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The Real Worst President
- Filed under: International, Presidential
- Date: Apr 16,2008
I saw a recent survey of historians that found that over 98% of the 109 "professionals" who were interviewed stated that the Bush Administration was a failure. There will be ample time in the future to discuss this, but I don't know how conclusions can be made already. Sure, I have been disappointed by many facets of his two terms. But I don't think history will judge him as harshly as they do now.
(What makes someone a historian? I know history pretty well and discuss it quite frequently. I am going to start referring to myself as a historian.)
The reason I bring up the above is because the actual worst president, Jimmy Carter, is back in the news. I am saddened he did not get a Supreme Court appointment because I am sure he would have botched it and appointed someone who turned out conservative. Carter will be the worst president of my lifetime, no matter how long or short I live. There are too many dark moments from January 20, 1977 to January 20, 1981 to relive in this post, and I only have limited space. Fortunately, I was just a little guy back then and was oblivious to Carter's attempts to ruin my future. I was more interested in blinking lights, ducks, and telling my mom I wanted to grow up to either be a baker or a pig (this is true). Our 39th Commander in Chief was a disaster enabled by President Ford's "Poland" gaffe in their 1976 debate in San Francisco. Had Ford not made that mistake, he probably would have won his own term and Carter would be a footnote in our nation's past and I would be on a different topic for today.
Other than raking it in through his book sales, things haven't been much better for the Georgian since he was humiliated in November 1980, though to his credit he has hammered a few nails with Habitat for Humanity. Sorry, let me skip ahead to the current time. Carter is currently over in the Middle East meeting with Hamas. Hamas wants to destroy the state of Israel and kill the Jews who live there. They are pretty clear about that. Yesterday, he met with and hugged a senior Hamas official. Later, he placed a wreath on Yasser Arafat's grave. According to Powerline, one of Carter's hosts said that Arafat's resting place is only temporary – they hope to move him to Jerusalem. "I'm not a negotiator. I'm just trying to understand different opinions and provide communication between people," Carter said. He also said Arafat had a "historic role in serving his people's cause," and the former PLO chairman was a "dear friend." Both Carter's actions and his comments are disgraceful. He appears determined to do everything possible to legitimize Palestinian terrorism.
Maybe this is one reason why Carter seems to be supporting Obama, since Obama is so eager to meet with Iran. Carter will probably request to go along on the potential trip.
One last note. Carter tried to diffuse some of the controversy by saying he was going as a representative of his Carter Center, not as an ex-president. I think that as an ex-president, when you go on a foreign trip like this, no matter what you say, you are viewed as an ex-president. Carter has every right to go; he is a private citizen these days, but it doesn't make it acceptable. If he wants to stir up headlines, he should just do it from here. He has done enough of that in recent years without traveling to places like Syria to meet with the exiled leader of Hamas (this will take place Friday).
Posted by The Point historian, Ben Keeler. Black and white photo used in remembrance of the malaise experienced by the United States during Carter's term.
24 Responses for "The Real Worst President"
Before anyone here goes off on Bush for holding hands with the Saudis and comparing that to the Carter hug, it's a different story. Holding hands amongst men in the Middle East is common, a cultural norm. Hugging over there is not a practice reserved for mere friendship or on the same plane as hand-holding.
Ben,
You are correct that Carter did go there as a private citizen: the Israeli government refused to provide security for him.
Ben, as a historian, do you view the Bush presidency as an overall success or failure?
Without much time to breakdown Bush v. Carter, I will use a fair measure: who has more unncessary blood on their hands?
Bush: 4000+ americans from unnecessary war, 100,000+ Iraqis from unnecessary war, and the untold number of future murders spawned from his destruction of American goodwill after 9/11.
Carter: ????….but he did wear a sweater and tell people to conserve…..I could see Ben's point.
Carter beat Ford because Ford pardoned the criminal Nixon before he was charged. Part of the resignation deal and all.
Bush, the Younger, has proven to be a more destructive terrorist than Arafat ever was….Chuck supplied the numbers.
