Not the best of company - but where does this rank him? Behind Nixon, Carter, and ahead of everyone else?

Carter near the bottom of my list, LBJ is in the bottom 25%, Ford somewhat higher, Nixon near midfield.

Very Nice. You are worthy of ranking the presidents based on their accomplishments. Too many times we see rankings on here and people admit they know nothing about some of the teams they rank.

 

As far as the question goes, I'm thinking bottom 10 without doing too much research. The Iraqi War will be his legacy. I ask myself how much better off am I personally than I was eight years ago. I'm paying less taxes, that much I know.

 

Worst of all time seems like a stretch. Ford and Carter didn't do much in consecutive terms. Can't see how Bush is worse.

 

Buchanon wasn't much either.

Off the top of my head, I would proffer the Pierce, Grant, Hayes, and Hoover presidencies as among the worst ever. The Nixon-Ford-Carter string was quite uninspiring as well.

 

I also reject the claim that the economy has been struggling under the Bush presidency; it has been quite formidable in my opinion, though we are on our way (if not already) to a recession. I’m more concerned with the future economy when the mounting debt has to be paid.

 

Unfortunately for Bush, having the terrorist attacks of 9/11 placed on his lap was a burden no other President had faced. He initially handled it well and seemed to fulfill his promise to unite the country. However, the blunder of invading Iraq will forever haunt his legacy. No matter its eventual result, the invasion was a specter that crushed his credibility, loosened his power, and opened the flood gates of criticism on all of his policies and actions. Bush has also had a deaf ear for criticism and doesn’t seem to posses the tact needed to deal with many of the pressing issues of our time.

 

As Vice President, Dick Cheney was a Svengali (I read that word in a sports column today!) who wielded an inordinate amount of influence and encroaching power in all aspects of the administration. If you are going to rank Bush as among the worst Presidents, Dick Cheney must also be mentioned.

 

I personally wouldn’t consider him the worst President ever, and I personally won’t preface his name with “among the worst President’s ever.” Many other Presidents have enjoyed tenure in office without a September 11th. Although many other Presidents may have also handled it better (or worse) so I must factor that into my evaluation as well.

 

Grant was also a TERRIBLE president!

 

Also, on the 9/11 comment: Lincoln walked into a civil war. He had it pretty bad because of the lack of congressmen willing to compromise with the Confederate States...again and also because of the lack of intervention by Buchanon.

Where do you think he ranks as a president?

 

I honesly think he is one of the worst in American history. A struggling economy through nearly all of his presidency. A botched war on Terrorism. A war we didnt need in Iraq that has cost us thousands of innocent lives. A refusal to put a time table of removal of soldiers from Iraq. A presidency stained with conservative policy which oppresses civil liberties.

 

The president that follows him will be put in Coach G's shoes; having the follow a leader who left it in shambles.

 

You're pretty much wrong on all counts in my opinion. The economy has held up quite well during his term, particularly given the effects of 9-11 and Katrina. His tax policy was one of the reasons. The war on terrorism is in no way botched and actually is quite a success. The Iraq war I agree was certainly not needed but given the circumstances existing at the time I can understand why it happened. Monday morning quarterbacking is running rampant in this country. His refusal to put a time table on the removal of soldiers is absolutely the best policy. His presidency is in no way stained because of a conservative policy which oppresses civil liberties. This country is in no way in shambles.

 

That said, I would still rate him on the low end of the list.

I agree fully with your post. I did say that he "was one of the worst" which top 10 of 43 (42 actually, considering Cleveland was elected twice) would put him comfortably in the "one of"bracket.

 

Ford and Carter are good examples. We have really only had two presidents since Kennedy was assinated that I would give passing marks to - Reagan and Clinton - and they both of course had more than enough things that would keep them from being "great."

 

Please don't tell me you would give Kennedy passing marks? I agree with Clinton and Reagan getting passing marks but no way Kennedy.

