Who WAS the Worst President ever?

[Steel 0]

It looks like 2 people misread the poll and thought it was asking for the best president ever and therefore chose Reagan. Because it hard to believe that somebody could be so out of touch with reality.

If I could make a wish, I think I'd pass.
Can't think of anything I need
No cigarettes, no sleep, no light, no sound.
Nothing to eat, no books to read.

[Nightingale 0]

why don't you tell us?

[Casurf1978 0]

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It looks like 2 people misread the poll and thought it was asking for the best president ever and therefore chose Reagan. Because it hard to believe that somebody could be so out of touch with reality.

Mustve been the same two who voted for FDR. Not picking on those two, but how could anyone think FDR was a bad Pres.

[tunaplanet 0]

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Not picking on those two, but how could anyone think FDR was a bad Pres.

After reading these forums for a while and seeing all of the extremist sheep we have I don't rule out anything anymore.

Forty-two

[PhillyKev 0]

The opinions about FDR durinng his presidency were bitterly divided, probably more so than any president since Lincoln.

Many thought that his New Deal policies were very socialistic and directly led to and are still responsible for massive federal beauracracy. Some also blame his policies for leading us into WWII, Japan attacked for a reason, that reason based on his policies in the Pacific. Many people also bitterly disliked him ignoring the tradition of 2 term limits on the presidency.

I didn't pick him, but I can see why some people would.

[lawrocket 3]

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Mustve been the same two who voted for FDR. Not picking on those two, but how could anyone think FDR was a bad Pres.

I do. How about his agricultural policy? The dust bowl? He was convinced that falling agricultural prices were a bad thing, and went for destruction of crops and livestock, as well as planning agricultural output to keep prices high. Yeah, that's good for everyone.

Mainly, I take a lot of issue with his takign the federal government to levels unpondered with his advocacy of the commerce clause. For the first few years of the New Deal, the Supreme Court routinely struck down the legislation on the grounds that it exceeded federal authority. FDR thought he'd have to curtail that authority of the Supreme Court (imagine GWB or Bill Clinton trying that?)

By 1936, the CIO was pumping large amounts of money into FDR's campaigns (around a million dollars in 1936). Still, he took 46 states in the election. Pretty much a mandate. In doing so, individualism faltered, and the new ideal of federal government being responsible for people occurred.

Of course, his policies were consistently ruled as unconstitutional, so he sent a plan in abotu 1937 to Congress to "reorganize" the courts. He promoted a retirement age for judges, and if they didn't retire, he'd add up to six new Justices. Setting the model for presidential politics, he said it was for one reason, but for another altogether. It didn't work at all.

By 36 and 37, the court was still overturning laws on agricultoral controls as violating federalism.

In 1937, Justice Robert Owens moved over to the FDR camp. It is widely speculated that he switched over to prevent FDR from mingling with the historical court set-up. Also, in 1937, Justice Van Devanter retired and was replaced by a liberal - Hugo Black.

So, FDR maganed to change the entire backdrop of Constitutional law. State's rights were a thing of the past (part good, part bad). Freedom to contract was now seriously limited. People looked to the gubment rather than themselves for help.

Yeah, I think he did a lot of bad, though I sure as hell respect that he was able to change an entire system.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[gemini 0]

The change in policy allowing the sale of precision instruments and parts that enabled China to develop pin-point accuracy for their new ballistic missles will be extremely costly to the US. Hey, but it helped elect a few Democrats so what's the big deal?

Blue skies,

Jim

[TheAnvil 0]

Agreed on that point dude.

I thing AggieDave had a great point about Harrison and somebody else metioned Grant - both were definitely up there in the worst part. Perhaps I should have had more options.

I'm surprised anyone voted for El Jefe Clintonista or GWB. FDR I can understand in the abstract - the VERY abstract. Reagan I can't really understand at all. The 'Go to HELL Anvil!' option I suspected would receive far more responses. Interesting.

Vinny the Anvil
Post Traumatic Didn't Make The Lakers Syndrome is REAL
JACKASS POWER!!!!!!

[billvon 3,120]

> Clinton is going to win this one hands down...and rightfully so.

What do you know? GWB is in the lead. Looks like some people are reading sources other than FOX and DZ.com before making up their minds. Who woulda thunk it?

[TypicalFish 0]

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The change in policy allowing the sale of precision instruments and parts that enabled China to develop pin-point accuracy for their new ballistic missles will be extremely costly to the US. Hey, but it helped elect a few Democrats so what's the big deal?

