57 percent of Americans think Bush is one of the five worst presidents.
By on Jan 14th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
57 percent of Americans think Bush is one of the five worst presidents.
In a new Rasmussen poll, 57 percent of Americans say that “Bush is one of the five worst presidents in U.S. history. Though only 20 percent of Republicans say that Bush is at the bottom of the barrel, 81 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of independents put him in the bottom five. Only six percent of respondents said Bush was one of the five best presidents in history.
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Clearly #2, in more ways than one.
January 14th, 2009 at 12:57 pmOMG…6% of Americans have their head up their ass?
January 14th, 2009 at 12:58 pmOnly a war-monger neanderthal would like this fascist war criminal administration.
These fascists are no better than the Nazi’s.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:00 pm43% OF AMERICANS (129 MILLION) ARE COMPLETELY STUPID?
THAT’S A BIT HIGH
January 14th, 2009 at 1:00 pm6% should be used for medical experimentation replacing the more intelligent chimpanzee.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:02 pmWhat does rhf have to say about this? ;)
January 14th, 2009 at 1:04 pmWhen I’m stuck in a long line in the grocery store, I often look around me and wonder which of them still believe Bush is/was a great man. And yesterday, I saw a Jeep with a “W” sticker still on it.
It’s scary to think they live among us.
And count me as one who believes Bush to be the worst, not just in the bottom five. The worst ever.
Less than a week, folks, less than one week.
PEACE
January 14th, 2009 at 1:07 pm6%??? That’s probably the 6% that benefited from the Republican policies of this miserable failure of an administration- at the expense of the other 94%. Problem is, a big chunk of that 94% can still be fooled into voting for these self-serving fascists based on nothing more than that (R) behind their name in the voting booth.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:08 pmHe has done much harm. I agree, he is one of the worst ever.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:11 pmPersonally I think most of the 6% really just consists of people who can’t name more than 5 presidents.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:13 pmLike 43% of Americans could name more than five presidents anyways, especially ones who sucked.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:14 pmI have a feeling that the six percent of respondents who said Bush was one of the five best presidents in history are nothing but a bunch of smartasses.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:17 pmHands down the Worst! At least the others were elected. This worm crept his way to the White House UNELECTED! On top of screwing everything up royally, his failed presidency was not legitimate!
January 14th, 2009 at 1:18 pmZooey, RHF would say that withing a month Obama’s approval ratings will be worse than W’s, don’t you think?
January 14th, 2009 at 1:21 pmZooey Says:
What does rhf have to say about this? ;)
I fed my Obamahead ROTFLs with syrup, if that’s any indication? ;)
January 14th, 2009 at 1:22 pmrastaman Says:
——————————————————————————–
43% OF AMERICANS (129 MILLION) ARE COMPLETELY STUPID?
THAT’S A BIT HIGH
Yes they are. You couldn’t believe that if you weren’t high.
spencers mom Says:
——————————————————————————–
When I’m stuck in a long line in the grocery store, I often look around me and wonder which of them still believe Bush is/was a great man. And yesterday, I saw a Jeep with a “W” sticker still on it.
Try living in Texas. Those stickers are on just about every vehicle I see when I drive past the unemployment office. Only Carter did more damage to this country. Hoover was framed. No one could have done anything to stave off the depression. there weren’t the controls in place that we have today. Bush is definitely # 2.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:23 pmCount me in.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:24 pmHe is the worst ever and probably the most oblivious! All that any one of his 6% can come up with is there hasn’t been a repeat of a terrorist attack, which is like Hoover saying he was a good President because there was no repeat of WW1. There wasn’t a plague either so I guess he’s approaching greatness.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:25 pmOnly six percent of respondents said Bush was one of the five best presidents in history. The other four best presidents picked by this group were:
Stan Laurel
January 14th, 2009 at 1:28 pmBoss Hogg
Harpo Marx
and
Chumley the Walrus
Shayne Says:
Zooey, RHF would say that withing a month Obama’s approval ratings will be worse than W’s, don’t you think?
January 14th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
I think he would say he was right to have supported Obama all along. ;)
January 14th, 2009 at 1:29 pmDr. Hussein Matt
I have to say, the troll busted a CAPS on our ass.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:30 pmI’d vote for Nixon before this guy, any day.
¶ AIO
January 14th, 2009 at 1:31 pmalphainfinityomega Says:
I’d vote for Nixon before this guy, any day.
¶ AIO
Well, it’s not stated enough that republican presidents set the bar lower for the future republican presidents, as to enhance their own legacy through future corruption.
That is George Bush’s idea of vindication in the history books.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:37 pmAren’t Rasmussen polls usually leaning towards the right-hand quarter?
