Who is the worst president of all time?

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Troll

Troll

Ben Quayle says it's Obama.

Yes, the son of Dan Quayle. According to his new ad, Obama is the worst ever and he wants to be elected to Congress so he can "'knock the hell' out of Washington." What state, you might ask? Arizona of course.

So, is he right about Obama? Is it fair to call Obama the worst just 18 months into his first term?

As the son of one of the worst VPs of all time, does he have a right to start throwing around accusations like that? Have political hysterics reached a new low, or a new high, in this country?

Is high school history so poorly taught that no one remembers James Buchanan?
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

I honestly don't think he's done enough to rank him yet. He's still got half his term in office and potentially a second (The Republicans are going to need a MUCH stronger candidate than Palin if they want to beat him). Let's see if he REALLY fucks up before we start ranking him.

Besides, he's still better than Taft.
 
Krisken

Krisken

It's stupid political bullshit chat-hackery, really. He gives no compelling argument to support his claims, and suffers from "Well I just say so" syndrome. The guy is about as reliable as a neutral position as the Westboro church.
 
Math242

Math242

Dan Quayle's son...

LOL. it'll always crack me up that if you utterly fuck up in a civilization game, your ranking will be: Dan Quayle.

Relevant? not really.
 
W

Wasabi Poptart

People were calling President Obama the worse president in history before his butt cheeks warmed his chair in the oval office. Ben Quayle just wants to jump on the sensationalist bandwagon.
 
Piotyr

Piotyr

Warren Harding was likely the worst, as he ran a campaign based on nothing but popularity. Heck, his campaign slogan contained a word that wasn't actually a word. When in office, he did nothing productive and died prior to full term. His biggest claim to fame in the presidency was pushing a bill that deported illegal immigrants and being involved in a rampant bribery scandal.

Bush the younger is likely a close second or third worst, though.

Fortunately, several of the countries better presidents have also served in the last 30 years, including Reagan, Bush the elder and Clinton.
 
Krisken

Krisken

Rob King said:
I don't believe Bush was the worst, but he was pretty bad.

My favorite president is Calvin Coolidge, though.
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You know, in High School I did a report about him for U.S. History. I was surprised by how interesting he was, and how he was lucky to not run for a second term and avoided getting saddled with the Great Depression!
 
Dei

Dei

I think Reagan gets way way more credit than he is due just because he looks like a friendly old man.
 
W

Wasabi Poptart

I also think that because most people lived pretty comfortably in the 80's they tend to overlook the not so great things about his presidency.
 
Covar

Covar

Well Reagan probably wouldn't have been as widely regarded as highly as he is if he didn't have Carter preceding him.
 
Rob King

Rob King

Krisken;426776][QUOTE=Rob King said:
I don't believe Bush was the worst, but he was pretty bad.

My favorite president is Calvin Coolidge, though.
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You know, in High School I did a report about him for U.S. History. I was surprised by how interesting he was, and how he was lucky to not run for a second term and avoided getting saddled with the Great Depression![/QUOTE]

I like him because he's an interesting character, he didn't really fuck anything up, and because Americans think I know a lot about American history when I make reference to a president that they don't know much about :p
 
C

Chazwozel

Covar said:
Well Reagan probably wouldn't have been as widely regarded as highly as he is if he didn't have Carter preceding him.
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Carter's presidency ran into a recession era; it didn't cause it. You can thank Mr. Nixon's and Mr. Ford's dumbass administrations for that. Regan should have thanked a lot of what his presidency was credited for to Carter's administration who got the wheels rolling out of the recession. Actually, it looks like history does repeat itself. Regan-nomics led into a recession in the early 90's as well. When big Bill got into office things magically fixed themselves economically. Funny how another recession hit a year after W took office, and followed him on his way out in 2008. It seems a consistent pattern that hard republican economics usher in recessions and the democrats seem to bail things out.

I will agree that Carter flubbed the Iran hostage situation big time. There are things that should be negotiated on and there are other things that you have to nut up and shut up.
 
Piotyr

Piotyr

Reagan gets a lot of credit because of how poorly the country was handled under Carter. He escalated the Cold War (Star Wars) during the first half of his presidency and had it practically completely dissolved due to talks with Gorbachev by the end. He was the textbook definition of a popular figurehead, and he did as much with it as could be expected, using his popularity and affable personality to defuse tense situations with the USSR and Eastern Europe. Inflation and unemployment dropped considerably during his term, which he tends to get a lot of credit for with his Reaganomics (a big Republican economics push), and despite being likely overrated for it by many Republicans, it still attributed somewhat to the economy's growth during that period.

People who think that Reagan was a bad president need to take a closer look at the black hole that was the Presidency between, say, Andrew Jackson and Theodore Roosevelt, with the exception of Lincoln in the middle there (and probably Polk too). Reagan was amazing compared to those nitwits.
 
