Worst President Ever?

[Lemur]

It's one of those President Bush v. Historians kinda things.

A Pew Research Center poll of 109 leading historians found that 61 percent of them rank Bush as “worst ever” among U.S. presidents. Bush’s key competition comes from Buchanan, apparently, and a further 2 percent of the sample puts Bush right behind Buchanan as runner-up for “worst ever.” 96 percent of the respondents place the Bush presidency in the bottom tier of American presidencies. And was his presidency (it’s a bit wishful to speak of his presidency in the past tense–after all there are several more months left to go) a success or failure? On that score the numbers are still more resounding: 98 percent label it a “failure.”

So what do the Orgahs think? As Colbert would say, great President, or the greatest President? Just to give some context, here's an article about the ten worst Presidents, as tallied by US News. Some stiff competition in there. I am as unhappy with the Bush administration as any American, but I'm not sure it qualifies for "worst" without some serious discussion.

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A little more context might be called for. Here are Wikipedia's rankings, with a heavy bias against recent Presidents, as you will note. Here's a longish 2006 article by a respectable historian arguing for George W. Bush's last-place finish. Here's another '06 article arguing that President Bush is, in fact, only the fifth-worst President of all time.