Refusing to meet with enemies when you are the biggest, strongest kid on the block is dysfunctional in every way. We met often with the Soviets….and they didn't have home made, jerryrigged rockets pointed at us either.
Carter dealt with tough times. He has proven his greatness since he left office. He actually was too good of a man to be president.
Finally, Carter is quite correct, apartheid is exactly what Israel is practicing on the Palestinians. Truth is hard to swallow.
The Bush presidency may be a terrible failure, but the potential ill effects of Bush's fiscal, economic, and foreign policy will not be fully realized until several decades. It will be interesting to see, in twenty or thirty years, if Iraq is a stable democracy? How Americans pay for the war and make up for the huge budget deficit? How or if the Social Security system is made solvent? How severe this recession will be? Will we ever catch Bin Laden? Will, when, and where America be attack again by terrorists? What the state of Al-Qaeda is in twenty years? These are a few of fundamental and important questions to effectively evaluation the Bush Presidency. Bush's decisions may not be as poor as we think, or his decisions may be disastrous. Before we say that the Bush Presidency is awful, lets observe what happens long-term in Iraq, with War on Terror, the economy, and with his domestic initatives (e.g. NCLB, etc.).
Some might argue Carter has all that blood on his hands from his ego-driven approach to foreign policy, Chuck.
Was there such a thing as Islamic terrorist attacks against the U.S. before Carter brought Sadat and Begin together? Were we the 'great satan' before Carter? Maybe the 1970s would have been a good time to mind our own business.
In any case, it's a sad reality that merely 30 years after he was forced from office in shame, Tricky Dick doesn't even make the short list for worst president.
I had great respect for the man when he told the American people that it is not possible for one country to continue to expect never ending and greater prosperity. It is an unstainable concept that is destructive to our planet and the have-nots in the world.
He thought he could come to Washington as an outsider and change the way Washington worked. They ground him up and spit him out. The legislation that he was able to pass damaged the economy. I couldnt tell you if it was because his ideas wouldnt work or if it was becasue half measures only made things worse.
He preached a kinder and gentler America. Meanwhile he supported some evil people Quietly funding and arming Pol Pot and his henchman is just one example of him saying one thing and doing another. Why did he play the same power politics just like all the other leaders? I assume because that is the way the world works and you may have to side with one evil to prevent a bigger one.
I find it ironic that he is so intent on lecturing others about doing the right thing yet he has the blood of millions on his hands from his actions in S.E. Asia as well as other places.
Why the man spends his time legitimizing evil manics like the goon of N. Korea, the South American wanna be king and the terrorists surrounding Isreal who will not stop until they acheive right of return is a mystery.
I thought he did a decent job.
wow, larry just educated me. apparently, middle eastern terrorism is the result of jimmy carter. i did not know that.
Does anyone remember 444 days we had an embassy run by a bunch of "angry" students that somehow one of them just may have become the chosen president of Iran? How about when a religious fanatic ran a revolution from France that overthrew the Shaw of Iran and this incompetant Georgian accepted that regime that litterally enslaved women? How about the botched rescue attempt that ol' peanut boy tried to do that if any Republican would have done any liberal would be screaming we violated their airspace and those soldiers deserved what they had coming? What I remember is when Ronny took over our Military might went from night to day and the kremlin collapsed. I will say this, would you rather have 4000 personel give all rather than the eventuallity of most likely ten times that doing something here?
When history finally and realistically grades the Bush Presidency’s they will be credited with the financial collapse of this country. Their vindictive self interest based on a personal vendetta to punish Cuba and Iraq for “Nationalizing” Bush family oil companies.(Zapata Oil, founded in 1953 by George H. W. Bush) Further to this Bush friends and family holdings were further compromised with the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq. Never could it be imagined that the US Military could be used as the personal henchman for two more selfish persons in total disregard of our Constitution.
Draw your own conclusions from the following.