Not defending the transaction, but it also occurred to me that it doesn't really matter if a nuke is a few miles off target... I don't think the pinpoint accuracy made it any worse...

"I gargle no man's balls..." ussfpa on SOCNET

[gemini 0]

That logic doesn't make any sense Bill. Perhaps the dz.com population is more liberal than the general population. It makes as much sense as your reply.

Blue skies,

Jim

[gemini 0]

Hope we never have to find out. Battlefield nukes are not the megawhoppers you are talking about. I have a picture of a special forces trooper carrying one under canopy. It is hanging below his crotch. The mission was for him to plant the damn thing, set the timer and leave the area. What he didn't know was that it could be remotely detonated from the highest HQ in the AOO at any time.

When the guy with the codes disappeared outside of Saigon for a few days you should have seen the panic!

{Yes I know this doesn't have anything to do with precision!}

Blue skies,

Jim

[TypicalFish 0]

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It is hanging below his crotch.

YIKES.

"I gargle no man's balls..." ussfpa on SOCNET

[freeflydrew 0]

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That logic doesn't make any sense Bill. Perhaps the dz.com population is more liberal than the general population. It makes as much sense as your reply.

Hey Jim,
I think Bill's logic was that, to generalize, most of the news from Fox, and most of the participants on this thread of dz.com are very Right-wing, Republican, and that for GWB to have the number of votes that he has (in this poll), people must be looking at other sources to form an opinion.

Hope everything is going well in Spaceland.
-Drew

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

Stupid poll. How can it possibly be valid without providing for EVERY president we've had?

Besides, this kind of value judgment poll baits people into deciding an "overall" good or bad factor that is just nonsensical and arbitrary.

-

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[billvon 3,120]

>most of the participants on this thread of dz.com are very Right-wing,
> Republican, and that for GWB to have the number of votes that he has
>(in this poll), people must be looking at other sources to form an opinion.

Another possibility is just that the most outspoken participants in this thread are right-wingers, whereas most people on this board are farily anti-Bush. If the population of this board mirrors the population at large, that isn't much of a stretch - Bush currently has a 42% approval rating (per pollingreport.com.)

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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It looks like 2 people misread the poll and thought it was asking for the best president ever and therefore chose Reagan. Because it hard to believe that somebody could be so out of touch with reality.

Mustve been the same two who voted for FDR. Not picking on those two, but how could anyone think FDR was a bad Pres.

I wouldn't care if everything else had gone well during his presidency (which it didn't): the fact that he took a huge shit on the Constitution and had people of Japanese descent (even with American citizenship) imprisoned without cause or charge, (while they lost their homes, businesses, lives) means that I hope he is rotting in the deepest recess of hell in eternal pain. That course of action can never be forgiven.

I wonder if liberals forgive him this abomination even as they bitch and moan about suspected islamic terrorists being held in Guantanamo...

Yeah, probably.

-

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[kelpdiver 2]

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Not defending the transaction, but it also occurred to me that it doesn't really matter if a nuke is a few miles off target... I don't think the pinpoint accuracy made it any worse...

An accurate nuke can be used as a first strike weapon, or in reality, at least postured as such. You could use one to take out your enemies missile field, even if hardened. But an inaccurate nuke can't be used that way, and would of course lead to retaliation. Mutual Assured Destruction. These nukes are only defensive - they keep you from being attacked by another nuclear power.

In the whole, you're right in that it doesn't really matter if China has more accurate nukes. They could never take out our ability to respond via submarines, so it's more a concern to Pakistan than the US.

One of the problems with the concept of SDI is that while it promised stability because it threatened to neutralize an enemy attack, it also could be used as part of a first strike mentality. If it worked, we could safely launch a devastating attack on the Soviet ICBM fields and then pick off the small number that survived. It would only encourage them to launch all of them first.

[CanuckInUSA 0]

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Stupid poll. How can it possibly be valid without providing for EVERY president we've had?

I would like to see the results of "who was or is the most dangerous president". Clinton ranks up here as a bad president because of his ethics and poor morals. But he was hardly dangerous, dangerous as in he never started WWIII like a certain current president may or may not have already done. But I don't know enough of some of the old school presidents to make a proper decision as to who is more dangerous. But I'd be willing to bet that the current monkey in office would rank pretty high as to who the most dangerous president was or is.

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[Muenkel 0]

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> Clinton is going to win this one hands down..

I agree. The right wingers on this board have quite the obsession over his sex life.

I want to make a slight adjustment to this statement. Truth be told, we right wingers actually have an obsession with sex...period.