Troll

Troll

Piotyr said:
People who think that Reagan was a bad president need to take a closer look at the black hole that was the Presidency between, say, Andrew Jackson and Theodore Roosevelt, with the exception of Lincoln in the middle there (and probably Polk too). Reagan was amazing compared to those nitwits.
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They weren't bad, they just weren't imperial presidents. The office was completely different before Roosevelt. Some could argue that Roosevelt marks the beginnning of too much power for the executive branch, whereas most of his predecessors believed they were upholding the Founding Father's vision of what a president should be.

Also, no way in hell is Bush Sr. one of the best presidents. He's firmly in the middle.

Talking about best and worst presidents always amazes me with how little some people know about their own country's history (present company excluded, I'm talking about the general public).
 
C

Chazwozel

Piotyr said:
Reagan gets a lot of credit because of how poorly the country was handled under Carter. He escalated the Cold War (Star Wars) during the first half of his presidency and had it practically completely dissolved due to talks with Gorbachev by the end. He was the textbook definition of a popular figurehead, and he did as much with it as could be expected, using his popularity and affable personality to defuse tense situations with the USSR and Eastern Europe. Inflation and unemployment dropped considerably during his term, which he tends to get a lot of credit for with his Reaganomics (a big Republican economics push), and despite being likely overrated for it by many Republicans, it still attributed somewhat to the economy's growth during that period.

People who think that Reagan was a bad president need to take a closer look at the black hole that was the Presidency between, say, Andrew Jackson and Theodore Roosevelt, with the exception of Lincoln in the middle there (and probably Polk too). Reagan was amazing compared to those nitwits.
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While I don't think that Reagan was a horrible president at all, I would agree that he is completely overrated (as you put it)
 
Piotyr

Piotyr

Troll said:
Also, no way in hell is Bush Sr. one of the best presidents. He's firmly in the middle.
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I guess it depends on how much credit you give him for foreign policy advancement in the Eastern Bloc nations, the destruction of the Berlin Wall, and also how well liked the Desert Storm campaign was in 1991 when Iraq invaded Kuwait.

That's not to say Clinton wasn't better, of course, but a lot of good things happened during HW Bush's tenure.
 
C

Chazwozel

"Troll said:
Piotyr said:
People who think that Reagan was a bad president need to take a closer look at the black hole that was the Presidency between, say, Andrew Jackson and Theodore Roosevelt, with the exception of Lincoln in the middle there (and probably Polk too). Reagan was amazing compared to those nitwits.
Click to expand...
They weren't bad, they just weren't imperial presidents. The office was completely different before Roosevelt. Some could argue that Roosevelt marks the beginnning of too much power for the executive branch, whereas most of his predecessors believed they were upholding the Founding Father's vision of what a president should be.

Also, no way in hell is Bush Sr. one of the best presidents. He's firmly in the middle.

Talking about best and worst presidents always amazes me with how little some people know about their own country's history (present company excluded, I'm talking about the general public).
Click to expand...

Bush Sr was a mediocre president and was lucky that the Gulf War didn't flub enough to be dubbed by the media and general populace as Jimmy Carter II. I'm not saying Jimmy Carter was a grand president, but he had a lot more on his plate during his administration due to Nixon's fuck ups than a president had seen in a long time. As far as worst presidents go, I'd have to go with Nixon being the worst in modern times followed by W.

---------- Post added at 02:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:24 PM ----------
Piotyr;426822][QUOTE=Troll said:
Also, no way in hell is Bush Sr. one of the best presidents. He's firmly in the middle.
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I guess it depends on how much credit you give him for foreign policy advancement in the Eastern Bloc nations, the destruction of the Berlin Wall, and also how well liked the Desert Storm campaign was in 1991 when Iraq invaded Kuwait.

That's not to say Clinton wasn't better, of course, but a lot of good things happened during HW Bush's tenure.[/QUOTE]

HW had nothing to do with the Berlin Wall.
 
sixpackshaker

sixpackshaker

Carter is going to be looked upon much more favorably in 30 years. He fought Nixon/Ford's screwed up economic policies, pushed America towards energy independence/clean environment, and whipped the Pentagon/Defense Contractors into shape after we lost in Vietnam.

Carter got blindsided by Islamic Fundamentalism, Nixon's Recession, Volker, and OPEC.

Even a lot of Carter's issues date back to Ike's Empire-building. Iran and Central America was screwed royally by the Eisenhower administration.
 
Troll

Troll

As my dad is fond of saying: "Carter is one of the nicest guys on the planet, but he was a bad president." I don't necessarily agree with it, but I think it's how a lot of people feel.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

Troll said:
As my dad is fond of saying: "Carter is one of the nicest guys on the planet, but he was a bad president." I don't necessarily agree with it, but I think it's how a lot of people feel.
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It really does say a lot that Carter is probably going to be remembered better for what he did after he was president than what he did as one. That's not necessarily a bad thing though.
 
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