The company traces its origins to Zapata Oil, founded in 1953 by George H. W. Bush, along with his business partners John Overbey, Hugh Liedtke, Bill Liedtke, and Thomas J. Devine. Bush and Thomas J. Devine were oil-wildcatting associates.[citation needed] Their joint activities culminated in the establishment of Zapata Oil.[1] The initial $1 million investment for Zapata was provided by the Liedtke brothers and their circle of investors and by Bush's father and uncle—Prescott Bush and Herbert Walker Bush—and his family circle of friends.
Hugh Liedtke was named president, Bush was vice president; Overbey soon left. In 1954, Zapata Off-Shore Company was formed as a subsidiary, with Bush as president. He raised some startup money from Eugene Meyer, publisher of the Washington Post, and his son-in-law, Phillip Graham.[2][3]
Zapata Off-Shore accepted an offer from an inventor, R. G. LeTourneau, for the development of a mobile but secure drilling rig. Zapata advanced him $400,000. The sum was to be refundable if the completed rig did not function. If it did function, LeTourneau would get an additional $550,000 together with 38,000 shares of Zapata Off-Shore common stock. Zapata split in 1959 into Zapata Petroleum headed by the Liedtkes and Zapata Off-Shore, headed by Bush, funded with $800,000.[4] Bush moved his offices and family that year from Midland, Texas to Houston. Zapata Petroleum merged in 1963 with South Penn Oil and other companies to become Pennzoil.
According to a biographer of George H. W. Bush, Zapata Off-Shore in the late 1950s and early 1960s concentrated its business in the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Central American coast.[5] The US government began to auction off mineral rights to these areas in 1954. Drilling contracts in 1958 with the seven large US oil producers included wells 40 miles north of Isabela, Cuba, near the island Cay Sal. Fidel Castro overthrew Cuba's Batista government in July 1959.
Zapata also won a contract with Kuwait. Bush was joined in Zapata by a fellow Yale Skull and Bones member, Robert Gow, in 1962. Zapata Off-Shore had four oil-drilling rigs operational by 1963: Scorpion (1956), Vinegaroon (1957), Sidewinder, and (in the Persian Gulf) Nola III.
By 1964, Zapata Off-Shore had a number of subsidiaries, including: Seacat-Zapata Offshore Company (Persian Gulf), Zapata de Mexico, Zapata International Corporation, Zapata Mining Corporation, Zavala Oil Company, Zapata Overseas Corporation, and a 41% share of Amata Gas Corporation.
In 1960, Jorge Diaz Serrano of Mexico was put in touch with Bush by Dresser. They created a new company, Perforaciones Marinas del Golfo, aka Permargo, in conjunction with Edwin Pauley of Pan American Petroleum, with whom Zapata had a previous offshore contract. The deal with Pemargo is not mentioned in Zapata's annual reports. A Bush spokesman in 1988 claimed the deal only lasted seven months, from March to September 1960. Zapata sold Nola I to Pemargo in 1964.
Bush ran for the US Senate in 1964 and lost; he continued as president of Zapata Off-Shore until 1966, when he sold his interest to his business partner, Robert Gow, and ran for the US Congress. William Stamps Farish III, age 28, joined the board in 1966.
Zapata's filing records with the US Securities and Exchange Commission are intact for the years 1955-1959, and again from 1967 onwards. However, records for the years 1960-1966 are missing. The commission's records officer stated that the records were inadvertently placed in a session file to be destroyed by a federal warehouse and that a total of 1,000 boxes were pulped in this procedure. The destruction of records occurred either in October 1983 (according to the records officer) or in 1981 shortly after Bush became Vice President of the United States (according to a record analyst with the commission, Wison Carpenter).
Good one, Chuck.
From all that that I have read here in this post I wonder if it was worth it to fight NAZIism and the Imperial Japanese during WWII? Just think of how many lives would have been saved if FDR would have minded his own buisness, accepted the casualties of Pearl Harbor and let the Jews be slaughtered thruout Europe. So what if the Third Reight was developing a weapon of mass destruction. Was it only a rumor that they were only 30 days from making a murderous device when we sent a suicide squad over to destroy their hard water facility? It was a bunch of balony, pure hogwash. So what if the AXIS powers divied up the United States of America by using the Mississippi River as the dividing line. I just wonder where liberalism would be at today if that happened. Not as prevalent that is for sure.