BTW, this right winger did not vote for President Clinton. I think it is, as someone else pointed out, too early to form an opinion on his legacy.

On a side note, the question was worded as "Who WAS the Worst President ever?" This is past tense. So why is GWB even on the poll?

_________________________________________
Chris

[jumprunner 0]

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I agree. The right wingers on this board have quite the obsession over his sex life.

Has nothing to do with sex or being unfaithful. He was simply a bad and most likely the worst president ever.

Why? Too many to list. How about I throw you one, though. He lied to a federal grand jury under oath. That says a lot about his integrity, honesty and ability to lead a nation.

Speaking of lies....

"Read my lips...I will not raise taxes..."
-George Bush Sr., before he signed a bill that raised taxes

Then: Weapons of mass destruction - the reason why Bush waged war with Iraq

Now: "Because it was the right thing to do" - the 'current' reason why Bush waged war against Iraq, since the last reason wasnt working out too well

Clinton lied about a personal interaction with a 19 year old girl, no real harm done other than a compromise to his marriage and negative mass media attention,

Bush lied about the reasons for a political manuever that resulted in the deaths of thousands of people and hundreds of thousands of job losses in the US

Which lie would you rather believe?

[Muenkel 0]

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Bush lied about the reasons for a political manuever that resulted in the deaths of thousands of people and hundreds of thousands of job losses in the US

I think your facts are a little fuzzy here. Bush did not lie. He was given bad intel as were the Democrats. Based on that intel, Both Bush and Kerry were for the war. Don't forget that Bush also went to war because Hussein was in breach of 17 U.N. resolutions. I'm also not convinced yet that there were no WMD's. Saddam was given plenty of time to hide or sell them.

_________________________________________
Chris

[goalie35 0]

Why Anvil, I'm surprised at you! No "Other and justify your response" option? I'd have loved to cast my vote in favor of America's answer to Stalin: Abraham Lincoln.

Yes, that will shock many who only know who publik skool teaches. What, the Great Emanicipator? The man who saved the nation?

Look at it more as the man who established the precedent of shitting on the Constitution...locking up Maryland legislators, sending troops in to direct elections in the North, threatening to incarcerate the Supreme Court until it saw things his way. Mostly, though, it was his going to war to force states that wanted to leave a voluntary arrangement to stay that frosts me. Although he was quite clear that if he could save the Union without abolishing slavery, he'd do that in a hot minute. Oh, we wouldn't want to forget the unconstitutional income tax, as well...might as well steal some cash while we're violating every other principle the nation was founded on....

FDR comes second on the list, for the reasons many have stated: he regarded individuals as totally superfluous, and wasted no opportunity to grow the government. That was a neat trick, too, forcing us into WW II by threatening the Japanese with economic ruin, then denying intel to his Pacific Theater commander that an attack on Pearl Harbor was imminent. Of course, he had to do it; it was the only way to get the country out of the Depression that was growing worse by the year. Yeah, he and Lincoln would have a lot to talk about in Hell, if there was such a place. They could laugh about LBJ's piker attempt to emulate them, too.

[ianmdrennan 2]

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I think your facts are a little fuzzy here. Bush did not lie. He was given bad intel as were the Democrats. Based on that intel, Both Bush and Kerry were for the war.

Yeah and I bet a lot of people that are defending the word lie would be using it if it was a leftie in the office.

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I'm also not convinced yet that there were no WMD's. Saddam was given plenty of time to hide or sell them.

Come on, are people really still holding onto this? If these things were so easy to know that they were there, wouldn't it be a little hard to unload such a large quantity unbeknown to the intel community?

Seriously, it's extremely unlikely there are any. I think even the current administration believes that now. What fascinates me is how people are quite happy to believe the new "freedom line" when the old "WMD line didn't work out. Whether or not the intel was bad we went to war under one pretense and now have changed it to still try and justify our stance. I'd have a lot more respect for the man if he stood up and said "whoops, we were wrong. We really did think they were there but it was a mistake. Now here's how I plan on fixing our errors....". Instead we're constantly misdirected by *leaders* on either side who're trying to run each other down with their own political agendas and come out smelling like roses.

It reminds me so much of the lack of accountiblity in Corporate america it's sickening. No one ever seems to do anything wrong, always someone elses fault.

Pathetic. In fact it's an epidemic.

Blues,
Ian

Performance Designs Factory Team

[kallend 2,150]

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*** Don't forget that Bush also went to war because Hussein was in breach of 17 U.N. resolutions. .

SO when do we invade Israel, which is also in violation of a whole bunch of UN resolutions and certainly possesses nukes?

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.