How far back in our history would we need to go to find a presidency as disastrous for the U.S.A. as that of George W. Bush has been thus far?
by 
kedar
ANSWERS: 36
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Go back to the beginning, and the record would show he's been the worse. Hands down, no one can compare!
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I'm no fan of the current administration or George W. Bush. So I wouldn't waste my time or yours comparing him to anyone else that may have had hard times while in office. I think it's a easy enough conclusion to come to.
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His has been the most uniformly bad, primarily due to the combination of his hyper-religiosity (or at least attempt to feign being religious) and his response to the 9-11 tragedies. Had he depended more on intellect instead of leaning so heavily on zealous ideology, poorly trained instinct, loyalty to staff, and blind arrogance, he would have measured his responses better. I still would probably not have agreed with his actions; after all, he's a conservative Republican. But my responses would be akin to my cringe at shop lifting a Snickers bar vs. my absolute horror at grand larceny with a deadly weapon.
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Johnson got us into (and escalated) Vietnam, where 58,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese died. Nixon took his time bringing that war to a close, and did a lot to destroy confidence of the people in the gov't, which led to Carter, the reaction against whom led to Reagan. Before that... Herbert Hoover did little to ameliorate the first part of the Depression, but it lasted long after he left office anyway.
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not there haven't been any other presidents who've had their share of mistakes, controversy and scandal....but I don't think anyone else can come close to ol' Dubya. I think he and his administration are shameful....and they've brought shame to this country. I think he's made this country look much weaker. He can't be out of office fast enough for me...I'm chomping at the bit for the elections next year.
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i think bush has given disaster a new name.
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The Bush presidency has not been disastrous. It will be considered on the the best when compared with all past administrations.
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Ridiculous question revealing serious (but common) lack of knowledge of previous U.S. foreign relations and wars. Look up Truman and the Korean War for starters. Do you know how close we almost came to full blown war with Russia AND China in the 50s. And getting our nation into a war does not a disastrous president make. They are unfortunately tough decisions that have to be made. George Bush has had been challenged to a degree that no other president since Abraham Lincoln has faced. I'm not comparing him with Lincoln, but Bush has had to preside over the most difficult presidency in over 100 years. We have no idea how the others would have fared.
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7 years. Most of what Bush is dealing with is directly related to Slick Willie being more concerned with hummers than national security.
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Bill CLinton was the biggest disgrace and totally incompetent with his foreign policy. Let's see, do nothing about the first world trade center bombing, pass on Bin Laden, give Nuclear weapons to North Korea, Bomb a US ally in the Serbs to get the Monica thing off the front pages, and oh, yeah, impeached. One of only two presidents to be impeached. He ranks at the bottom with Andrew Johnson, the other impeached boob.
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Not far. About eight years.
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Still, not ONE of the many, many downraters can verbally express their oppostion to my statement. You have proven my herd mentality theory.
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Let's just say that generally, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have topped all their predecessors in their unbridled support for and use of torture. They have outdone all their predecessors, in their high-tech, relentless fear-mongering. In their claim of strengthening the presidency, they have shown they are cowards hiding behind the great power of the offices they hold, the prerogatives of which they are determined to abuse.
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From my own research, most American presidents have been complete goofs.
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Clinton was pretty bad
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Probably back to Franklin Pierce. While many of these former presidents were corrupt or incompetent or lazy as with William Howard Taft, they did not begin wars that put American soldiers and civilians in harm's way. Unlike George W. Bush, their incompetence or failures were rather benign,
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Clinton or Carter.
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In terms of foreign and domestic policy, you have to go back to Reagan.
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When throughout the history of mankind has man looked for an excuse NOT to have war and mayhem? Today is no different than yesterday and probably no worse than tomorrow.
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hmmm.... FIVE downrates exactly 4 hours ago. What a coincidence. Grow up people. I am not even a fan of Bush. I just think that suggesting he might be the most disastrous president in history shows very little knowledge of our past two centuries of presidents.
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Not far at all. I would go with the guy before him, Bush is still trying to clean up his mess.
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I think that George W. Bush is the best president since Bill Clinton, a category in which Bush is the only contestant.
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none on record the USA is only about 229 years old.
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Ultimately, all administrations are usually judged by how well the economy is doing at the time. Real objectivity doesn't come into play until much later.
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1976
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Olbermann on MSNBC thinks you have to go back to the 1860-1880 period to find Presidents who did nearly as much harm as Bush: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5-pi8bnuh0
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Yeah, 8 yrs is about right. (Hey Amorphous Blob etc., actually it was Ike, with a helping hand from JFK, and LBJ just went industrial war machine crazy). GW didn't do all that bad. The outcome of the war so far has been not beneficial for him. However, that is due mainly to the lack of intestinal fortitude of the Iraqi people. They are allowing anarchy free reign in their country, mostly because of their religious intolerance. Most people (non-muslim) around the world probably felt Irag would rise up and embrace some form of representative democracy if only given the chance. Yeah, right. They are sheep. We can't understand that kind of mindset that allows suicide bombers to rule the country. Now, if they HAD taken up democracies banner and formed a stable republic, he would have probably won a Nobel Peace Prize! Unfortunately, it would have been worse to leave that mess to stew by just walking away. And this proved to be a very large distraction and reliance on (in hind-sight)less the top quality advice.
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Pretty far back, I'd say 150+ years....prior to Bush, the most disastrous Presidents were (in my opinion) James Buchanan, our 15th, and Millard Fillmore, our 13th President.
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Back to the Clinton administration, or possible the Carter administration. They were both pretty dismal.
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George W. Bush is amoung the best for the U.S.A. Who doesn't like lower taxes, stronger military, and someone willing to defend the country when attacked by those who declared war on the U.S. many years later. Want to know who done the most harm for the U.S.A. recently? Look to the man who was elected in 1992. Then, look back to the man who started to ruin it all, F. D. R.
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The George W. Bush presidency is the worst since: In terms of economic damage, Ronald Reagan. In terms of imperialism, Theodore Roosevelt In terms of dishonesty in government, R. Nixon. In terms of affable incompetence, Warren G. Harding. In terms of corruption, Ulysses S. Grant. In terms of general lassitude and cluelessness, Calvin Coolidge In terms of religious arrogance, Woodrow Wilson
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Not to far Richard Nixon or Jimmy Carter
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Papa Bush
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Maybe Grant. He was better as he had an illustrius military career. But he appointed corrupt family and friends and the economy plummeted.
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The Carter administration comes to mind. why?
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You need to go forward to 2017, where we have a president who is mentally ill (dangerously), AND has dementia, AND is a chronic terrible liar, and is going down in flames after only 5 months and NOTHING accomplished (except thousands of tweets of his girlish displeasure at being so mockable)
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