Top Ten Blunders by a US President

No, this isn't a Letterman routine. It is the results of a survey of scholars conducted by the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville. The survey results were part of a presentation made this weekend at a conference highlighting "Presidential Monments".



It is good to get some perspective on the Office and look at the outcomes of history in respect to the decisions of those elected to represent the people of the United States of America.

Maybe this story/thread could be an opportunity for members to post their own submissions for great presidential moments, good, bad, comic, villianous, speculative, whatever.

If so, I'll start. My classic Oval Office moment is President Ford pardoning former Pres. Nixon before Nixon is ever charged with any crime, and after the whole Watergate debacle, and Agnew tax scandal resignation, when it just happened to turn out Mr. Ford found himself in this position as the incumbent of the highest elected office in our government without anyone ever having cast a single vote for him to hold it.

Anybody else?

[edit on 19-2-2006 by Thomas Crowne]

I have to agree Buchanan takes the prize here. Limiting ourselves to what's happened in recent years won't give you the worst of the worst in some cases. Here's my list for the top 10:

1. Buchanan's failure to prevent the Civil War
2. Coolidge's anti-labor and pro-capitalist policies that led to the Great Depression
3. LBJ's escalation of the Vietnam War
4. George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq
5. Reagan's return to Coolidge policies (see above)
6. Clinton's backing of "free trade" agreements
7. Madison's failure to prevent the War of 1812
8. FDR's court-packing foolishness that politically lost some of the most solid and profound New Deal legislation
9. Wilson's opposition to women voting
10. Nixon's abuse of power leading to his resignation

I'm ranking these based on what harm they did the country. Thus for example I put Nixon's misbehavior last, because the only lasting harm it did was to Nixon himself, even though I consider it morally much worse than what Buchanan did, which he did with the best of intentions. It still cost 600,000 casualties and massive destruction.

Wilson's misogyny goes second-last because women got the vote anyway, then FDR's court-packing because he still managed to transform our economy in positive ways, then Madison and the War of 1812 because, although phenomenally stupid, that war did us little lasting damage. More serious was Clinton's pandering to corporate interest with NAFTA, but as that was only following Reagan's lead I'll put Reagan first. Next we have two very stupid wars doing our country lasting damage (Vietnam already, Iraq I predict). Coolidge's policies which led directly to the Great Depression must reside very near the top, and would be at the top except that the Civil War was a worse catastrophe than the Depression and so must reside in first place.