Newspaper OpEd (2009)
Robert P. Watson
The Worst in History
Americans love to rank things. We compile lists of America's best colleges, the top movies at the box office, and the 500 largest corporations. And so it is with our presidents. Ever since historian Arthur Schlesinger polled 55 of the country's leading scholars in 1948 and asked them to rank the presidents, Americans have been fascinated with presidential performance. Along the way, ranking presidents became something of a cottage industry, and everyone from C-SPAN to the Chicago Tribune has joined the game.
So have scholars of the presidency, who generally employ either an array of criteria – the number and quality of treaties signed, the strength of the economy, the performance of appointees, and whether vetoes are sustained or overridden by Congress, for example – or a general "holistic" criterion to rank the presidents. In doing so, there is near unanimity among scholars as to the names on top of the list. Reputable polls rank Lincoln, Washington, both Roosevelts, Jefferson, and Truman as the greatest presidents.
This is a helpful enterprise, as it provides a report card and insights on the traits of effective leadership, such as possessing vision, inquisitiveness, adaptability, oratorical flair, discipline, political skill, and the ability to inspire. The rankings also encourage a conversation about what we want in, and what is required of, our presidents. That said, we can also learn from past mistakes and failed approaches to the office. So, the question begs asking: Who were the worst presidents?
Just as there is near unanimity among scholars about the best, there is widespread agreement about the worst. The cellar dwellers of the presidency always include A. Johnson, Pierce, and Harding, who was a womanizer, corrupt, and surrounded himself with unprincipled, opportunistic cronies. And then there is hapless James Buchanan, who did nothing as the nation devolved into civil war, and therefore has the dubious distinction of being the worst president in history.
Which brings us to George W. Bush. It is a difficult effort to assess a recent president's legacy. There is, for example, often movement in the rankings as the passage of time shows more clearly the full measure of one's actions and decisions. For instance, Truman was considered a failure but the father of the Marshall Plan, statehood for Israel, and desegregation is now revered; Ike, who balanced budgets and warned about the military-industrial complex, was mediocre upon leaving office but is now "above average"; and Nixon has recently moved out of the "failure" category as his vision on timely challenges like China look, with hindsight, wise.
Mindful of the timing, it is nonetheless possible to suggest that history will not be kind to Bush. The evidence is overwhelming. Given that Bush has bequeathed to the country the world's largest debt and deficit, two disastrously implemented wars, a domestic economic crisis, a tarnished reputation in the world, and a bewildering array of deceptions and scandals, it is likely he will be remembered as the worst president of all time. The History News Network, for instance, recently polled 109 historians and found that 107 of them rated Bush as a failure, with 61% predicting he would be ranked dead last.
Consider that Buchanan and Lincoln as well as Hoover and FDR served back-to-back terms and faced near identical situations in office. Yet, while the former two presidents watched helplessly as, respectively, the union was lost and as a Great Depression set in, their successors acted to save and strengthen the nation. Ironically, Buchanan was arguably best qualified president in history, while Lincoln was the least qualified. The lesson is that the presidency is shaped by the particular president, and takes on the characteristics – good and bad – of the occupant. Faced with cleaning up the mess of the past eight years, let us hope Obama has learned the lessons from Bush's flawed presidency and shares little in common with his predecessor.
