Worst Presidents: What Do You Think?

April 17, 2009 RSS Feed Print

U.S. News averaged the results of five polls to make a slideshow of the worst chief executives. What do you think of the list? Who do you think was the worst president?

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I have to say to Mark from TN:

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!

Carter was of the most inept Presidents in Modern history. Lets look at your so called facts and see.

FACT 1 Although Carter did warn about oil dependency, he did nothing to make the US oil independant, he was continually bamboozled by OPEC Ministers, and refused to take a hardstand against them tightening the oil supply to artificially raise prices which caused oil shortages and extremely high gas prices (for the times) in the U.S. For the record, just about every president warns of the dangers of materialism, big government, etc. Few, least of all Carter, do anything about it, One example of his' ineptness, he called on Americans to stop using thier credit cards, they did which made an already bad economy worse, by the time he asked Americans to use thier credit cards again, it was too late, the damage had been done, the recession ended up deeper than it should have been.

FACT 2 Carter was not elected into a "financial nightmare created by conservatives." To be sure, the economy was weak, but his policies made it infinetly worse-double digit inflation, a huge recession that he DID NOT inheret, but left to Reagan to fix (which Reagan most certainly did)

FACTS 3 and 6 Let's look at some of Carter's "peacefull advances that maintained world peace": Carter responded to the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan by boycotting the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow therby punishing American Athletes who had trained years for them, and by banning wheat sales to Russia thereby punishing American farmers and making his created recession even worse. Carter refused to support the Shah of Iran, an American ally who had improved the lot of women in Iran, thus allowing the Ayatollah Komeini to gain power. We've all seen how THAT has worked out over the last thirty+ years not to mention the hostage crisis.

Rather than intervene and try to use the strength of the U.S. to force the Sandinistas in Nicaragua to hold free elections, he stood by and allowed a right wing dictator (Somosa) to be replaced by a left wing one (Ortega and the Sandinistas). It took strong action by Reagan in Nicaragua to force free elections and rid Nicaragua of oppresive dictatorships. He negotiated the SALT II treaty which left the U. S. and Europe at a huge disadvantage.

Carter deserves credit for the Egypt-Israel peace accord, but his other policy disasters left the middle east in a much more dangerous situation.

Yes, it's true he didn't fire a shot, but he U. S. is still dealing with some of the HAVOC his policies caused. One shudders to think what a second term would have wrought.

FACT 4 He may have trimmed the federal budget, but it is highly doubtful given the economic results of his first term that he would have been able to balance the budget.

FACT-5 I'll concede that one, he embraced wind and solar, but they are hardly the answer to the world's energy woes.

Thank God he was a one termer!

Dawn of HI 9:39PM May 19, 2012

Let's not forget Reagan inherited a recession featuring double-digit inflation when he took office. Because Reagan was willing to listen to and work with Carter appointee Paul Volcker (something the micro-managing Carter probably would not have done if he was elected to a second term) the inflation dragon was slayed and virtually gone for almost 15 years. Reagan's tax cuts also ignited one of the largest economic booms in U. S. history, unfortunately he did not follow thru on reducing spending, but that does not take away from his legacy as an excellent Pres.

His' deft diplomacy with the Soviets cut short the the cold war by at least 15 years.

In short, an excellent President!

robert of HI 7:18PM May 19, 2012

Any list for the worst Presidents that does not include Jimmy Carter is incomplete!

Ronald Reagan is not here because he belongs on the Best Presidents list.

Robert of HI 6:46PM May 19, 2012

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