Technically, Grover Cleveland is considered BOTH the 22nd and 24th President.

Bush's worst mistakes have been in failing to limit spending and the expansion of the federal government and failing to do anything meaningful to combat illegal immigration. Bush has been mediocre at best but his blunders pale in comparison to those who made my list.

 

I'm afraid we'll see (and feel) the full weight of his blunders when the results of Bush's fiscal mismanagement begin to bear down on us and our children in the coming years. The endorsement of tax cuts in the face of runaway government spending is indicative of someone who doesn't grasp the simple concept of balancing a checkbook.

GWB one of the worst ever and will go down that way. Put him near Carter.

I'm afraid we'll see (and feel) the full weight of his blunders when the results of Bush's fiscal mismanagement begin to bear down on us and our children in the coming years. The endorsement of tax cuts in the face of runaway government spending is indicative of someone who doesn't grasp the simple concept of balancing a checkbook.

I do fault Bush for not using his veto power more often to control spending, but to be fair all appropriations originate in the House and I have not noticed any attempt by Democrats to control spending. Will you give Pelosi and her pack of big spenders the credit that they deserve for "runaway government spending?" Does the Speaker understand the simple concept of balancing a checkbook?

I do fault Bush for not using his veto power more often to control spending, but to be fair all appropriations originate in the House and I have not noticed any attempt by Democrats to control spending. Will you give Pelosi and her pack of big spenders the credit that they deserve for "runaway government spending?" Does the Speaker understand the simple concept of balancing a checkbook?

 

 

The Democrats are certainly not clean here, but the discarding of PAYGO rules took place during Republican control of Congress. Consequently, the majority of the profligate spending (and debt increase) that has taken place on Bush's watch occurred when Republicans controlled Congress.

I am not saying that Bush is AS BAD as Nixon - but to say that he is no where near him is a gross understatement.

 

I find it interesting that you bring up Vietnam and the thousands of lives lost there - yet attempt to write off the War in Iraq as going ok - despite the fact that Iraqis have wanted us gone for a long time, the vast majority of Americans want their troops home, and oh, yeah, the fact that we should have never went there to begin with.

 

Bush has blood on his hands too.

Most wars involve casualties so you could say that any president who has been in office during a war has had "blood on his hands."

 

I had no problem with the fact that we fought the Vietnam War. It was a necessary war when viewed in the context of the Cold War. My problem is with the way that LBJ politicized the war and forfeited so many lives. Johnson lost the war by refusing to allow our troops to do whatever was necessary to win the war and minimize American casualties.

 

The way that we abandoned our allies and precipitated the slaughter of millions of our South Vietnamese allies and Cambodians is one of the darkest stains on our nation's history. Nixon was so eager to be president that he made a promise of "peace with honor" that he had no intention of keeping. Nixon knew that if he ended the war quickly, Democrats would bear the brunt of the responsibility for losing the war. LBJ played politics with the war and Nixon played politics with the peace. Both were terrible presidents, IMO.

 

As for Iraq, in my opinion the US is involved in a just war and one that is in our national interest. Our continued presence in Iraq is at the invitation of the democratically elected government of that nation.

 

Liberals lost the Vietnam War. If the Iraq War is lost it will have to be done on the watch of a Democratic president. Bush is no Harry Reid and I don't expect him to follow Reid's lead by surrendering to our enemies.

The Democrats are certainly not clean here, but the discarding of PAYGO rules took place during Republican control of Congress. Consequently, the majority of the profligate spending (and debt increase) that has taken place on Bush's watch occurred when Republicans controlled Congress.

Democrats are in charge, are they not? What have they done to restrict spending? Have they addressed the earmark problem as they promised to do?

 

Spending is a bipartisan problem and blaming one party for deficit spending makes no sense.

 

Incumbents of the minority party tends to favor spending cuts because pork barrel spending by the majority party does nothing to help their own reelection prospects. Once in power, the parties' roles reverse. Most incumbents, regardless of party affiliation, are eager to use taxpayers' money to buy votes.

