You are totally wrong about George W. Bush, but then again, that is only your opinion.

I was more than delighted to see this blog on the Presidents. Let me first jump right in with my three picks for the three worst American presidents:
(1) Warren Harding;
(2) James Buchanan;
(3) Andrew Johnson.

Harding deserves the lowest ranking for his sheer unmitigated corruption and breach of trust. And, he deserves partial (but only partial) credit for the policies that contributed to the Great Depression. No other president ever dreamed of being 1/10 as corrupt as Harding. Buchanan and Johnson deserve low ratings for their mirror image failures of leadership surrounding secession, slavery the civil war and reconstruction. They compare horribly to the president how served between them in time, our greatest President, Abraham Lincoln.

Great presidents are usually revealed through great events and great opportunities in history. The two best presidents in my lifetime have been Ronald Reagan and Dwight Eisenhower. Though Eisenhower was a good president, he really had no historical events which gave him the opportunity to distinguish himself. Reagan did. Reagan also distinguished himself by being a conservative with a cheerful disposition. He could disagree with Democrats and still remain friends. As Charles Boutenay of NewsMax has correctly observed, it is the recent derisive, arrogant and condescending tone of the Republicans that not only distinguishes them from the great leadership but also clearly led to their sound demise (at least for now). I appreciate The Shadow’s commencement of this topic but offer a different view on some of his selections. LBJ most certainly had his warts, which included the Vietnam War. However, it is not entirely fair to lay all of the Vietnam debacle at the feet of LBJ since this was a war that had been escalated by the three consecutive presidents that preceded him, including the beloved Harry Truman. LBJ deserves much credit for demonstrating his legislative genius in shepherding the Civil Rights Act through Congress while at the same time working in an effective tandem with Dr. Martin Luther King to achieve these goals. LBJ understood that Dr. King could provide the populare, grassroots sentiment to support the Civil Rights Act and LBJ had the legislative prowess to make it happen in the halls of Congress. And, when strength of leadership was needed from the White House to discipline recalcitrant Southern Governors who would have allowed the Civil Rights marchers to be savaged by reckless groups, LBJ did all he could (and was largely effective) in stopping this from happening. I will have to agree, even though I am a lifelong conservative (who does not call himself a Republican) that George W. Bush has been a rank failure. When AJC Editorialist Cynthia Tucker long ago stated that George Bush was producing a presidency with the mediocrity of a President Chester Arthur, she probably was extending a wholly underserved insult to the Arthur family. Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. were, at best, very mediocre presidents. I would agree that Bush will probably be in the bottom 10 of all presidents but perhaps not one of the three worst. That brings us to Shadow’s selection of Jimmy Carter. Having recently upbraided Jeff, I feel obligated to say something kind about President Carter or nothing at all. I have long believed that Jimmy Carter is a highly underrated president. Yes, he suffered through economic malaise, a hostage crisis and a failure to delegate, but he did do the one critical thing that was required for America in 1977: he restored the world’s respect for the honor and dignity of the White House. Being the generation affected by long gas lines and double digit inflation, we naturally concern ourselves primarily with those short term economic woes. History, however, will take a larger view and see the very important value of Carter’s almost immediate restoration of America’s dignity. As deToqueville said while visiting and writing about the fledging America republic: “America is great because she is good. When she ceases to be good she shall no longer be greater.” Carter restored our image to world of basic American decency. We are a great country; we largely show kindness to the world; Carter reinstated that image. And, when he left the White House and since then he has essentially been a good role model. He has had his share of “issues” (even recently with foreign policy) but history will move him up the food chain. The Wedge brings an interesting point to the discussion by mentioning U.S. Grant and Franklin Pierce. During much of the early 19th Century America was saddled with a long line of disturbingly mediocre presidents. While Franklin Pierce has regularly taking a pounding I am not so sure I agree since he appears as insignificant and unnotable more than anything else. Grant’s administration was very corrupt but not Grant--- but his corrupt underlings certainly were.

Who are the most overrated and underrated presidents? First, it cannot fairly be debated that the two greatest presidents were Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. Any of you bloggers enjoying presidential history should spend time at the little White House in Warm Springs, including a trip to the top of Pine Mountain at Dowdell Knob, a spot where Franklin regularly meditated and cogitated including the morning of the day he died, April 12, 1945. I think the two most underrated presidents are Teddy Roosevelt and Harry Truman. I think TR should be number 3 and not number 6 or 7. I think Truman showed spectacular greatness in even the very moment which led to his unpopularity in 1952 which was the wise removal of General Douglas McArthur. Though it was the right thing and Truman knew it would be unpopular and although it led to his decline in popularity prohibiting his reelection, he knew it was what he had to do. He was a great one. The two most overrated presidents are Thomas Jefferson and Woodrow Wilson. How Jefferson could pen the natural rights clause of the Declaration of Independence and own 250 slaves has always perplexed me. A fourth grader put it thusly: “If George Washington was such a good president how could he own slaves?” Jefferson was a hypocrite, a philanderer, a pleasurist, a stark segregationist and despite having 250 slaves he still died bankrupt. How in the world can historians rank him in the top 10 much less Number 3 and much less on Mount Rushmore? Woodrow Wilson is another piece of work for whom I have little respect. Prior to becoming Governor of New Jersey and basking in the glow of academia, South Carolina born Woodrow Wilson was not the least bit shy about authoring numerous articles extolling the genetic inferiority of Eastern European immigrants who came through Ellis Island in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. He was an unabashed bigot whose only real claim to fame was that he was able to successfully waffle around World War I and preside over a successful conclusion to the war. Wilson also demonstrated highly destructive stubbornness which rendered his League of Nations concept politically futile. Arguably, his wife Edith was a better president than he was.

Hey, Sniffles - - - let’s start a new discussion, and I would start by asking you, do you consider Lynn Westmoreland to be one of the greatest members of Congress of all time?

Johnson: Did more for Blacks than anyone else.
Compare to Nixon--the hypocrite!

You got the wrong Bush!

Carter: you guys want a Christian in there, got one--but he was the wrong party!
Want a spendthrift? Try Reagan! Sir dummy!

at this point. Anyone with any sense of History would know this.

1. George W. Bush (seriously damaged the welfare and standing of the United States)
2. James Buchanan (set America on the path to civil war)
3. Warren Harding (policies resulted in the 1929 Stock Market Crash)