Here All Week

Peter Vecsey brings the funny:

Jimmy Carter described as "careless" his remarks ("I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, has been the worst in history") about the George Bush administration. Ever the politician, Carter claimed he was talking about the Dolans, whom he referred to as "a bush administration."

Indeed. Realistically, it's hard to imagine any administration performing worse than James Buchanans. Such an administration's policies would more-or-less have to result in the actual destruction of the United States in order to qualify. I think Vecsey also makes sound points about Vince Carter.

Comments

Pierce, Buchanan, and Andrew Johnson were all remarkably awful. But one could actually imagine Buchanan having done worse. After the secession crisis began, the Buchanan administration, now shorn of its southern members, did the admirable job of not recognizing secession and not evacuating Fort Sumter. An administration that would have at least done the latter is theoretically imaginable - hell, Lincoln almost decided to abandon Sumter.

Posted by John | May 22, 2007 9:55 AM

"Such an administration's policies would more-or-less have to result in the actual destruction of the United States in order to qualify."

It is still too soon to tell. And saying the Civil War "destroyed" the US is not completely accurate. The South was severely damaged, and many people died, but I can't say the America of 1885 was a broken nation.

The Bush administration 20 years on may end up having done relatively more damage, especially to our economic status.

Posted by bob mcmanus | May 22, 2007 10:00 AM

"Such an administration's policies would more-or-less have to result in the actual destruction of the United States in order to qualify."

We're on our way.

Sit down for this, but I predict, with great sadness, that the United States of America will not maintain its territorial integrity for the next 50 years. I think we're headed for partition and/or Southwest secession and/or serious ethnic conflict on a nationwide scale.

Sound crazy? Consider: when the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991, who had been predicting the collapse of it just a few years before? Answer: almost no one, the obscure dissident intellectual Andrei Amalrik being almost the only exception.

I read this wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictions_of_Soviet_collapse

And I thought, yeah right, bullshit, most Western Kremlinologists must have known or suspected the end was near by the mid-1980s. So I bought a book earlier this year written in 1985, a collection of long essays by American Sovietologists about various aspects of the USSR's existence (economy, racial makeup, military strength, etc.).

It was, to put it mildly, astonishing. Here were the most intelligent and knowledgeable academics on this subject, and nowhere in the book is the possibility even mentioned that the Soviet Union would not exist six years hence, that it would break up into a dozen countries. Nowhere.

The most important preconditions were: ethnic heterogeneity and balkanization; squandering of national resources on global military adventures; an entrenched political class out of touch with the lumpenproletariat; and, subtly but critically, *an intellectual structure of debate that made taboo discussion of a wide range of serious, nation-threatening problems*.

I think we're at about 1982 here. Call me crazy, but I'm moving inland...along with millions of other Americans. I won't leave the light on for you, Lemuel Pitkin. Or maybe I will, you're my old drinkin' buddy!

Posted by Zagnut | May 22, 2007 10:13 AM

BTW, the above post means that I am calling for American glasnost -- an open, honest, no-taboos debate about the threats to the existence of the United States.

If the Russians did it, so can we. I think it's coming.

Posted by Zagnut | May 22, 2007 10:19 AM

Bush has done more damage to the US than Buchanan, because so many people actually consider Bush a success. Buchanan stood no chance of reelection, whereas Bush miraculously was reelected. Bush's legacy goes well beyond a set of failed policies. He has changed the nature of political debate and expectations of politicians. This will be much harder to undo than his policies themselves.

Posted by daz | May 22, 2007 10:22 AM

Zagnut: "Call me crazy,...".

Ok, you're crazy.

As for the larger issue, Bush is worse than Buchanan because he played the hand he was dealt much worse.

The correct policies for Bush to follow were pretty apparent, to anyone who is not a neocon nutcase.
Bush followed policies that were, as we all know, a complete disaster.

Buchanan, on the other hand, had a very difficult problem that he, admittedly, didn't handle very well.

Posted by Jim W | May 22, 2007 10:28 AM

While Buchanan (if there had been no Lincoln, as usually happens) would have been satisfied to preside over the physical dissolution of the United States, George Bush has presided over a definitive swing away from republican and toward imperial government. The analogy isn't the USSR; it's, to borrow a phrase, Rome, stupid! (no offense towards Zagnut, who is mostly right on). We're at about 20 B.C., except Caesar Augustus, in this case, turns out to be Nero or Caligula.

So while Buchanan would have left the fundamental character of the country untouched in the northern states, GW Bush wants to, or is, destroying it everywhere through his moral obloquy (torture, habeas corpus, anyone?) and dishonor.

Posted by Ben Cronin | May 22, 2007 10:33 AM

Yes, if there's anything the USA can't survive, it's ethnic heterogeneity.

Posted by JP | May 22, 2007 10:39 AM

No we're at the beginning of the 1st Century B.C,
the time of the Jugurthan & Mithridates campaign;
Marius & Sulla

Posted by narciso | May 22, 2007 10:43 AM

Let's be frank. George Bush, while a terrible president, is only about the third or fourth worst. But that isn't because of some sterling aaspect of Bush's personality, or performance. Instead, it is because the very worst presidents were unbelievably bad. Here's my top:

1. Buchanan - hard to understand today just how bad he really was, but read your history books.

2. Andrew Johnson - the beginning of the end of reconstruction (though not ended until Hayes, who is a top ten worst president himself). Impeached, and deserved it.

