"Who is the worst US President...from before you were born." Topic

Take THAT Blyue Fezzy Land!
If anyone is old enough to know what he is doing to post to TMP, any POTUS who served before you were born is by definition not Blue Fez material.
The damn thing has to have SOME expiration date backwards.

Anyway, I nominate Woodrow Wilson.
Racist swine, he reversed positive gains in Civil Rights.
He ran on a platform that "He kept us out of the War", and then before the ink was dry on his inauguration party invitations, he got us into it.
Then he proceeded to just totally up Europe.
Wilson set the standard for sanctimonious foreign adventures that most following presidents, regardless of party, strove to follow.

Second place goes collectively to those who stood by and dithered prior to the Civil War, and made it possible.

Third to Andrew Jackson. If you have to ask…

Oh, and Happy New Year!

I will reverse my own policy and hit the [!] button on anyone who tries to drag in "modern" presidents.

I was taught that the worst POTUS was Warren G Harding.
Unless you were one of his cronies, in that case he was probably the best.
YMMV,
R.

You have a time machine, don't you, John? C'mon. You can admit it.

I've gotta go with FDR.

I was born in 1954 so Ike was President. Hummmm….Wilson..Harding..Pierce….

Hoover…

Cleveland…

I liked Jackson even if he was a Blank towards the Indians.

Andrew Johnson…

I was taught it was Harding

As was I but looking at Wilson now I believe he was worse.

Chester A. Arthur must be the worst President before my birthday because nothing is named after him.

"I've gotta go with FDR."

That explains a lot.

There is that.

Nixon. Showing my age, aren't I? :P

I choose Franklin Pierce, even though he was a Bowdoin man.

He falls into John's category of ditherers. Then he supported the Confederacy, and died an alky.

Allen

My Great Great Grandfather Died an Alky…He owned a Saloon so it was easy for him..

James Buchanan ranks right down there.

Talk about ditherers. He considered secession illegal. He considered going to war to stop secession illegal. His solution was to do nothing as the country tore itself apart.

Lessee…I guess I can nominate Ford, since he was the last president serving before I was born. Can't think of anything notable during his reign, except maybe clumsiness. My birthday was during the Carter administration, so I guess that doesn't count.

Damon.

Since Truman was in office when I was born, any Nixon/Carter comments are off the table.

Buchanan was an inert swine but I'd have to go with Franklin Pierce who was an actively divisive swine.

Woodrow Wilson may be personally one of the more repugnant characters to occupy the office but policy wise couldn't hold a candle to the dolts that let the nation fracture.

FDR.

Since then, the American people think that the federal government has to save people from all of their own mistakes. The entitlement mindset is born. Personal accountability become a foreign concept.

"May the Blessings of the Bomb Almighty, and the Fellowship of the Holy Fallout, descend upon us all. This day and forever more. Amen!"
- Beneath the Planet of the Apes

Dan

I can't wait until some bright 20 year old sees this thread…

George Washington – Spoilt a very nice Empire.

Pete

Another vote for FDR. Even if we started right now, it would take us 3 generations to recover from his policies.

But Wilson runs a close 2nd for repugnance.

Btitishline – That's very funny.

Worst President – LBJ (Lyndon B. Johnson).

In office before I was born (although I was born while he was in office).

Stealer of Military Glory:

Johnson's biographer, Robert Caro, stated, "The most you can say about Lyndon Johnson and his Silver Star is that it is surely one of the most undeserved Silver Stars in history, because if you accept everything that he said, he was still in action for no more than 13 minutes and only as an observer. Men who flew many missions, brave men, never got a Silver Star."

Terrible Commander in Chief:

Screwed up Vietnam beyond repair by early choices listening to McNamara. Stratgic planning both military and politcal were terrible.

Bankrupt America:

Many of the social programs pushed forward during the "Great Society" era are the reason for such tax burden on Americans today.

Now, not everyone is all bad. LBJ did work very hard towards Civil Rights, a very good thing, but overall his failures outweigh his successes.

MOST OVER RATED PRESIDENT:

John F. Kennedy

What did he do while in office that made him so great? Some really good speeches, ya, but what was accomplished and please don't start on what he was going to do if he hadn't be shot. Below are what I think he did well, but that doesn rise to the near sainthood people placed on him.

1) Space Race
2) Contained Communism in Central America
3) Fiscal policy that lessened government control
4) Nuke Test Ban Treaty (no more above ground tests)

Bad stuff:

1) Cuban Missile Crisis – should never have gotten that close, bad foriegn policy lead to that showdown.
2) Cuba and Bay of Pigs
3) Iraq (backed coup that put Baath party in power. We know how that turned out)
4)Immagration – also put forth by his brother Ted Kennedy, first steps towards our current immagration problems. Ted was also involved in the immagration act of 1986 with the words that immagration will no longer be a problem in the United States.

