# Who's the worst American president ever? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 12, 2007, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worst-american-president-ever/391884 "2007-02-12T17:47:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worst-american-president-ever/391884/1 "2007-02-12T17:47:07Z")
[Subject of a recent article in _The Nation._](http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070226/howl) They’re also doing an [on-line poll.](http://www.thenation.com/poll/worstpresident) (It offers only five choices – Buchanan, Harding, Hoover, Nixon, and GWB.) ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worst-american-president-ever/391884/2 "2007-02-12T17:48:47Z")
“Not statistically valid.” No kidding. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worst-american-president-ever/391884/3 "2007-02-12T17:56:05Z")
I know we all tend to bias toward the recent when we try to rate best and worst over the centuries, but George W Bush is the obvious choice. I don’t believe any president ever made a bigger mistake than invading Iraq, and that he knowingly misled, spun the intelligence, and/or outright lied to start it makes it even worse. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worst-american-president-ever/391884/4 "2007-02-12T17:59:41Z")
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers] “Not statistically valid.” No kidding. [/QUOTE] [shrug] Online polls never are. ---
**Author:** ![Menocchio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@Menocchio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Menocchio)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worst-american-president-ever/391884/5 "2007-02-12T18:00:17Z")
Harding was more corrupt. Jackson was a genocidal madman, but he is justly credited with an important win in the War of 1812 and for opening up American democracy. Grant was likely just as inept, but still gets spillover credit for his military career, and at the least didn’t start a useless war. It’s hard to think of another president that was as much and as spectacular of a failure as the current one. Has the man actually accomplished _anything_? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worst-american-president-ever/391884/6 "2007-02-12T18:01:03Z")
I voted for Buchanan, because of the Civil War. He did absolutely jack-shit to stave off a conflict that had been brewing for decades; other men worked out compromises to keep the fighting in the future, but Buchanan just let everything build up. Bush caused another country’s civil war through his own greed and incompetence, but Buchanan caused our civil war by supporting passively and actively (Bleeding Kansas) tensions between two groups primed for bloodshed. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worst-american-president-ever/391884/7 "2007-02-12T18:02:39Z")
Probably Buchanan. My guess is Bush will wind up being the worst ever, but at this point we don’t have the historical distance to make that judgement. ---
**Author:** ![Sal\_Ammoniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worst-american-president-ever/391884/8 "2007-02-12T18:02:52Z")
I’m happy to vote for GWB. Can even a backer of the man point to a single durable and positive accomplishment? Historians will remember him for little more than the Iraq war, which, as a piece of governmental folly, has few equals. Even Warren G. Harding, the man who admitted he was unfit for the job, has no comparable blemish to his record. Teapot Dome was trivial by comparison to Iraq. ---
**Author:** ![ASAKMOTSD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/919ad9/32.png) [@ASAKMOTSD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASAKMOTSD)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worst-american-president-ever/391884/9 "2007-02-12T18:06:55Z")
According to [this book](http://www.uvm.edu/~jloewen/liesmyteachertoldme.php), it seems that Woodrow Wilson might actually be a better choice. If you look at the US invasions into Cuba, Nicaragua, Mexico, Russia (yes, Russia), and others I might say that he has GWB beat. Then there would be Wilson’s intentional segregation of the US Government, the support for the KKK, etc. Yep, seems like GWB is a right upstanding individual by comparison. ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worst-american-president-ever/391884/10 "2007-02-12T18:10:22Z")
[QUOTE=Sal Ammoniac] Can even a backer of the man point to a single durable and positive accomplishment? [/QUOTE] Tax breaks and very very nice increases in stock prices for a lot of US arms and support companies. A lot of people have made a lot of money during the last 6 years. I don’t know enough about US history to really give an educated answer but the American civil war was the most disastrous thing to ever happen to the US. Iraq is bad and Bush is a terrible President but so far the results of his lying and overall mismanagement are not up to the American Civil War level of FUBARness no matter how much I want Bush to be the worst or the worst. He pretty fucking bad though 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worst-american-president-ever/391884/11 "2007-02-12T18:39:10Z")
[QUOTE=Menocchio] Harding was more corrupt. [/quote] I think he’ll lose this crown once we (eventually) learn about all the closed-room deals that have been cooked up by the present Administration. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worst-american-president-ever/391884/12 "2007-02-12T18:46:48Z")
[QUOTE=Captain Carrot] I voted for Buchanan, because of the Civil War. [/QUOTE] You don’t look a day over 150. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worst-american-president-ever/391884/13 "2007-02-12T18:54:04Z")
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal] You don’t look a day over 150. [/QUOTE] Well, dwarves do tend to live a long time. ---
**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:** [February 12, 2007, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worst-american-president-ever/391884/14 "2007-02-12T19:06:47Z")
[QUOTE=yojimbo] Tax breaks and very very nice increases in stock prices for a lot of US arms and support companies. [/QUOTE] Tax breaks are hardly a good thing when you are throwing money away at the same time, and that’s what Bush has been doing in Iraq and elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worst-american-president-ever/391884/15 "2007-02-12T19:18:23Z")
In Buchanan’s defense, was the Civil War avoidable? Perhaps some compromises could have kept the union intact for a matter of several years, but is it realistic to think that anything Buchanan could have done would have done anything but delay the inevitable? ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worst-american-president-ever/391884/16 "2007-02-12T19:20:01Z")
Yeah, Buchanan is the 800-lb. gorilla of bad presidents; he sets the bar really low for malefactors to limbo under. I suppose it depends on what criteria one uses to define “bad” and “worst”. GWB has shown flashes of a maliciousness that (from that list of five) only Nixon is known to have exceeded, but Buchanan’s combination of fatalistic passivity and ill-hidden sympathy for Secession inarguably did more damage. Sailboat ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worst-american-president-ever/391884/17 "2007-02-12T19:28:44Z")
[QUOTE=BobLibDem] In Buchanan’s defense, was the Civil War avoidable? Perhaps some compromises could have kept the union intact for a matter of several years, but is it realistic to think that anything Buchanan could have done would have done anything but delay the inevitable? [/QUOTE] Perhaps not, but he didn’t even try. Henry Clay did a great deal to stave off war. So did Daniel Webster. Neither of them were President, and both did far more than Buchanan to try to save the Union. ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worst-american-president-ever/391884/18 "2007-02-12T19:42:27Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] Tax breaks are hardly a good thing when you are throwing money away at the same time, and that’s what Bush has been doing in Iraq and elsewhere. [/QUOTE] Are you saying there aren’t people who would use that as a plus? **Sal Ammoniac** ask for potential positives. I’ve seen many a poster say that the tax breaks were a positive thing. I agree with you BTW but Bush supporters are thin on the ground here nowadays so I was just filling in. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worst-american-president-ever/391884/19 "2007-02-12T19:44:43Z")
Buchanan seemed so overwhelmed by his job that he declared he would not seek a second term… in his inaugural address. And no, he did nothing to delay or prevent the Civil War. Who knows how Bush’s decisions will look in the future - here’s betting they won’t look any smarter - but Iraq sure hasn’t killed more Americans than the Civil War. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2007, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worst-american-president-ever/391884/20 "2007-02-12T19:56:13Z")
> [@](#): > > Iraq sure hasn’t killed more Americans than the Civil War Accurate but perhaps not totally relevant. Bush’s avoidable war has killed more _people_ than the perhaps unavoidable US Civil War. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-the-worst-american-president-ever/391884.md?page=2)