Who was the most generaly hated U.S. President from 1969-2005?

Great Debates
1

I was just thinking, what with all the current Pressiential headaches, who was the most despised President in my lifespan so far, is George W. Bush the most hated President in my time?

i mean in general overall impressions and man-on-the-street feelings

i was born in '69, so, according to the White House’s historical website, the following Presidents were in power during my life…

1969-1974; Richard Nixon, i was just an infant at the time, so i know nothing of general feeling at the time, but he was generally not well liked, did pull the troops out of 'Nam and reduced diplomatic tensions with China…

1974-1977; Gerald Ford, i vaguely remember him as a sort of lovable, accident prone man (or i may be remembering Chevy Chase’s parody of him…), honest and easygoing, a decent man and leader

1977-1981; Jimmy Carter, a well meaning guy who couldn’t get a break, stigmatized as a redneck peanut-farmin’ country bumpkin, at the time i remember disliking him for what seemed to be a lot of incompetence (probably my parents view, they’re hardcore Republicans, but don’t hold that against them, they’re the traditional Repubs, not “new-world” Pubbies), meant well, but his incompetence didn’t help the Iranian hostage situation…

1981-1989; Ronald Reagan, a President i remembered well, as he was in power during my formative high school years, personally, i liked him, i’d have voted for him if i was old enough to, sent him a get well card when he was shot by Hinkley, got a rather nice (mass produced) letter from him thanking me for my concern, he brought on the era of Glasnost, and helped create the first few dents in the armor of international Communism, on the down side, growing up in the Cold War was rather scary, as the vague threat of Red Thermonuclear attacks was always festering in the background, i got the impression that he was a genuinely caring, amiable man, a little absentminded in later life (in hindsight, clearly a sign of the Alzheimers setting in…)

1989-1993; George H. W. Bush Sr.; the first President i voted for, generally seemed to follow in the footsteps/values of Ronald Reagan, and seemed to be well respected, at least tolerated

1993-2001; Bill Clinton, going against the grain here, i HATED Clinton, seemed to be a smarmy, self-important jerk (even before the Lewinsky debacle), had no personal morals, would waffle in whatever direction suited his whims, and seemed to have an irrational dislike of the millitary, seemed to go out of his way to weaken the US millitary based on his personal feelings (and since i’m in favor of a strong, defensive millitary, i really hated clinton’s attitude on this), clearly i was in the minority here, as Bubba was well-liked…

2001 to ??; George W. Bush Jr; okay , let me get this out of the way first, i am a REPUBLICAN (well, actually, more of an Independent with Traditional Pubbie leanings), and i can’t STAND Dubya, i hate to say it, but i hate him more than i did Clinton, and that’s saying a lot…

i don’t want to start another Bush-Bashing thread, as we already have too many of them, but let me just say, this is one Republican who voted for the “other guy” as a moral protest against the Bush administration, this is a Republican who has never previously voted for a Democrat, but i made my decision on moral evaluations and clearly found Bush lacking…

so, to come to the point of my post, it seems to me that GWB is probably the most villified President in my memory…

so, given the timespan posted above, who do you think was/is the most despised President in recent U.S. history

2

How does one measure the amount someone is despised by the population as a whole? Bush II was re-elected while his father wasn’t. That seems to indicate that the country as a whole liked the son more than the father. But that, of course, ignores the fact that losing/winning an election is also a function of whom you are running against. Carter, too, lost a re-election bid by no small amount to Reagan. The term “Reagan Democrat” was coined for defectors from that party. Were they defecting to Reagan or away from Carter?

Nixon, of course, was re-elected easily but left the office in disgrace. He’s probably gained back some of his respect over time, but when he resigned he was absolutely hated for what he had done.

