Worst President Ever, Revisited
Tim Cavanaugh | December 6, 2005, 11:07pm
Richard Reeves goes to the capital of Our Oldest Enemy to badmouth the President of the USA:
"[James Buchanan] was the guy who in 1861 passed on the mess to the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln," Reeves writes from Paris. "Buchanan set the standard, a tough record to beat. But there are serious people who believe that George W. Bush will prove to do that, be worse than Buchanan. I have talked with three significant historians in the past few months who would not say it in public, but who are saying privately that Bush will be remembered as the worst of the presidents."
Fleshing out the speculation, Reeves draws on a poll of historians at History News Network. Unfortunately, that poll is nearly two years old, so the only real news is that it's getting easier to take a public swipe at Bush. While I'm happy to see that, I'll believe he's all washed up when he actually washes up. All this talk about what a drag Bush is on the Republican party is a lot of codology until it's actually put to the test. If (as everybody seems to expect) the GOP loses the House in 2006, and even if (as a few people seem to expect, and if it's even numerically possible) it loses the Senate in 2006, you're still not even looking at a loss, just a regression to the mean: So far, he's picked up seats in an off-year election, and picked up seats again in his re-election (which he won by much wider margin than he won/lost in 2000). If that's a loser, well then as the ever-youthful Tim Matheson | some other guy in Animal House | or maybe it was Matheson said, Let me tell you the story of another loser.
Back in aught-three, Jesse Walker considered the question of Bush's worst-ever ranking, concluding that there's still plenty of room at the bottom.
quasibill | December 7, 2005, 10:08am | #
"quasibill, countries refuse to trade with us, while trading with countries that were hostile to us, all the time"
Um, I don't disagree, but that wasn't what happened. We blocked their access to oil. It wasn't that we wouldn't trade with them, we actively blocked others from doing it. So your first paragraph, to steal a phrase of yours, is useless.
And of course, you completely ignored (as you tend to with inconvenient facts) that we were supplying the Chinese with not only material, but men. Let me ask you, did you have a problem with us declaring war on Afghanistan? If not, you shouldn't have a problem with the Japanese declaring war on us. In both cases, the 'victim' was harboring and supporting actors that were at war with the 'aggressor'.
"Either way, the statement was not a lie, and as the Godfather demonstrates, everyone was perfectly aware of the blockade and the mounting hostilities, not there was no deceit on Roosevelt's part."
Except the part where Roosevelt was claiming that he was trying to avoid war, when he did everything he could to provoke it. Maybe that's not a lie to you, but then you better not be saying Bush lied, because the evidence against him is even weaker.
And, as with all revisionist history, the fact that some knew the truth does not mean that the majority of the public didn't have a different view. I.e. just because many disbelieved the administration's claims about WMDs in Iraq, doesn't mean that a majority of the country didn't believe them. Or better yet, the fact that we know for a fact Saddam wasn't involved with 9/11 doesn't change the fact that some massive portion of the population believed that he was in the run-up to the invasion.
keith | December 7, 2005, 1:37pm | #
Because of that, I suppose it is a bit much to call them evil, but the institution of slavery certainly was and the Confederates have a lot to answer to morally for supporting it.
As someone with no particularly emotional opinion on Lincoln one way or the other, I'd just like to say the following:
1. At the time of Ft. Sumter, there were more slaves in the North than in the South and Lincoln expressly stated that he did not want any of them to be freed, contrary to what Northern abolishinists desired.
2. By his own words, Lincoln believed that blacks should not be free ("I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races"), that even if freed they should occupy a position far below whites ("I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position" and, "Free them and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this. We cannot, then, make them equals."), that the mixing of the black and white race should be illegal ("What I would most desire would be the separation of the white and black races. I will to the very last stand by the law of this state, which forbids the marrying of white people with Negroes.") and that all things perfect, all the blacks would just be rounded up and shipped back to Africa. He was a strong advocate of the Fugitive Slave Act and a strong supporter of the Illinois Constitution which forbade blacks from living in the state.