 

Bush should have vetoed some spending bills that Republicans sent to him and he did not. I will not defend his actions in this area because there is no defense for them. As long as most voters are willing to believe that one party is responsible for all of this nation's woes, things will only get worse in Washington.

The one thing that amazes me about this thread is how certain people are of themselves. I will just say that I am not.

 

Most people who are presidential historians as their vocation and not just their avocation will agree with Hatz and LBBC that the measurement of a President's legacy does not occur until years and years after the Presidency. We have only in the last decade begun to measure the effects of Vietnam from a policy standpoint even if culturally it was known years ago.

 

FrontRowFan, you recklessly injected economic figures attributed to Bush in your Post #13 and then were exposed by Habib in post #15. I wonder if you would care to respond to that.

 

With regard to the refrain that GWB is engaging in reckless spending that will crush our grandchildren mantra that we have heard for many years, we heard this exact same thing when Reagan was engaging in SDI and other spending and simultaneously resisting revenue-raising measures during his term. While it certainly increased the national debt, we as a nation, and me as a granchild, are not really feeling crushing effects as predicted.

 

And I know that the educated among you here are not attributing energy cost spikes to GWB. We do not need to resurrect all of those threads, do we now???

 

George is not going to go down as a great president. He has engaged in some idiotic ventures. I continue to regret the enactment of the Patriot Act. I continue to regret the removal of ERISA standards from the 20 year T-Bill to the 10 year bond. He has also done some things that will stand true over time, namely the appointment of Roberts as Chief Justice. He has exposed, during his tenure, many things that have been broken for many years and perhaps took his Presidency to begin to rebuild, such as the lack of proper expenditure on national defense and the crater that is the national intelligence community. He has many legacies whose results may not be known for some time, such as No Child Left Behind.

 

All in all, this thread is probably about 20 years premature.

I had no problem with the fact that we fought the Vietnam War. It was a necessary war when viewed in the context of the Cold War. My problem is with the way that LBJ politicized the war and forfeited so many lives. Johnson lost the war by refusing to allow our troops to do whatever was necessary to win the war and minimize American casualties.

I really disagree with your point that the Vietnam was a "necessary" war. Vietnam was an ego war for LBJ just as Iraq was for Bush. Johnson wanted to be known as a "war" president, like Truman and Roosevelt, and contrived incidents in order to escalate our involvement in Vietnam.

Democrats are in charge, are they not? What have they done to restrict spending? Have they addressed the earmark problem as they promised to do?

 

Spending is a bipartisan problem and blaming one party for deficit spending makes no sense.

 

Incumbents of the minority party tends to favor spending cuts because pork barrel spending by the majority party does nothing to help their own reelection prospects. Once in power, the parties' roles reverse. Most incumbents, regardless of party affiliation, are eager to use taxpayers' money to buy votes.

 

Bush should have vetoed some spending bills that Republicans sent to him and he did not. I will not defend his actions in this area because there is no defense for them. As long as most voters are willing to believe that one party is responsible for all of this nation's woes, things will only get worse in Washington.

 

The national debt has increased by a whopping 58% ($3.33 trillion) during Bush's time in office. Most of that increase ($2.83 trillion) occurred when Republicans were in control of both Congress and the White House. Bush used his veto exactly one time (on a stem cell issue not directly related to general budget spending levels) while the Republican Congress ran up this bill. That is an increase in federal debt of nearly $10,000 for every man, woman, and child in the United States. Bush also happily signed the largest expansion of entitlement spending in decades, the Medicare Drug Benefit. In fact, the Bush White House consistently low-balled the anticipated cost of the program during the Congressional debate on its passage (originally estimating the program's ten-year cost at $400 billion, then admitting after approval that it would be closer to $1.2 trillion).

 

Bush's lack of spending discipline will cripple this country in the next few decades. You'll see.