I’d say Lincoln. He did, after all, wage an entire war against his own country. As for my lifetime, it’s definately that unclefucker Clinton. I hate him even more ever since his bitch moved two towns away from me, so she could run for senate in a state where she’s never lived and knows nothing about. Stupid whore.
Sigh.
Whatever.
It was Lincoln.
friedo
Your sig line says it all.
This was not a thread for you to pillary/Hillary.
My vote–Lincoln/Nixon. Impossible to decide which.
And the fascinating thing is, they were not hated for anything approaching the same reasons.
I think the most hated President will always be whomever is currently in office.
BWWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
I feel your pain. Now get over it.
History will (eventually) record Nixon as one of the great presidents. Brilliant geo-political mind. Cold warrior. Opened the door to China. The right man at the right time. Domestically, he was way too liberal for my liking, though.
Vlad Teppes (Dracula) had a fountain in his capital city with a gold cup for travelers to drink from. It was never stolen. He was also known as “Vlad The Impaler”.
Kissinger. Kissinger was what made Nixon those things you admire.
There’s a lot of truth to that. In my experience, the current President is either hated or considered incompetent by a large section of the population.
Reagan, LBJ, Nixon and Clinton all generated considerable hatred in their opponents.
Ford, Carter and Bush, on the other hand, were not hated with with same intensity, but were widely ridiculed as being incompetent while in office.
In most cases, the strong aversion to a President tends to fade after they leave office. Hell, Carter and Ford are revered as elder statesmen these days. Reagan is regarded as some sort of kindly uncle despite inflicting such things as Iran-Contra, James Watt, and huge budget deficits on the unsuspecting American public. Even Nixon’s image underwent some rehabilitation after he left office.
I fully expect the American public to forgive Clinton his foibles within a few years after he vacates the Oval Office.
Quite true. TV Guide ran a poll in the late 70’s/early 80’s (forget the exact date) in which Howard Cosell was named BOTH the most hated and most loved TV personality. He was the kind of guy not to many people felt casually about.
back to politicians:
One thing we are falling into the danger of doing here is ignoring intensity when comparing approval ratings. If person A REALLY hates Clinton, while person B kind likes him, but isn’t fanatical about it, should person B’s vote completely equate to that of person A? Approval poll’s are an either/or proposition; either you approve or you don’t. Thus Bush’s precipitous drop (from 89% to 29%) isn’t so astounding if you consider that the 60% swing is represented by people who only kinda liked Bush in 1990 and only kinda didn’t like him in 1991. The vast majority of the country didn’t feel strongly about Bush. Consider the following set up:
hate dislike no opinion like love
<----------------------------|-------------------------->
1a) Y X
1b) Y X
2a) Y X
2b) Y X
Let’s say that the X and Y represents the opinion of, say, some similar sized chunk of the population towards a politician. If Bush in 1988 is represented by “1a” and Bush in 1992 is represented by “1b,” it is quite clear that peoples opinions of Bush didn’t change that much, and yet the “approval rating” would have dropped a GREAT deal. If, however, we look at Clinton in 1992 as “2a” and Clinton in 1998 as “2b,” we see that Clinton’s actual approval has dropped MUCH more than Bush’s, even though approval polls show that the total number of people still feel the same way about Clinton. That is, a small change in actual public opinion abut Bush registers as a HUGE change in approval rating, while a BIG change in public opinion about Clinton shows little to no effect in approval rating.
jayron’s definitely hit the problem with the question right on the head- how do you measure “most hated”? Which is more important- intensity or numbers? Is someone that everyone dislikes a little “more hated” than someone most people like, but a few people have gouged their eyes out rather than be forced to see this person again?
I think Lincoln really falls into the ‘most hated’ category, because he does so well in both categories. Southerners despised him and his actions for decades after his death; I seriously doubt that mentioning Nixon in Boston in 2030 will arouse the fury and hatred mentioning Lincoln in Atlanta would in 1900.
Even ignoring the South, Lincoln was despised and ridiculed not merely by the Democrats, but also by his fellow Republicans- nearly every Republican aside from Gideon Welles seemed to think he could govern the country and run the war better than Lincoln. He was assailed as a tryant, an ape; during the 1864 campaign, Democrats put out the (maliciously false) story that Lincoln had insisted on a happy song being played while he viewed the recently dead on the Sharpsburg battlefield.
It was only Lincoln’s assassination which bestowed the hagiography upon him that we now view him through. Before that, and especially before the Civil War started to become a Union rout (late '64), Lincoln probably suffered through more indignities and spurious attacks than Clinton ever has.
Well, FDR was VERY popular in some circles (photos of FDR on the wall or a bedside table in many homes) but equally very unpopular in others. That’s especially true before the U.S. entered World War II and he was mainly credited/blamed with the New Deal programs.
[slight hijack] Two funny “not everyone liked FDR” jokes:
Businessman working in Manhattan and living in one of the ritzier (and all-Republican) suburbs on Long Island rode the LIRR to work. At the station every morning, he’d buy the paper, look at the front page only, sigh disappointedly, then hand the paper back to the newsboy otherwise unread. After years of this odd behavior, the newsboy finally asked him why he did that. The man said “I’m looking for an obituary.” This only puzzled the newsboy even more, and he replied “But the obits are way back on page 32, sir.” And as the train approached the station and the man handed the newsboy the paper, he answered “The S.O.B. who I’m looking for would be right on the front page.”
