him way down in the rankings as well. Or we hit a major boom, unemployment drops to 3%, and he leaves office with a budget surplus. I don’t think there’s any question that Bush has been worse if we go by what we know now, but Obama’s still got two years to match his infamy and plenty of opportunities to do it. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-been-worst-bush-or-obama/699979/219 "2014-11-01T00:17:46Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Never claimed it did. Besides, “Showing leadership” is actually something he’s good at. It’s the nuts and bolts of governing that he hasn’t quite figured out yet. I may or may not have missed your answer in this thread. Do you believe Obama is a worse President than Bush the Younger? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-been-worst-bush-or-obama/699979/220 "2014-11-01T00:28:25Z")
Not at this point, but he could end up being. ALthough really, these things are hard to judge because a lot happens in eight years. Obama hasn’t lied us into a war. But he’s failed in other ways. Faith in our government institutions has never been lower. That’s really bad for the party of government. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-been-worst-bush-or-obama/699979.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-has-been-worst-bush-or-obama/699979.md?page=12)