In the end, your question is unanswerable. Different people despise different presidents for different reasons. I don’t really despise any of them, but the ones I have the least respect for would be Nixon, Carter, and Bush II (all for different reasons). I didn’t care much for Bush I-- he was competent, but didn’t seem to have any solidly held convictions. Way too much of a politician. Same with Clinton. Reagan had his flaws, but he new what a leader was supposed to do and generally stuck to his convictions (which I generally agreed with) more than the rest of the lot. Bush II also sticks to his convictions, but I’m not too partial to a lot of those convictions…

3

Too bad you weren’t born just a bit earlier, could’ve tossed LBJ into the mixture. And I think he’d win.

In the timeframe you’ve specified, you’re pretty much down to Tricky Dick versus the Shrub. I suspect you’re right but that would be a close call.

4

Lowest approval ratings, perhaps? You’re lookin’ at 'em.

5

I’d say probably Nixon and the current President as well. After that, I’d put both Reagan and Clinton, who were both really polarizing presidents…both of them had a segment of the population who hated them and a segment of the population who loved them.

6

The OP has an interesting take. To view Nixon as the person who got the troops out of Vietnam is one way of looking at it. Another is to see him as the president under which the most troops were deployed, the most troops died, and the most money spent. There was a strong anti-war sentiment at the time and Nixon ran against that. Nixon normalized relations with China, but as a cold warrior in the 50s he was responsible for cutting relations with them in the first place.

As for personal morals, I think having an affair and lying about it, while despicable, falls far short of burgalaring your opponenent’s offices, selling arms illegaly to an enemy, and misrepresenting the facts to get the country involved in a war.

As for most hated, W is starting to edge out Nixon in my book.

7

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: history will judge the GWB administration to be the most corrupt and deceptive in the life of the nation.

8

Wow! Could you give me next weeks lottery ticket by chance? :stuck_out_tongue:

I’m not sure this question has an answer. What do you mean by ‘generaly hated’ exactly? Are you talking about during their terms in office, historically after their terms are done? As a percentage of the population? Are we talking straight poll results taken during or after they were in office?

My top of the head prediction (from a historical view) would be that Nixon will be at the head of the list…especially if we are talking about after they were in office. During office I seem to recall Carters numbers as being pretty bad…and certainly he got trounced in his re-election bid. GW’s current numbers are pretty bad as well. Reagan’s numbers were high while he was in office but I believe they have dropped since he left…same with Clinton’s. Ford and Carter I believe have both increased in popularity since they were president.

Personally I think that we are all too close to every one of these presidents to judge them from a historical perspective. YOU may not have been born until Nixon was president but many of us on this board grew up in the 60’s. I still remember Johnson as president for instance and was a baby when Kennedy was killed. If you look back on past presidents many of them were unpopular or popular at the time or immediately after they were president…but changed radically as their deeds and actions were put into historical context. Two cases to look at would be Lincoln and Jackson. Take a look at how they were viewed in their day…and how they are viewed today.

-XT

9

Well, unless the next guy is worse, that is. :wink:

10

It takes about 20-25 years for a president to get a “fixed” reputation. When he left office, Eisenhower was seen as a do-nothing. Since then, he began to get credit for vigorously enforcing Civil Rights rulings. Nixon has come at least a little way back from the disgrace with which he left office. Ford’s reputation as a slow-witted bumbler has faded. Even Carter is now considered less of an incompetent and more of a guy who had the worst run of bad luck in modern history.

So it’s really to early to judge Reagan through Bush 2.

But, for myself, Richard Nixon will always be the bottom of the barrel.

11

I think we’re a bit too close to judge impartially. “Generally hated” would be Nixon as of now. But- a generation from now the view will be quite different. Unless Bush can pull an Iraqi rabbit out of his hat, Bush II will eclipse all of his contemporaries in disdain. I expect Carter’s stock to rise, Reagan and Bush II’s to fall dramatically, and the rest to remain static.

12

It’s pretty clear to me that Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and both Bushes will likely, 80 years from now, have their bodies repeatedly dug up and raped by roving street games as retribution for their crimes against humanity.

Carter and Clinton I see actually becoming god-like figures, with various cults carrying totems and other sacred objects dedicated to them, fighting back the unending hordes of night who will be found in 2085.

13

:stuck_out_tongue:

:stuck_out_tongue: !!