So, I don't rate JFK as a great or terrible President, just average. He made people "feel" good is the most common response I get when I talk to those who lived during his time in office. I guess it might be the manner of his death that has made him such an icon.

Hands down it has to be Wilson.

Millard Fillmore…

William henry Harrison. Stand out in the freezing cold for inaguration to show how strong he was, and die two months later of phenomonia. Now that's a true idiot.

But at least Harrison did not get to do as much damage as longer serving presidents.

FDR by a nose over Wilson, with dishonorable mention to Pierce.

All right, Condottiere, you just turn yourself in. Go to the DH like a nice little boy, and use your time constructively. Write some prison memoirs.

Or, are you just a bright but misinformed 15 year old?

Wilson, by the way, took active steps to reverse some integration policies, feeble though they may have been, particularly in integrating the navy and army. He set such progress back 30 years.

Now then John the OFM….He could be that young…

No, he states he's changing the rules, apparently because he doesn't like Reagan and feels the need to turn this thread into CA material.

All right, Condottiere, you just turn yourself in. Go to the DH like a nice little boy, and use your time constructively. Write some prison memoirs.

Never…

Or, are you just a bright but misinformed 15 year old?

Should I consider this a complement… Growing older, nothing would brighten my miserable more day – for at least a few minutes – than for someone to assume I look younger than my age, though 15's too young for anything, maybe late twenties.

Wilson, by the way, took active steps to reverse some integration policies, feeble though they may have been, particularly in integrating the navy and army. He set such progress back 30 years.

If Wilson performed these actions in the 1950s, I'd consider him a holdout, but since he was in office from 1913-1921 and died in 1924, he was a product of his times, even as I dislike his policies.

No, he states he's changing the rules, apparently because he doesn't like Reagan and feels the need to turn this thread into CA material.

So apparently Reagan's off limits, while FDR's fair game, especially with comments extending into CA territory?*rolls eyes* Considering he hasn't been in office for two decades and has passed on, my comments aren't CA, though if I'd started a Reagan exclusive thread, I'd be accused of pushing CA material again. What would happen if someone in their early twenties made that post? Would he/she be accused of trying to "turn this thread into CA material"? All moot since I brought the post back on topic in mentioning Wilson.

Cowardy custard

Well said, Connard.

!

Condottiere. No one else has seen fit to "change the rules", but you consider yourself entitled to. Go ahead. I was just joking about hitting the [!] anyway, so feed your privilege.

I personally do NOT think that Reagan is CA material. But, by my facetious "rules", you do not qualify to denigrate him. However, since you consider yourself privileged to disregard them… have a nice day.

Everyone else seems to have taken my "rules" in good grace.

Huh??

I'll stand in agreement with Condottiere…
Though Jackson and Harding are the two that usually pop to mind.

Still, this seems like another thin attempt to let the Fez leak onto the front page… probably since it's gotten to be such a bunch of navel-gazing in there and they're lonely for some attention.

Hi

I rather like Jackson his being tarred about the Noble Native Americans, like some of the "I was taught" above, just shows that you were half educated by the schools. They were supposed to teach stuff, but have you THINK about it.

If there IS a point here, it is that POTUS can be awful and the nation survives.

Rocky

!

O.K. Condottiere, I'll see you, your dancing around CA, and your personal attacks when you get out.

That was a pretty playful and harmless bit of jest to be considered a 'personal attack'.
Maybe you're just 'sensitive'…

Now now ..No need to push the !……

C'mon, kids. Don't like the rules? Then don't play the game, just to ruin it for everyone else ('cause that's what you are really doing).

Dan

As I read about Harding, he was personally corrupt BEFORE he came to office, and then actually kept his cupidity in check because of the office he held. Imagine that! I pefer to believe it, as unlikely as it may be. However, his "associates" got away with … whatever they could get away with.

There is more to dislike about Jackson than just the Natie American thing. I find him almost as repulsive personally as I do Wilson.

This whole thread is just a taunt at 'the rules' for people that can't keep it in the Fez. Same suspects who can't keep tongues tied in the obituary threads when folks they dislike croak off.

As a student of the War of The Rebellion, it's hard to ignore pro-Rebel Pierce, dithering Doughface Buchanan, and that last vestige of save-your-Confederate-money-sir coupled with the intellectual arrogance of the AMerican academic, Wilson.

My top three of Presidential woe.