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I would have to go with Lincoln or FDR. They both are so overrated it is a joke. FDR did nothing but try to turn our nation into a socialist movement.
Lincoln gets all of this fame for ending slavery, where in reality he really did not do much.
"Though Abraham Lincoln has been one of the people identified as most responsible for the abolition of slavery, he maintained that the Constitution prohibited the federal government from abolishing slavery in states where it already existed. "
George W. Bush
Franklin Pierce. He was like Jimmy Carter, except an even bigger wuss AND a bigot to boot. His administration is one of the main reasons that we had to have a Civil War.
Hmmm…I would have to say, probably Wilson, FDR or Bush Jr. FDR because he sold out our country to the UN and started us down the path of socialism, Wilson because he instituted the Federal Reserve and made us completely dependent economically on a foreign bank, and Bush because he used propaganda to start two unneeded wars. Of course, Obama will probably one day qualify, but I won't list him because he hasn't even been President yet.
Never heard of him. What he do wrong?
Hey!. That was my pick!
In order: Pierce, Johnson, Jackson, Bush (W). Nixon.
The Johnson would be Andrew (post-Lincoln). Though LBJ would certainly qualify as part of the lower end of the spectrum. I suppose Buchanan would beat him out for this list.
Homestead and Morrill college land grants were both during his administration. National banking made a comeback (though the Austrians/Rothbardians may find this repugnant). Thanksgiving became an institution. At least two or three titanic speeches.
Historians have been routinely putting Lincoln on the absolute top of the list for decades (if not #1, then right behind Washington). If he is to be considered as "overrated", then the likelihood of him being on the BOTTOM of the list is extraordinarily low.
A considered view of FDR puts him somewhere in the middle. He did screw up quite a bit on economics and authoritarianism (trying to pack the Court for example). But he also had a masterful job on foreign policy and when he wasn't being a total screwball and changing his mind on economic policies every 5 minutes, there's some good there even (various free and open trade arrangements for example).
Nixon after Bush? Wow. He was that bad?
Nixon was a disaster man.
Nixon actually did some stuff in foreign policy that was sort of half-way smart. Bush didn't. So putting Bush 4th worst and Nixon 5th seems about right to me.
Jimmy (the peanut farmer) Carter at this point in time comes in at No.1 in my book, but he will likely be replaced by Barack Hussein Obama aka "The Great Apologizer" if he is allowed to continue his headlong hell-bent-for-leather plunge of this country into his form of SocioFascism.
Next in line is that infamous idiotic Texan Lyndon Banes Johnson for being directly responsible for the deaths of over 50,000 American fighting men.
After him comes FDR for his contribution to our involvement in WW2 and the idea of that most impotent of organizations called The United Nations.
At the bottom of the barrel, strictly because he ushered into American Politics the bane of us all to this day, namely the Progressive Movement, which in fact is nothing but socialism in disguise is none other than Woodrow Wilson. FYI – He was duped into signing the Federal Reserve Act by his Progressive cronies and which he later made the statement that was the only regret that he carried from his term as President.
There you have it . . .
My not-so-humble opinion.
I would have to say either Franklin Pierce or Jimmy Carter. They both are responsible terrible things.
Pierce did nothing to stop the southern states from seceding. By doing this he essentially let the civil war start.
Carter withdrew support for the Shah of Iran. This caused the Shah to be overthrown by radical islamists who are currently fighting us. Carter is responsible for the start of terrorism in the middle-east.
Terrorism started well before Carter was in office. The PLO was at the Munich games for example. The late 60s and early 70s saw a massive increase in airline hijackings, directly attributed to terrorism. The Muslim Brotherhood, considered the godfather of radical Islam, started back in the 50s. Much as Carter wasn't a great President, in my book even a very mediocre one, he does not get any historical credit for "the start of terrorism in the Middle East".
He was the start of world-wide radical islam. It always was around, but one the Ayatollah took over Iran, that country became the mothership of terrorism where all the radical Islamists come together.
Iran arms and finances any muslim terrorist organization againt Israel. Carter could have deterred this, but instead he let his good boy ideas get the best of him.
PLO et al existed and were highly successful at staging international acts of terrorism long before Carter. As I said, the plane hijackings in the late 60s and 70s, and Munich was in 1972.
If you are going to blame someone for their failures as a President, at least give them the credit for something they actually failed on.
He failed to militarily act on the Iranian hostage situation soon enough, and when it did it was a complete failure. The entire military including my uncle who was in the military during Carter's presidency felt he was inept as a commander and chief. Carter thought the military was useless.
And the PLO is an organization that was scattered throughout the middle east. Iran became a home base for all anti-american and anti-israel terrorist organizations. Prior to this, the amount of radical islamist attacks were not so numerous.
Once the Ayatollah took over Iran, it became the most feared terrorist state in the world aside from Saddam's Iraq.
So in that sense Carter failed to stop a group of radicals from taking over a western ally. He failed on this, not to mention his domestic policies.
The high point for airplane hijackings was 1969. And what was Munich, a pitiful disorganized attack outside of the Middle East? The PLO had a precursor, the Muslim Brotherhood, which was not "scattered throughout the Middle East." Both were centered in Egypt and later Lebanon. Not Iran. They were highly organised and international even back then.
I'm not sure what part of "chronology" you don't understand, but you might want to check the dates on the history of Islamic terrorism before attempting to blame it on the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. That was probably the high point prior to 9-11. But it's not like that was the starting point.
Overrated yes, but to place either of these men at the bottom of this list is a little extreme. FDR in particular is a more divisive figure with Americans because of his slightly left-leaning views and for advancing the cause of socialism in America, but keep in mind that he governed during America’s lowest ever economic crisis, and there ideas were overwhelmingly popular at the time.
Worst 6 Presidents:
6) Herbert Hoover
Hoover worsened the Great Depression by hiking taxes and starting a trade war with other nations. His mid-road approach between government aid and individualism resulted in no major reforms needed to recover the economy. Also, he ordered an army to attack veterans who were demanding for their pension.
5) Lyndon Johnson
His failure of escalating Vietnam and refusing to withdraw. He poorly commanded the war, micromanaging it himself. His hyperinflationary policies to fund the war resulted in the bad economy in the late 1970's.
4) Andrew Johnson
He promised no mercy to confederacy while vice-president, but when he succeeded Lincoln, he was very lenient to high-ranking confederates. After the civil war, he vetoed every single bill which would give African Americans equal rights and supported state governments which condoned lynching and discrimination for the next 100 years.
3) Franklin Pierce
He was a slaveowner who later supported the confederacy during the civil war. He added several slave states to union which would later side with the confederacy.
2) Woodrow Wilson
An idealist who was completely out of touch with reality who reated one of the worst bureaucracies in all of world history, the Federal Reserve. Provoked an unnecessary entry into World War One which resulted in many negative consequences for our country.
1) James Buchanan
He called slavery an issue of little practical important, just shortly before the civil war erupted. As the southern slave states were seceding, he literally did nothing and anxiously waited for his term to end to hand over the greatest issue of American history to his successor.
Runner-Ups: Warren Harding, Ulysses Grant