“Hard to port, helmsman, there be a giant whirlpool off the starboard beam! Don’t let ‘er take us down!”
“Aye, Captain Rasmussen! All hands prepare to turn blue!”
January 14th, 2009 at 1:38 pmrastaman Says:
——————————————————————————–
43% OF AMERICANS (129 MILLION) ARE COMPLETELY STUPID?
THAT’S A BIT HIGH
Yes they are. You couldn’t believe that if you weren’t high
How do you live with people who just don’t get it?
January 14th, 2009 at 1:39 pmYou grind your teeth a lot! May all th4e cosmic forces in the Universe help us !
“And bring midshipman RHF before the mast for his daily flogging!”
January 14th, 2009 at 1:40 pmFlag RHF vigorously before he turns the thread into a CAPS-fest. Someday TP will have to notice.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:41 pmRHF:
That was one heck of a beat down you and hanshiro put on the scag last night.
¶ AIO
January 14th, 2009 at 1:44 pm6%?
What are we talking about here?
People so stupid that they can’t read and don’t have TVs?
Or is it People who made a killing in WAR PROFITS?
Or maybe it’s just the Reichtard Trolls who post here.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:44 pmIt’s astounding, and extremely disturbing, that 6% say he’s one of the 5 best. Are they simply totally ignorant? Have they followed no news at all for 8 years? It would be very interesting to have them interviewed so they can explain what it is that makes him so good in their deluded opinions. I suspect they would have a hard time listing anything other than Fox talking points ( = lies).
January 14th, 2009 at 1:46 pmand I need flogged!
(Sorry for the typo…
flagging)
January 14th, 2009 at 1:47 pmI don’t think you’re a conservative, RHF. I think you’re a raging maniac who thinks it to be ok to call women c*nts while at the same time holding progressive views. Mixing and matching is NOT ok. You blow a fuse too easily. I am the one trying to fight my urges to criticize Obama, recognizing that he is taking a job with greater demands than ever before.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:48 pmBeing a generous soul I’d like to think the 6% are in the first stages of senile dementia and thought they were voting for Bush Sr.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:49 pmrhf plays the victim AGAIN, after having tried to trash me last night a thread where I wasn’t even present.
It’s sad how rhf cares so much about what we think about him. Inadequate, really.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:50 pmForget about the heated opinions of the primaries, all you have to do is apologize for vile language used toward the women of thinkprogress. Is it to say I didn’t enjoy Hillary v. Obama a little too much, of course not, that was my mistake, but Hillary would be no more progressive than Obama.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:51 pmWhy bother? I’m just repeating myself off-topic. Sorry about that.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:55 pmShame on you, shoeless! You’ve just made me spill a perfectly good cup of coffee all over my desk as I tried to avoid spluttering all over my monitor whilst choking from guffawing.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:55 pmI can’t believe rhf just called Hillary Clinton a c*nt.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:57 pm…six percent of respondents said Bush was one of the five best presidents in history.
The top 5% in income got 95% of Bush’s tax cuts. That means the poll data has a margin of error of +1%.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:57 pmReally? What about Madison or Taft? I think that the pole should consider only the last 8 or so presidents, as there are not many that are still alive to offer an opinion of the proceeding presidents and their administrations.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:57 pmWait, I forgot that this is just a place to vent emotions, not a place for facts.
old witch
It’s sexist and ageist.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:58 pmNettles Says:
“Even a pedestrian historian who leans left would admit that the damage that Bush 43 did to America is rabitt poop compared to that of Johnson/ Kennedy.”
So who are the other two?
January 14th, 2009 at 1:58 pmHillary must have blocked his number.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:59 pmI just hope rhf keeps the suicide hotline on speed dial. I’m really concerned about his well-being.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:59 pmZooey Says:
I can’t believe rhf just called Hillary Clinton a c*nt.
“HOW DARE YOU, SIR! HOW DARE YOU!” — Channeling Ben Affleck as Keith Olbermann
January 14th, 2009 at 1:59 pmNo, but historians do admit that Bush 43 is rabbit poop.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:00 pmMcWars Says:
old witch
It’s sexist and ageist.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
rhf really stung me with one. Owie!!! :-D
January 14th, 2009 at 2:01 pm57% of American and the entire World population with the exception of Israel…
January 14th, 2009 at 2:02 pmOnly 1 in 5? Where did they do this poll Alaska?