3. Harding and Bush (tie)

Posted by IP Guy | May 22, 2007 10:46 AM

I think Buchanan gets a bad rap. First, remember he was a lame-duck during the southern seccession, so it made sense to legally deny the right of secessionists and hold onto Fort Sumter, but not actually start a tremendous war immediately and leave that decision to the elected President. After all, how many people here might be a tad upset if a Democrat wins the Presidential election and Bush launches a war in his lame-duck phase and sticks his successor with it?

Second, things probably would not have gone any better, and likely gone worse if Buchanan had attacked the South immediately, It was a great advantage to the Union side if the Confederacy fired the first shot. That is why when Lincoln came in, he continued to follow the 'horrible' Buchanan's policy of watchful waiting rather than start the war straight away himself. If you want to think Buchanan was so bad, you really have to explain why the Lincoln Administration chose to follow almost exactly the same policy, which was hold on to Fort Sumter and wait to catch a break.

Posted by Counterfactual | May 22, 2007 10:48 AM

I predict, with great sadness, that Australia will soon descend into civil war and Queensland will ultimately break away and form its own nation. Sound crazy? Consider: when the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991, who had been predicting the collapse of it just a few years before? Answer: almost no one, the obscure dissident intellectual Andrei Amalrik being almost the only exception.

QED.

Posted by Serious Australian Scholar | May 22, 2007 10:49 AM

Aussie Scholar,

Imagine if 15% and rising of Australia's population were of an ethnic group that had a reasonable historic claim to Queensland.

And that those 15% were demographically centered in Queensland, and slated to become a majority in Queensland within a decade or two.

And that there was constant flow of immigrants of that ethnic group from abroad, and white Australians were fleeing Queensland in droves.

And just to make it fun, that Australia wasn't an island, but was connected by land to the country where this ethnic group originates.

And that that ethnic group was allowed to make demands in their own interests with one voice, but Australia's white majority was not permitted to respond with one voice.

I've just described California.

And maybe Cronulla. Oi Oi Oi!

Posted by Zagnut | May 22, 2007 11:01 AM

After all, how many people here might be a tad upset if a Democrat wins the Presidential election and Bush launches a war in his lame-duck phase and sticks his successor with it?

Somalia, 1992

Posted by rea | May 22, 2007 11:15 AM

> Indeed. Realistically, it's hard to imagine any
> administration performing worse than James
> Buchanans. Such an administration's policies would
> more-or-less have to result in the actual
> destruction of the United States in order to
> qualify.

Although the relative decline of the United States as global empire was probably going to happen anyway in the 3rd generation after WWII (and given the oil situation), the George W. Bush Administration has (1) made that decline inevitable (2) ensured that it will be as painful and unpleasant as it could be. And oh yeah, W Bush has squandered all the international goodwill earned by Bill Clinton and even that granted in the wake of 9/11 and greatly _increased_ the probability of serious terrorist attacks within the borders of the US.

I would say that is by far the worst any President has done to the Nation - _including_ Jefferson Davis.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | May 22, 2007 11:27 AM

Previous US presidents who were thought to be among the "worst" tended to be "do-nothing," presidents, who did little in the face of events that threatened to overwhelm the country (Buchanan, Hoover), or who presided over corrupt and "laissez faire" administrations (Grant, Harding).

What makes Bush uniquely bad is that he has taken policy actions across the political, economic, and international spheres that have made the United States and its political system much worse off than it was before.

Posted by Tom S | May 22, 2007 11:28 AM

Bush of course has been a far better President than Carter, who owns the distinction of being among the worst Presidents AND the worst ex-Presidents. Bush at least has presided over an excellent economy. And Carter' foreign policy was the worst of all time.

Now I would like to defend Vince Carter too, but just cannot at the moment. That's not to say I don't want him resigned, though, provided it ain't for 20M.

Posted by Al | May 22, 2007 12:16 PM

I have always insisted, and will likely always insist, that Andrew Jackson is by far our worst president. Until another president makes literal genocide a matter of public policy, and does so in direct defiance of the government itself, he simply can't be touched.

Posted by Nick | May 22, 2007 12:41 PM

And that there was constant flow of immigrants of that ethnic group from abroad, and white Australians were fleeing Queensland in droves.

Oh, it's about immigration. Of course! Why didn't you just say so? We need a glastnost to be able to talk about the invasion of Mexicans who will soon conquer the Southwest (and California)(!).

Why couldn't those Kremlinologists predict that a wave of Mexican fruit-pickers and lawn mowers would fell the USSR?

In all (or at least more) seriousness, Kremlinologists didn't predict the demise of the Soviet Union in the mid-80s because in the mid-80s, it was continuing on its Brehznev-ite course, corrupt but self-sustaining. It fell so quickly because Gorbachev came in and in the interest of reform, inadvertantly kicked out every institutional pillar of strength of the Soviet system. It's hard to say we're in "1982" unless you also predict that the next US president will enact policies that will suddenly remove the foundations of US democracy.