I think what riles up most Lincoln haters isn't so much what he did as it is a basic misunderstanding of history, or the buying into the myth that the man was infallible, welcomed blacks with open arms, and just wanted to spread honesty and love to all.
In truth, Lincoln was no different from the majority of Americans at the time, and like them he harbored views that were racist but mainstream. And like any American President, he made calls that are easy to criticize.
As I said, I have no particular like or dislike for Lincoln. But the characterization of the South as being especially supportive to racism while the North was not is incorrect. If Lincoln had had his way, the Union would have been saved and blacks would have remained slaves ("My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it.") Too often, emotion, nostalgia, myth, and misinformation get in the way of historians painting an accurate picture of Lincoln or of the sentiments in the North and the South.
All that said, slavery was/is repulsive, and he freed the slaves. Whatever else he may have felt, said, or done, he still did that, and that's not a small accomplishment in this country's history. So perhaps the lesson to be learned from Lincoln is, A) a great man can do horrible things, B) a terrible man can do great things, or C) a man like any other man can do both great and terrible things.
quasibill | December 7, 2005, 3:49pm | #
"While like most stories there is some truth most is false."
Pretty accurate description of the rest of your post.
"Most of the quotes "proving" that Lincoln was a racist are taken out of context from much longer passages which tell a different story."
Not really. But if you can prove me wrong, I'm open.
"Make no mistake, slavery sowed the seeds of war and it would have come one way or another"
Amazing then, that no other country required bloodshed to resolve the issue, even when they had as many slaves as the South did.
"And while tarriffs may have been a burden they are a smokescreen the South always had enough votes to keep tarriffs low."
Absolutely false. In fact, if this were true, Lincoln would never have been elected...
Check out the editorials of the time, especially New York papers. Notice how they're calling for the formation of the Free Port of New York by secession? Why's that? Because the tariffs were already too high, and they knew the Confederacy would be much, much lower, and that the port of NY would lose much of its business.
Like you said, there is some truth in your story, but not much...
VM | December 7, 2005, 3:58pm | #
here it is, Linguist.
Officials: Passenger Who Made Threat Shot
By JOHN PAIN
Associated Press Writer
Published December 7, 2005, 2:40 PM CST
MIAMI -- A passenger who claimed to have a bomb in a carry-on bag was shot by a federal air marshal Wednesday on a jetway connected to an American Airlines plane that had arrived from Colombia, officials said.
The passenger's condition was not immediately disclosed. A witness said the man frantically ran down the aisle and a woman with him said he was mentally ill.
Homeland Security Department spokesman Brian Doyle said after the plane had parked at the gate, a passenger indicated there was a bomb in the bag. The passenger was confronted by air marshals but ran off the plane, Doyle said.
A team of air marshals pursued and ordered the passenger to get on the ground. The passenger did not comply and was shot when apparently reaching into the bag, Doyle said.
Passenger Mary Gardner told WTVJ in Miami that the man ran down the aisle from the rear of the plane. "He was frantic, his arms flailing in the air," she said. She said a woman followed, shouting, "My husband! My husband!"
Gardner said she heard the woman say her husband was bipolar and had not had his medication.
The plane, Flight 924, had just arrived from Medellin, Colombia, and was headed on to Orlando.
Airport and Miami-Dade County police officials said they had no immediate comment. American Airlines officials confirmed the shooting was on a jetway.
"All I know is that it was on the jet bridge, outside the aircraft," American spokesman Tim Wagner said. "I don't know yet if the passenger had been on the plane and was getting off, or was starting to board the aircraft."
Flight 924 arrived at Miami airport at 12:16 p.m. Eastern and was scheduled to depart at 2:18 p.m., Wagner said. He said the shooting happened shortly after 2 p.m., suggesting passengers may have already been preparing to depart for Orlando.
Martin Gonzalez, spokesman for Colombia's civil aviation agency, said the flight "left normally with no problems."
* __
Associated Press writers Mark Sherman and Lara Jakes Jordan in Washington contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2005, The Associated Press