January 14th, 2009 at 2:03 pmIf you have 466,000 Ann Coulters, Billo the Clown, Rush Lardass, Bush family member, neo naxis, morons, etc. you get around 6% who think Chimpy is 1 of the 5 top 10 presidents.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:05 pmZooey Says:
McWars Says:
old witch
It’s sexist and ageist.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
rhf really stung me with one. Owie!!! :
Your feelings are important Zooey, but too bad the hearing for nominee Clinton is over — a missed opportunity to solicit her thoughts on being called old and a witch by her #1 fan. This, I’m afraid, is an unfortunate turn of events.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:06 pmWell, who are the other contenders for worst?
Nixon — pretty crooked and manipulative, but smarter and more effective in areas where he wasn’t busy being crooked and manipulative. And he took the fall, so in some measure one feels he paid his debt to society.
Buchanan — tried way too hard to accommodate the slave power. But more hapless and over-matched than really evil. Hard to see him as really “responsible” for bringing on the Civil War. We have it on no less an authority than Seward’s that the war was an “irrepressible conflict”. I guess Seward was “bad cop” to Lincoln’s “good cop” (think “the Government will not assail you”, etc.)
Grant — more haplessness combined with a really target-rich environment for corruption. One party rule, a defeated Confederacy to feast upon, a railroad boom. Party on! But Grant did some effective if inelegant soldiering and then wrote a rather eloquently understated memoir. Those put him head and shoulders ahead of Bush as a human being, though narrowly speaking his soldiering and writing took place before and after his Presidency.
… and who else? Harding? Hardly …
My take is Bush will have a hard time not winning this contest outright. Better timing would have helped. The cold-war ending on GHW Bush’s watch was good luck. The American Empire tottering on GW’s watch is surely in part just bad luck. But Dubya has been so sneeringly, callowly, disgustingly, dimwittedly determined to make matters worse that you can’t cut him much slack.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:13 pmI cannot, for the life of me, think of 4 worse Presidents.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:14 pmGood post STS, history agrees with your assessment. Dufuss W. Bush is the worst president in US history.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:17 pmMcWars Says:
Your feelings are important Zooey, but too bad the hearing for nominee Clinton is over — a missed opportunity to solicit her thoughts on being called old and a witch by her #1 fan. This, I’m afraid, is an unfortunate turn of events.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Thanks, McWars. You’re a sweetheart. :-)
The minute I start taking anything rhf says about me seriously, is the day I need to have my head examined.
Seriously, I wish Hillary’s #1 fan could have been at the hearings. I’m sure she would have loved meeting him.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:18 pmYou mother was here last night AIO?
January 14th, 2009 at 2:18 pmI would put John Adams as among the worst, because he and the other Federalists in Congress made it illegal to criticize the president. He shut down many newspapers and jailed their editors, including the grandson of Benjamin Franklin.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:19 pmZooey Says:
Thanks, McWars. You’re a sweetheart. :-)
The minute I start taking anything rhf says about me seriously, is the day I need to have my head examined.
Seriously, I wish Hillary’s #1 fan could have been at the hearings. I’m sure she would have loved meeting him.
Zoo, you’re known for that universal kindness.
Just how is RHF meeting Hillary supposed to work? shift key + handshake, or shift key + security detail?
January 14th, 2009 at 2:23 pmMcWars,
I think I’d go with shift key + security detail, just to be on the safe side. ;)
First day of school. Later, all!
January 14th, 2009 at 2:24 pmIt would have been pretty entertaining to see RHF go postal when David “The Diaper” Vitter decided to get snippy with Hillary.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:27 pmI don’t know about the rest of you folks but I am sick and tired of these ‘polls’ that ask a couple hundred or even a couple of thousand people what they think and then trot it out, properly massaged by statisticians who seem to believe it is real valid to extrapolate what the other 99.9% of people think.
How many of you have flipped a pollster the bird? Polling is great for moving a small boat slowly through the water or hanging flags on. And statistics say whatever the people gathering them want them to say.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:28 pmShayne Says:
You mother was here last night AIO?
Though old enough, you, Shayne, are not my mother. LOL
¶ AIO
January 14th, 2009 at 2:30 pmDr. Hussein Matt Says:
RHF sure goes of her way to ‘recommend’ her own posts. How sad.
I don’t believe that you can recommend your own posts. Try it if you don’t agree.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:35 pmChimpy is not only one of the five worst presidents, he’s in a class all by himself.
THE WORST OF ALL TIME, WITHOUT PEER.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:36 pmDoes it really matter what rhf and AIO post?
January 14th, 2009 at 2:36 pmI mean, besides their pathetic rhetoric of woman bashing?
Honestly, I am not RHF. I am just offering an opinion. I am also blogging on the republican sites with the same message. It is interesting how similar the right and left really are.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:57 pmI can identify with parts of both, like I suspect most people can.