Laying a wreath at the Grandfather of Terrorism's grave was fucking appalling.
The ultimate slap in his face during his presidency was the release of the hostages in Iran on the day Reagan was sworn into office. So much for diplomacy.
And don't forget: Carter did not keep ONE campaign promises. He appointed a moron as chief of the Federal Reserve which resulted in double-digit inflation. He gave in to Wall Street to actually get a new guy appointed, who miraculously brought inflation into check in a short period of time. Long gas LINES at the pumps. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan.
AND…he invited smelly Willie Nelson to stay at the White House overnight. Willie actually climbed up on the roof and lit up what he called a :fat Austin torpedo" and proceeded to get stoned. According to Willie, "The roof of the White House is the safest place I can think of to smoke dope."
The only reason he was elected was because the country was ready for a total Washington outsider after the Nixon scandal. Wow…sounds like the Dems of today touting Obama.
JB cutting and pasting from Wikipedia? Seriously why don't you just quote the Weekly World News they check their facts about as much as wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapata_Corporation
Good catch Hollywood. Also good points Phantom.
THe Rev says "Finally, Carter is quite correct, apartheid is exactly what Israel is practicing on the Palestinians. Truth is hard to swallow."
Gee, I wonder why they do that? So they live and continue to exsist?
I understand all the Bush bashing. But defense of the Carter legacy is pretty unbelievable.
Had he been a conservative instead of a Republican LBJ he may have gone down as one of the greatest ever. Now he's in the middle of the pack because of saving the economy after 9/11 and judges. However, The GWOT and bringing the Middle East into the 21st Century through democracy will be Bush's long-term legacy – thanks to Gen. Petraeus.
In 50-100 years, GWB will be the 2nd most revered man in the Muslim world, behind Mohammed – the prophet, not the one that owns the 7/11 down the street.
I've been trying to think of something to add to the clever posts above…, and I think I found something. The fact of the matter is that President Bush has been in the White House for 8 years because he is a true American and "Patriot". He does not care whether you think he is a dictator or liberator. He cares about the future of America. It is ridiculous to judge his presidency good or bad at this point in time. The times have changed so greatly in the last eight years. The economy? If we go, so does everyone else. This is the greatest, strongest, bestest country in the world, and I'm guessing that none of you have lived outside of the US, and if you have, and you believe that there is a better way because of your experience in said country, then please do people who are proud of their country and everything about it a favor and move.
Carter was undoubtedly an ineffective president, but his shortcomings pale in comparison to George W. Bush. In literally every area of endeavor in which a President of the United States should have at least some level of competence, Bush has failed miserably: economy, healthcare, fiscal responsibility, national security, disaster recovery, foreign policy, military strategy, and on and on. He is an incurious, willfully ignorant, mendacious, stubborn man who will without a doubt be recorded as the worst president in US history, by the historians that count: the American people.
See I disagree with W Valenti, but at least he says Carter was ineffective. Even though Carter and Bush are of different parties, they could both be bad. Or I suppose they could both be good, but I doubt many would choose that option.
of course Carter was ineffective.
and the problem with Bush is that he is effective.
If George W. Bush was that ineffective as a president how come he won re-elaction? Oh, let me guess. The conspiracy freaks wil say "Because he stole the election, AGAIN!" Then if that is the case so did billy "bubba" clinton.
Ben says of Israel's apartheid practice….
"Gee, I wonder why they do that? So they live and continue to exsist?"
Would this principle also apply to South African whites and American Indian slaughtering whites?
To fail to recognize that Israeli leadership is punishing an entire people rather than only the violent extremists…..that's the problem.
Oh, and Phantom Blaster, W. was re-elected by wingnut freaks racing to the polls to prevent gays from marrying.
Really I believe he was re-elected because of what he had done, not the false platitudes that false prophets won't keep.
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