Is Bush 43 the Worst President of the Past 50 Years?

..So who was the worst president in the 20th Century --

and for the sake of this argument, let's include the present President Bush in the group.To me, the present Bush gets few points for anything EXCEPT the War on Terror, on which he's been, if not exactly a rock, at least a piece of hard wood.The War on Terror elevates the present President Bush off the rubbish heap of bad presidents.So who then is the WORST President?I have a head and heart argument about this. My heart wants to say that the FIRST President George Herbert Hoover Bush was the worst President. But then my HEAD tells me, no, that cannot be when choosing from a list that includes Jimmy Carter.George Herbert Hoover Bush was a fumbling, incoherent president. Next to him, his verbally-challenged son the current President waxes as eloquently as Winston Churchill.The reason Bush babbled at us was because he had no vision. Indeed, he converted the very word "vision" from a noun to an adjective, when he derisively referred to "vision" as "the vision thing.""Vision thing" indeed. Well, if you have no vision yourself, you certainly WOULD be blind to the need to have vision, now wouldn't you?What tipped me over the edge into a Niagara falls' worth of disgust over GHHB was his refusal to extend the Gulf War to Baghdad, and the resulting betrayal of all the insurgents who rose up against Saddam.Stopping the Gulf war at the Iraq border was insane. It was like, if Stalin had stopped the Red Army at the Oder River in April, 1945, just as it was on the verge of final victory agaisnt Naziism, or if Eisenhower had stopped the Western armies at the Elbe River at the same time, thereby giving Hitler and the rest of the Nazis a break.You can say what you want about Bill Clinton's ineffectual pinpricks against Saddam Hussein in the subsequent years, and you can say what you want about the current President Bush's handling of the Iraq War, but in retrospect, it is CRYSTAL CLEAR that GHHB bequeathed a horrible hand to both of his immediate successors.Saddam believed he was going to win the Gulf War. As a result, he was totally unprepapred for defeat. There would have been little problem with post-Saddam insurgencies, especially, since that time was still shortly before the rise of present-day Islamic terror.But by 2003, even Saddam was under no illusions. He had a long time to prepare for post-war insurgencies, and plenty of time to hide his WMD. The subsequent Iraq War was 100 times harder to fight than it would have been in 1991. GHHB left a big mess for his son to clean up. When Light Bulb Johnson became President, he asked the then-Commandant of the USMC what to do about Vietnam. The Commandant replied that when you have a snake in the grass, you have two rational choices. You can leave it the hell alone, but if you decide that you just cannot tolerate its further existence, then, if you decide you must do away with it, you must then ruthlessly stomp it to death as mercilessly as you can, with all the power you can muster.But the ONE THING you NEVER do with a snake in the grass, said the Commandant to LBJ, is to PLAY WITH ITS TAIL. That only angers the snake and make sit even more dangerous.Just as Light Bulb Johnson ignored the Commandant and decided to play with the snake's tail with a policy of gradual escalation, so too did GHHB play with Saddam's tail by not ruthlessly blasting the Ba'athist regime out of existence when he had the opportunity, thereby assuring Saddam's perpetual enmity.Refusing to march on Baghdad then and there was the single biggest American blunder of the 20th Century. When GHHB announced the cease-fire on that February day in 1990, I almost threw my shoe through the TV screen I was so disgusted. Ever since then I loathed GHHB deeply. .

I never had any illusions about Slick Willie in 1992, but if Ross Perot could not win, then Clinton was a distinct IMPROVEMENT over GHHB Sr. And in retrospect, Clinton was a FAR MORE CONSERVATIVE President than GHHB ever was.So my heart always wants to place GHHB in the role of the Worst President.But then my HEAD tells me, no, it gotta be one James Earl Carter. And how can I argue with my reasonable head?I was wary of Mr. Peanuts from the outset. When he promised us a Government that would be as "fine and decent as the American People themselves," I said to myself, "Self, now I KNOW we are in DEEP TROUBLE."

One statement he himself made tells me everything I ever wanted to know about Mr. Peanuts . When the USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979, he said this single act told him more about the USSR than he'd leanred over the course of his entire life.OH REALLY, YOU DOPE??!! HOW WAS IT THEN THAT I, AS AN TEEN, ALREADY KNEW EVERYTHING I'D EVER NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE USSR -- AND THE SUBSEQUENT YEARS ONLY DEEPENED AND CONFIRMED MY MIND???

It was bad enough that Carter allowed the white regime in Rhodesia to go under in favor of the Hitler of Africa, Robert Mugabe -- but at least that one does not threaten the security of the United States. Carter's fumbling with Iran DOES threaten the USA to this very day. Mr. Carter's problem was that he believed Communist propaganda about right-wing dictatorships being intrinsically evil but not left-wing dictatorships. And so it was with the Shah of Iran. Carter allowed and aided the revolution against the Shah and supported his replacement with Khomeini. The Shah begged him... Carter didn't know what he was doing, because the mullahs would turn out to be far worse than he himself had been.But Carter bleeped it up and the result has been we've been stuck with Iran in its present state ever since. It most of all has been a catastrophe for Iran.Someday the mullahs will be overthrown and Iran will go through a period similar to the post WWII denazification, in which all the vast crimes of the Khomeini regime will be unearthed and exposed.Carter actually had a chance for a do-over when Iran attacked the embassy and seized the hostages.Think about it. An embassy is INVIOLATE. Legally, an embassy is part of the sovereign territory of the nation it serves. The American embassy in Teheran was every bit as much a part of the United States as is the Statue of Liberty, the World Trade Center, or the White House.An attack on an EMBASSY is the same thing as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor -- even WORSE, actually, since the Japanese only ATTACKED Pearl Harbor; they didn't actually and subsequently OCCUPY it.Seizing the embassy was a clear Act of War.When countries commit Acts of War against others, the ONLY proper response -- is a formal Declaration of War.

Carter needed to go to the Congress the very next day after the hostages were taken and ask Congress to Declare War on Iran. Not only would he have had international law on his side; he'd not have been plagued with the shackles of having to beg the UN for its permission and its rules of engagement, which is what stymied GHHB in 1990. Had Carter done so, the US could have gone straight to Baghdad, deposed the mullahs, installed a friendly government, and Iran today would be not only happier and more prosperous; it would be NO THREAT to the world.But instead, he sat back and did nothing but allow the US to be a pitable, helpless giant. His one flaccid attempt at rescue was a fiasco.

Carter too played with the Iranian snake's tail.

And as a result, they are now on the verge of nuclear weapons. Carter has placed a terrible decision in the hands of the current and next president.In summary, the title of Worst President is a neck-and-neck race between George Herbert Hoover Bush and James Earl Carter -- but Carter wins.