My interest is in the truth and facts. Emotions sometimes tend to make it difficult to keep reality as a foundation. When the stake are so high, it is most important that we remember that.
Take my comments as you will, but they will be from my heart.
Who were the other 4 worst ?
I’d definitely think Pierce should be in there – not to mention that he is something like great-granpa to Shrub (I may be a great or 2 off).
I’m not a historian – and I can think of Pierce but would have trouble picking out 3 others based on my limited knowledge of US History. So I assume most folks would have the same problem ?
January 14th, 2009 at 3:02 pmWe have had Presidents who have been unpopular who actually weren’t as bad as their press. Andy Johnson comes to mind. We have had Presidents who were immensely popular who did some really bad things. Andy Jackson and the Trail of Tears.
We have had Presidents who were pompous, clueless windbags who’s sins were of omission. Herbert Hoover. And we have had Presidents lauded as heroes for good intentions. Abraham Lincoln.
What we haven’t had is a seated President with a pretty fair share of the populace wondering if he was a war criminal.
January 14th, 2009 at 3:06 pmHoodathunk Says:
I don’t know about the rest of you folks but I am sick and tired of these ‘polls’…
Polling is OK for some things, but “worst 5 presidents” is such an open-ended question that it really isn’t statistically scalable. There are just too many answers, too many ways to look at it, and it’s really tough to answer without doing at least a few minutes of research.
.
shoeless Says:
I would put John Adams as among the worst…
Yeah, that Alien and Sedition Acts thing was pretty messed up. Probably even more so than the PATRIOT Act.
I’d add Andrew “Mofo” Jackson. Started the trail of tears. After the Cherokees successfully sued the U.S. in the Supreme Court which handed down a cease-and-desist order, Jackson went ahead with relocating them anyways, and said “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it!”
Openly defying the SCOTUS. Not even Chimpy has gone that far in forcing a Constitutional crisis. But then again, he’s got a few days left.
Then there’s Andrew Johnson, who got impeached for real. He really doesn’t seem to be the bad guy in that situation, but when your Sec of War can get you kicked out for trying to kick him out, you just suck.
There was Warren G. Harding and the Teapot Dome Scandal, but reading about that, it sounds like stuff that Chimpy does every day: handing over federal land to private interests in return for cash.
Then John Quincy Adams assumed the Presidency under electoral circumstances that make Florida 2000 look like a perfect model of Democracy. Nobody got a majority in a 4-way race (Jackson with the lead, both electoral and popular) so the House got to pick. At the time, that pretty much meant the Speaker of the House got to pick. He picked JQA.
Hoover, for the whole Great Depression thing…
Also, Nixon. ‘Nuff said about him.
So I’d go… Chimpy, Jackson, Adams, Nixon, Hoover.
January 14th, 2009 at 3:11 pmFive worst: Hitler, Mussolini, Dumbya, Stalin, Nero.
Perhaps (but not necessarily) in that order.
January 14th, 2009 at 3:19 pmHere’s my best of the bottom list:
1) Bush
January 14th, 2009 at 3:23 pm2) Nixon
3) McKinley (big imperialist)
4) Andrew Johnson (way overmatched for the job — BTW, Lincoln was NOT a Republican in 1864!)
5) Harding
6) Grant
7) Buchanan
(most of the worst were just incompetent or in over their heads) Nixon and Bush were malignant.
ElBruce, your comment about Andy Johnson being a bad Prez because his Sec of War could beat him up doesn’t necessarily speak badly of AJ. Wild Willy was impeached for a hummer but not removed from office.
January 14th, 2009 at 3:49 pmand I am going to make myself real unpopular with this observation but there is only one president directly responsible for more loss of life of American citizens than GW. In fact, he holds the all time record (with the possible exception of WWII.) for it.
And he did it because he quit talking to the other side.
January 14th, 2009 at 3:57 pmOnly 57%? Hard to believe. I must lead a sheltered life, because I only know about 2 or 3 of the other 43%.
Bush is the worst American president in history.
January 14th, 2009 at 4:09 pmdrew3rd Says: Only Carter did more damage to this country.
I know Carter is the man conservatives love to hate, but if you look at the deficits and unemployment he inherited from Ford and what he left Reagan, Carter improved them. Really, just get a decent almanac and look at the Ford-Carter-Reagan years.
January 14th, 2009 at 4:11 pmHoodathunk #87, could you be a bit more specific? I think the 58,000 American deaths in Vietnam were about evenly split between LBJ and Nixon.
January 14th, 2009 at 4:18 pmUS should have stayed out of WWI (116,708).
Most deaths by far came in Civil War (623,026).
Korea (36,914).
