Top Ten Worst US Presidents

As per the request of a friend of mine. In AP Government, I've been analyzing, in detail, the presidency as an office, and the individuals who have held it. Adding into this my AP History course, I've learned a lot about a lot of presidents and their actions in office. As such, here is a list of my worst US Presidents. It's not based on my politics, or on my religion, it's based on what they did in office. (If it was my politics, Obama would be number 1 on that first list.) I'll post a list of my top ten best US Presidents at a later date.

TOP TEN WORST US PRESIDENTS

1. FDR
Ok, this guy was the most scummy guy you can find. He flouted the Constitution and manipulated a good deal of the public into accepting his openly Socialist agenda. He didn't get us out of the Depression, his Federal intervention just made it worse. He also regulated the press and the radio to stop his opponents being able to make known any opposing opinions, so that history seems to tell us everyone liked him. He extended the scope of Presidential authority so far outside the Constitutional limits that he should have been impeached, except he had the full Democratic (IE, Progressive Democratic) party at his back and he wasn't afraid to use it as a club. He bullied the Supreme Court, even threatening a justice with arrest for "treason" because the justice didn't agree with his position. FDR was nothing short of an evil scumbag, and definitely deserves number 1 on this list.

2. Woodrow Wilson
Again, Wilson flouted the Constitution openly, with an "ends justify the means" mentality and the schizophrenic belief that "God has ordained me for this office. All that I do is the Lord's will." He censored the press, had people locked up for disagreeing with him, and flouted the will of the people. Under the Espionage and Sedition Act, and Act that makes the Patriot Act seem mild, he allowed Federal Investigators to raid, beat, and imprison anyone who was "treacherous" IE, who disagreed with him. Also, the way he intervened in Mexico made what Bush did in Iraq look absolutely brilliant and moral. Add into this the fact that, in a presidential speech, he endorsed the KKK, and you have it clinched.

3. Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln was one of America's first tyrants. As with the two I placed above him, Lincoln ignored the restrictions imposed on the Executive branch with the mentality that "The ends justify the means." While slavery was an issue that started the Civil War, Lincoln never freed the slaves in the North. Four northern slave states to whom the Emancipation Proclamation did not apply. Going against the will of the people (As the South was about 1/2 the population at the time) and the Supreme Court's verdicts, Lincoln forced the issue of slavery. I'm not defending Slavery, but nor will I defend Lincoln's atrocities in managing the war including; the institution of the draft, the suspension of Habeus Corpus, and the institution of Concentration Camps that resembled something out of Nazi Germany. He was a tyrant and a horrible president.

4. Theodore Roosevelt
Roosevelt was a nice guy as a person. Ok, yes, he was a little insane, but he wasn't a self obsessed maniac like his cousin. However, as a president, Teddy was atrocious. He was a war monger and an imperialist. The Panama Canal was paid for by us instigating a revolution against Colombia when they wouldn't sell us the land we wanted. Teddy also increased our imperialist regime in Haiti, Cuba, and the Phillipines to a level that resembled the British Empire.

5. Lyndon B. Johnson
Johnson was a castrated FDR. He wanted to implement socialist policies, he just didn't have the force of will to make people obey them. His "Great Society" utterly failed, and was nothing but more socialist policies paid in tax dollars and given to those who do didn't deserve them. It's not the taxpayer's job to pay for someone else's welfare. We're still paying for this schmuck's policies, and the backdoor deals he made, including the ones that kept us in Vietnam.

6. Ulysses S. Grant
Grant was, like Teddy Roosevelt, a decent man. Plagued by propaganda campaigns from the South (from which the idea that he was an alcoholic arose) he felt threatened from the very beginning of his presidency. Not made to be a politician, his foolish choices regarding his cabinet ended up screwing the South over big time in the Reconstruction. He was incredibly ineffectual, and so many atrocities happened both to the South and in the South, that I would consider him one of the worst US Presidents.

7. Jimmy Carter
If you want to talk about an ineffective President, look at Carter. Now, I could talk about what a major league pain in the ass he's been since his presidency, but seeing as technically he wasn't in office when he did that, I'll just review what the "baby-faced Baptist" did in office. For starters, he kissed the Palestinians' ass so much that he made the situation in Israel a powder keg. Carter just had no idea what to do regarding foreign policy, and it showed. He talked when he ought to have fought, and bowed when he ought to have resisted. His ass-kissing towards the Soviet Union was sickening, his domestic spending was atrocious. He was without a doubt the most ineffectual president we've had since US Grant.

8. Barack Obama
"It's too early?" Bull. His pushing for healthcare, the most blatantly unconstitutional bit of legislation since the New Deal, earns him a place on this list. He's doubled the government spending of Bush. Bush screwed up again and again in his presidency, there's no doubt, but at least Iraq was constitutionally acceptable by previous interpretation. After William McKinley's presidency, it became legal (although stupidly so) for the President as Commander in Chief to deploy troops, and Congress would have to approve within 60 days for it to be considered a war. Whatever your feelings on Iraq, it was handled Constitutionally (although not as constitutionally as I'd like.) Healthcare is SO anti-constitutional, blatantly anti-constitutional, that the Founders are probably spinning in their graves at such a velocity that we could use the motion as a source of power.

9. William McKinley
I don't think we've had a president, besides Jimmy Carter, who spewed out as much pseudo-Christian bollocks while justifying stupid actions while in office. McKinley's foreign policy was even worse than Carter, and he'd have Carter's place on the list if he hadn't been better at regulating domestic policy. The Spanish American war, and the subsequent occupations of Cuba and the Phillipines were McKinley's brilliant ideas. He felt that God wanted us (well, you, I'm half Jewish and thus subservient in the minds of such men) to extend a hand to the "racially inferior" and "disadvantaged" and show them the "light of Christianity" at rifle point. He bowed to the will of the people when they wanted the Spanish American war, had us interfere in foreign affairs that weren't ours, and basically made a complete ass of himself, earning him number 9 on this list.


10. Andrew Johnson
Lincoln at least was a powerful tyrant. Johnson was a putz. He was completely ineffectual, and simultaneously screwed over the Northern and the Southern states when Reconstruction began to be enacted. Adding into this his refusal to heed the will of Congress, and his shenanigans to get them to agree with him after they overrode his vetoes, has me place him as the 10th worse president.