A young Army sergeant from an upper-middle-class family, stationed on one of the Pacific islands not long after its capture from the Japanese, was going to be sent home soon. Because he worked in an office position, he had not seen combat, and he felt embarrassed to have no “kills” when people back home would ask what he did during the war. His captain was understanding, and told him to sign out a machine gun from the armory, go up into the hills where some Japanese troops were hiding in caves, draw them out, and then shoot them. The sergeant went up into the hills with a machine gun, and to lure the Japanese troops out of the caves, he yelled loudly “Emperor Hirohito is a rat bstard!" Out of one of the caves came running a Japanese junior officer with his sword drawn, yelling "FDR is a rat bstard.” Instead of shooting him, the sergeant just walked away. When he told the captain what happened, he was perplexed: “Why didn’t you shoot him?” The sergeant responded immediately “Well, I couldn’t shoot a fellow Republican, now could I?”
Supposedly, FDR was told both of these jokes and laughed heartily at them.
I think Carter was hated enormously while he was in office–at least in the agriculture community. After his administration pushed farmers to go into debt and expand, the jerk instituted the grain embargos–the beginning of the end for a lot of farm families. Lots of people blamed him for double digit inflation, too, even though it started under Nixon and no president has much control over the economy. He politicized the olympics, too, remember?
Personally, Carter ranked as my most hated until Clinton came to office. I still have my bumper sticker that I got when Clinton was elected, “Jimmy Carter, no longer our nation’s worst president”
I don’t think I would have been too thrilled with Harding myself, if I had lived in his time.
“I feel your pain.” Brilliant phrase. Thought of that all by yourself, did you Skeezix?
Do you realize that Lyndon Banes Johnson’s initials also stand for “Light Bulb Joke”?
I would also have to nominate Herbert Hoover, since he was so villified during the Depression. All the people that came to Washington D.C. and set up the ‘Shantytowns’ to demand action, while he made no efforts to alleviate the situation.
Nixon is probably the most hated, though I am not old enough to remember Watergate.
It was my understanding that Andrew Johnson was hated more by Congress than the American populace…
Yeah, Hoover was so hated that after he left office, it was 20 years before another Republican became President.
Most hated? And the Oscar goes to…
Richard Nixon! This slime ball dragged the country thru the worst 2 years of its existence with his hemming, hawwing “tricky dick” attitude.
Of course, this could have been entirely avoided, if once he discovered what the whole Watergate affair was about (and he did know by mid-summer of '72), he could have fired the bastards who instigated the schemes and did another “Checkers” speech.
It would have saved us two years of a stand-still government and international humiliation. sigh
And the runner up? Ronald Reagan!
Two words describes this man: sock puppet! The most amazing thing about his administration was that it was only a few years AFTER he was out of office that he was discovered to be suffering from Alzheimer’s. Give me a break
I’m sure he’s a genial enough man on his own, but he was entierly manipulated by his staff and Nancy. He could certainly give a good speech, but read whatever was put in front of him, with no concern of what he was actually saying.
Well, you asked…
Freyr,
While I certainly respect your right to vote as you choose, I don’t understand the logic.
Nixon used the power of the Oval office to protect those people that protected him and got him elected. For this you consider him your most hated president. To me that argument rates Clinton at least a tie.
And Reagan rates #2 because two years after he left office it was revealed that he suffered from Alzheimer’s? We have an incumbent president that for the first time in American history won’t allow his medical records to be revealed. A tie is an insult to Reagan.
Nixon and Reagan were the two most influential Republicans in at least 40 years. Maybe 140. Sounds like you disliked their agendas and are looking for excuses.
And then there was the open discussion of paying “hush money”…And then there was the slush fund…And then there was the “enemies list”…And then there was the use of the IRS to audit his enemies…And then there was the secret war in Cambodia…et cetera…ad nauseum…
Face it. Nixon was petty and corrupt. Nothing Clinton has done (in his official capacity or otherwise) even comes close.
You think Reagan is a paragon of Presidential virtue? I’m waiting to hear your justification of Iran-Contra. If Reagan didn’t know it was going on, then he was incompetent. If he did know, then he was intentionally violating the law and lying to the American public about a policy matter (as opposed to lying to hide an affair). And you want to talk foreign policy disasters, let’s talk about Lebanon. I won’t even get into the rape of public lands under Reagan’s appointee James Watt.
SPOKE says:
I absolutely agree. Clinton may be a slimeball, but he’s at least managed to confine his sliminess to his personal life for the most part. Nixon outrageously abused the powers of his office to promote his own personal agenda and protect his own ass. I vote for him.
TCBURNETT says:
Kindly refrain from implying that all lawyers are trained to lie and that choosing the law as a profession automatically qualifies one as a “despicable character” unless you can back such statements up – which you can’t. After all, you don’t see me posting that every Vietnam vet is, by definition, a reactionary prone to indefensible and irrelevant generalizations.
And then there was the open discussion of paying “hush money” – Let’s see where history takes the Chinese money for technology issue.
And then there was the slush fund – The entire DNC campaign financing is a good parallel.
then there was the "enemies list – the WHODB, paid for by taxpayer funds is a really close equivalent. It’s just that it’s not CALLED an enemies list.
And then there was the use of the IRS to audit his enemies – the parallels should be obvious even to the most liberal.
Nothing Clinton has done (in his official capacity or otherwise) even comes close – You’re kidding, right? Rape, slander, illegally releasing personal information of federal employees, illegally turning the FBI on civil servants you’ve already fired, bombing a foreign embassy, bombing a civilian pharmaceutical, etc.
Look carefully at the current administration and you’ll find that much of it was modelled after Nixon’s.
http://www.genniferflowers.com/bodycount.htm
http://www.masterlink2000.com/monicalewinsky/bodycount.htm
http://www.galaxymall.com/info/clintonscandal/index2.html
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a36e2840737b5.htm
http://www.ashbrook.org/publicat/oped/owens-clinton2.html
http://www.reagan.com/HotTopics.main/HotMike/document-2.23.1998.0.html
…and the list goes on and on…