Of course, furriners don’t count.
Nettles Says:
Even a pedestrian historian who leans left would admit that the damage that Bush 43 did to America is rabitt poop compared to that of Johnson/ Kennedy.
I was around then, and I don’t know how you can argue that JFK was worse than Nixon.
January 14th, 2009 at 4:23 pmFrom wikipedia:
(George Mason’s) “History News Network’s poll of 109 historians found that 61 percent of them rank Bush as “worst ever” among U.S. presidents…..96 percent of the respondents place the Bush presidency in the bottom tier…..98 percent label it a “failure.”
January 14th, 2009 at 4:37 pmGive me a break Keith. Really now, 98% of historians label Bush’s presidency as a failure?
Historians are pretty well educated persons, it just doesn’t make sense that 2% could be that wrong.
January 14th, 2009 at 5:12 pmKeith, forget the hero worship and check the stats. What war killed more Americans?
January 14th, 2009 at 6:14 pmand (a nail in my coffin) what war had ALL casualties as American?
January 14th, 2009 at 6:16 pmThe one between the Sioux and the Shawnee.
January 14th, 2009 at 6:29 pmshoeless Says:
Hoodathunk Says:
——————————————————————————–
and (a nail in my coffin) what war had ALL casualties as American?
The one between the Sioux and the Shawnee.
And the facts come out. Thank you for the reminder.
January 14th, 2009 at 6:32 pmYep – in my humble opinion Georgie is definitely the worst president we have ever had to endure. Six days to go.
And I think RHF is a meanie.
January 14th, 2009 at 7:34 pmWoah, missed that comment entirely.
drew3rd Says:
Only Carter did more damage to this country.
Seriously, what did he do? There was a brief gas shortage, some stagflation, and the Iranians went nuts. That’s a small fraction of the crap what went down during Bush’s term.
Typically, wingnut derision of Carter is of the 5th-grade schoolyard method:
That’s pretty much the essence of any anti-Carter argument I’ve ever heard.
.
drew3rd Says:
Hoover was framed. No one could have done anything to stave off the depression.
I’ll grant that up until then nobody knew from economic institutions and regulation. After all, we’d just gone through the Industrial Revoltion, so nobody really knew how the new economy worked.
But Hoover spent the entire duration of his Presidency flailing around with “voluntary” fixes, basically trying to whine the economy back into shape, rather than exercising any actual power to fix it.
January 14th, 2009 at 9:47 pmRight wingers can slam Carter all they want, but the bottom line is that everything President Carter said or predicted has come fruition. Remember when he said the energy crisis was the moral equivalent of war. How many people have died because future Presidents Reagan and Bushes ignored this reality. That is the saddest irony, President Carter was honest about this crisis over 26 years ago, but these idiot future presidents ignored the reality, and now look at us, beholden to a bunch ragheads in Saudi Arabia that Bush Jr. holds hands with.
January 15th, 2009 at 12:15 am“GEORGE W. BUSH IS THE WORST PRESIDENT IN U.S. HISTORY” BLOG OF ANDREW YU-JEN WANG
ONLINE ANTI-BUSH SCHOLASTIC RESEARCH: LISTING OF MAJOR ISSUES
http://andrewyu-jenwang.blogspot.com/2008/10/bush-is-worst-president-in-american.html
January 15th, 2009 at 2:53 amKeith Says:
Hoodathunk #87, could you be a bit more specific? I think the 58,000 American deaths in Vietnam were about evenly split between LBJ and Nixon.
US should have stayed out of WWI (116,708).
Most deaths by far came in Civil War (623,026).
Korea (36,914).
Of course, furriners don’t count.
January 14th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
———————————
Hoodathunk Says:
Keith, forget the hero worship and check the stats. What war killed more Americans?
January 14th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
—————————————-
Sorry, but could you be specific so I’ll know what you are talking about?
I don’t know what you meant the first time and I don’t know what president you think I am worshiping.
I gave you nothing but stats before. I said:
“Most deaths by far came in Civil War (623,026).”.
Is that wrong???????? I meant to include World War 2 (407,316)—but you said you were not talking about World WarII. My source is:
http://www.militaryfactory.com/american_war_deaths.asp
Are they wrong????????????????????/
I was not letting LBJ off the hook. Half the Vietnam deaths came under him. The other half came under Nixon. I was just saying JFK was not as bad as Nixon. Can anyone comprehend what I am saying????????????
I am also part Native American and think all the rest of you should go back to where you came from. Are you talking about the killing of the Native Americans? There are no stats for that and then you would be forgetting the Civil War because you said war and not wars.
January 15th, 2009 at 6:36 am