Too bad there is no way to have all of us frozen so that we could peak in 50 years from now (well, some of you might still be about then…if I am I’ll be bald, toothless and probably won’t be able to still feed myself) to see how accurate such predictions are. It would be fun to see the shock on some of your faces when these types of partisan predictions don’t come true. :wink:

-XT

14

It will take a while for the truth about George W. Bush to sink in with the religious right and die-hard partisans. Nixon’s corruption became more obvious when respected Republicans such as Senator Howard Baker were about to vote to impeach him and it was likely that criminal charges were to be brought against him unless he was pardoned. He was a neurotic scumbag, but he wasn’t feather-brained.

GWB isn’t neurotic.

15

While Nixon is now given credit for pulling American troops out of Vietnam and establishing diplomatic relations with mainland China, neither of these actions were uncontroversial at the time. There were plenty of people back then who hated Nixon for “giving up” in Vietnam and “betraying” Taiwan. Just goes to show how much a few decades can change how things look.

I’m surprised by that. I think the general consensus is that Eisenhower did as little as possible on civil rights. He did memorably send troops to Little Rock in 1957, but this was more out of concern for Governor Faubus’ defiance of federal authority than a belief in civil rights.

16

I remember when Nixon fired Archibald Cox, and that was the turning point when even diehard members of his own party turned against him. From that day until his resignation, not too many people sided with Nixon, at least not publicly.

But all in all, at least Nixon wasn’t an idiot, and he had a rather firm grasp of international politics. I don’t think he would have pulled a stunt like W. has in Iraq; he certainly had enough paranoia, but Kissinger would have talked him out of it.

The bottom line is that I think Nixon was more universally despised in the final days of his presidency than W. is now, but I expect W.'s approval rating will eventually fall to below Nixon’s.

17

Just look me up on the other side and you’ll owe me a beer at St. Peter’s.

18

:slight_smile: Certainly. And if it works out the other way make mine a nice single malt scotch…preferable 15yo or better.

-XT

19

I think a lot of you are forgetting just how much antipathy Carter created with his seeming incompetence, and most especially with his notion that the nation’s problems were the result of some near moral failing on the part of the American people manifested as a national “malaise”.

Carter was not “hated” but he was percieved as weak and incompetent and at the end of his term was considered by many as a pretty poor excuse for a President. Of all the Presidents I’ve had experience voting for (starting with Carter) some were more “hated” by specific groups, but none (IMO) were more generally *despised * (at the time) than Carter by a wide segment of the voting public.

20

All IMHO:
Nixon: By the time he left office, he was most hated but this faded with time.
… had the most corrupt VP in my lifetime until Cheney came along.

Ford: general apathy. very few loved or hated him. (Many found him funny in a 3-stooges way)

Carter: I don’t think many hated him, but many thought he was a disgrace or incompetent. Crazy, embarrassing brother.

Reagan: Love him or hate it, few were neutral. I go a step further. 1st term great, second term appeared to be senile and not in control.
… VP was pretty good VP. Sec of Interior was extremely hated. Many, including myself hated 1st lady. She was an evil witch

Bush the 1st: pretty good on foreign policy, fumbled the 1st Iraq war though and was terrible domestic Pres. Not really hated, more feeling of incompetence.
… VP: very embarrassing on the level of Billy Carter. Wife was well liked. Great joint chief of Staff and Sect of state.

Clinton: Very good domestic Pres, fairly good foreign policy. Neutral but stiff VP.
Hillary was more hated than Bill for some reason? Bill himself was an embarrassment of the Billy Carter scale despite being a good Pres.

Bush Jr: Currently the most hated and incompetent. First Lady is non-factor. VP is most crooked since teapot dome scandal. Many in cabinet appear evil. Boo Hiss, this jerk made me vote for Kerry. I hate Kerry. Bush Jr. is a danger to our country, our lives and our rights. He is an idiot and a draft dodger. But of course that is just my humble opinion.

**So I vote for Bush Jr as most hated. **