Best and Worst President

I'd agree w/ washpark, except for most underated I'd say Truman for making the decisions to drop the bomb ending WW II and stopping MacArthur from starting WW III.
 
Eisenhower was underrated. He pulled us out of Korea, avoided Nam (which he privately said was a war we could never win), pushed through the interstate highway act, and avoided any problems with the commies.
 
I'd say Nixon has gotta be near the bottom. Aside from the whole disgracing the office with Watergate thing, there was the expansion of the Vietnam war into Cambodia and a pretty big expansion of medicare which is now bankrupting our nation.
 
Best: Lincoln, Civil War much? Teddy and FDR are both up there. Tho you can't really go wrong with any of the Rushmore presidents.

Worst: Bush, not even Harding or Buchanon ****** us as much.

Nixon falls in the bottom half of the list, but looks like ******* George Washington next to Bush.
Wilson was a racist plain and simple, so hes not top 10. The Reagan myth is still going strong it seems.
 
I think a pretty good argument can be made that Reagan is up there w/ the worst presidents. S&L, Iran/Contra, Ollie North, trickle down economic theory, laissez faire attitude towards foreign atrocities, war on drugs.
 
Good post, LL. IMO, W would have to nuke an American city to truly be #43. As it stands now, there are 10-15 guys for whom a strong case could be made for being worse than W, though only Carter among the post-WWII presidents is in that group. LBJ had the CRA, VRA, EOA, Medicare/Medicaid. W has Part D.
 
Best: FDR for the reasons LL expressed

Worst: FDR for his court packing, Keynesianism, ignoring the customary two term limitation, governmental expansionism and more.
 
This is really such a subjective list as what would qualify a president to be 'best' or 'worst' And a great deal also depends on your policital persuasion as to what is a positive or a negative. For instance, W has done tons of crappy stuff. I will defend his Supreme Court nominations as being not only good, but the lasting effect of his presidency. At this point in time that is of course very debatable. I think the appointments will help overturn Roe v. Wade. I think that is a positive. Many will see that as a negative.

This is why I think FDR is so popular in the best and worst categories. I think Social Security is horrible. And for all his domestic spending (which I am not saying I am opposed to), there is only one person that got the US out of the economic woes of the 30's. ADOLF HITLER. (well, technically it was WWII, but I would give Hitler more credit for that than FDR.
 
Best - Jackson, Washington, Monroe and Reagan

Worst - Lincoln who spent four years restricting the Bill of Rights in the US (North) and waging a War of Agression on an independent and soverign nation.
 
Best: FDR, Washington
Worst: several choices, depending on criteria-Filmore, Buchannon, Nixon, but my personal choice, Hoover (did nothing after the depression but make Pollyannaish statements, FDR did something).
 
Best: FDR, Reagan, LIncoln

Worst: Buchanan, Hoover, Bush II

President for which I have mixed feelings: LBJ -- courageous in getting the Civil Rights Act passed, but Viet Nam will forever be his real legacy.
 
Love these discussions – here’s my list. Going from top of the head here, so I’ll probably look back and maybe have to make some adjustments.

Best:
• GW – the founding father who led the Revolution and kept a fragile country together during establishment of the Constitution and then gracefully handed it over to a successor.
• Abe – I could put him number one based on at that time he was basically single-handedly holding the country together without the benefit of the genius of other founding fathers. I wish he’d been around for Reconstruction – we may not have needed a 1960’s civil rights movement.
• TR – bigger than life, began the establishment of the US as a world power. Hell, the badass finished a campaign speech after being shot in the chest.
• FDR – artfully led the nation out of the depression and through WWII.
• Reagan – rebuilt the military, won the cold war without firing a shot by outspending the Russians, rallied the US economy after the disaster that was the 70’s
• Truman – had the guts to drop the bomb and save $1M+ casualties (including my Grandfather – US Marine) that would have resulted from an invasion of Japan.

Worst
• LBJ – his power over the legislature enabled him to push through more of his own policies than any other president, unfortunately they mostly sucked. Great Society firmly established a welfare state. Micro-managed the Vietnam war and left a big mess for his successor to clean up.
• Carter – energy “crisis”, iran hostage cluster, retarded Olympic boycott, horrible economy… I liked his brother better.
• Eisenhower – did less with most opportunity: roaring economy and optimism following WWII. Asleep at the watch as civil rights issues festered. I wonder how the sixties would have been different if we had a Mt Rushmore type in this slot.
• My memory on others not quite as good, but you can include all the post Civil War presidents up until TR.
 
As a dark horse that doesn't get mentioned much, James Polk has to get some sort of "best of" credit.

He essentially made a bunch of campaign promises and followed through on every one.

(1) Manifest Destiny
(a) Mexican-American War, Guadaloupe Hidalgo
(b) Oregon Territory
(c) Texas

(2) Independent Treasury

(3) Free trade through reduced tariffs.

Served one term. Got them all done. Didn't bother to run again.
 
See, and I would place Truman near the bottom. He sacrificed the lives of innocent Japanese in order to save American military lives. I don't think that was a positive thing. I also don't think it positive that in the history of the world the US has been the only country willing to use the BOMB.

I also understand the comments on Lincoln. I don't think he was particularly positive, and I don't think it was particularly good for him to attack the CSA. There was nothing civil about the 'civil war' How can you have a civil war between two soveriegn nations? I also believe that Lincoln (and really those who constructed Rconstruction), did more of lasting negative effect than positive. The US government caused the South to truly resent African Americans, and lied to African Americans. They never got their 40 acres and a mule.
 
if you love to hate gw bush's war leadership, then you can really sink your teeth into wilson. he sent some 100k american political opponents to jail. see sedition act of 1918.

the wilsonians who were out of work during the 1920s, found govt jobs again under fdr. the blue eagle of the nra was the american version of the swaztika.

hook'em
 
I mostly skimmed this thing but I find it absolutely absurd that I saw only one mention of Jimmy Carter as the worst. I am not saying unequivicably he was the worst, but ******* he is about as good a candidate for the worst modern day President I have ever seen.
 
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