But if Hillary Clintonez or John McCorona win the White House, you never know! Only Zagnut and Andrei Amalrik will be vindicated by history!

Posted by Ben | May 22, 2007 12:48 PM

Nick, good point. I've never understood why Jackson consistently ranks in the top ten list of best presidents. The spoils system, the national bank issue, and yes, the forced removal of Native Americans from their lands... what gives?

But American history tends to look at Jackson with the same starry eyes as those of his contemporaries. After all, he was already a legend even in his own time.

Posted by benny | May 22, 2007 12:53 PM

Ben wrote:

"It's hard to say we're in "1982" unless you also predict that the next US president will enact policies that will suddenly remove the foundations of US democracy."

We don't have to wait until the *next* one, Ben -- *this* president is already removing the foundations of US democracy, and not just by sanctioning mass illegal immigration!

"But if Hillary Clintonez or John McCorona win the White House, you never know! Only Zagnut and Andrei Amalrik will be vindicated by history!"

Amalrik already has been vindicated; with Zagnut it remains to be seen. I'm guessing we'll go 2 for 2, though.

Interesting your idea that the fall of the USSR was Gorbachev-specific. So, how long do you think the country would've lasted if Gorbachev hadn't been in power? Would it still be around now?

Posted by Zagnut | May 22, 2007 1:17 PM

I think - just as in assessing education - you
have to consider the inputs as well as the output.
Buchanan inherited a big festering problem, and
utterly failed to solve it. Bush inherited the
world's dominant economic and military power
(plus a big budget surplus), and managed to piss
away all those advantages by pursuing utterly
inept policies, leaving the USA unpopular, losing
two unnecessary wars, with a big hole in NYC,
New Orleans depopulated and heavily damaged, a
massive budget deficit, and rampant corruption and
illegality in government.

Oh yeah, and bin Laden is still out there, and
jihadism is growing.

You could make a fair argument that there was no
way to solve the issue of slavery in the USA
without bloodshed, and that the ticking bomb just
happened to go off on Buchanan's watch. For Bush,
on the other hand, practically all the terrible
stuff that's happened can be largely blamed on
his own policies and decisions.

Posted by Richard Cownie | May 22, 2007 1:19 PM

So, how long do you think the country would've lasted if Gorbachev hadn't been in power? Would it still be around now?

That's hard to say of course, but it certainly would have lasted into the Clinton years. I can't imagine that it would have survived unscathed following the rise of the internet, and because it was too ossified to pull off a China-esque transformation, it likely would have collapsed or seriously changed by 2000. All the USSR had going for it in 1985 was its repression of political opposition and the institutional knowledge that the Communist party was always correct in its decisions. Gorbachev's policies of glastnost and peristroika, as well as the re-introduction of competative elections, literally destroyed the governing logic of the Soviet system.

Of course, I don't see what you see in modern-day America. Bush has been very bad (indeed, I think the worst ever, if measured by where the country started with him, and where it is as he prepares to depart), but he has not dismantled the entire logic of American republicanism (small-r). Immigration, as much as you try to make it out as a stealth invasion, is a part of this nation's fundamental purpose and history, not an insidious means to destroy it. For your 1982 analogy to hold, the next president would not want to take over the reigns of the US goverment, and would seek to rule through other avenues of power. This, obviously, is not the case.

Posted by Ben | May 22, 2007 1:36 PM

> It's hard to say we're in "1982" unless you
> also predict that the next US president will
> enact policies that will suddenly remove the
> foundations of US democracy.

I realize it IS possible for more damage to be done to the Constitution than W Bush has already done (goodbye habeas corpus; goodbye warrants (even FISA pseudo-warrants; hello domestic spying; hello "rendition"; hello torture) but the mind boggles at exactly what the Radical Right imagines would be _worse_ than what W has already done.

I guess if Guliani is elected President and appoints Attorney General Rove we will have a chance to find out.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | May 22, 2007 1:42 PM

Ben writes:

"Of course, I don't see what you see in modern-day America...immigration, as much as you try to make it out as a stealth invasion, is a part of this nation's fundamental purpose and history, not an insidious means to destroy it."

I see this wave of immigration as fundamentally different from previous waves.

Americans aren't used to an immigrant-group-failing-to-rise-and-assimilate narrative, since no immigrant group that's ever come *hasn't* lifted themselves to the national average economically and ultimately assimilated -- Irish, Italians, Poles, Klingons, etc.

The only two groups that haven't achieved economic parity and assimilated (as a group) are sui generis non-immigrant groups, African-American descendants of slaves (who were brought over on slave ships) and American Indians (who were already here).

Even now we see some mostly post-1965 groups assimilating quickly and well, like East and South Asians, so the narrative holds in part.

But I think, for a variety of reasons, Mexicans / Central Americans are going to be the first large immigrant group that will not assimilate and achieve economic parity. In brief, my reasons for thinking this are 1) sheer numbers; 2) regnant anti-assimilationist, multicultural ideals and rhetoric in the media, academia, etc.; 3) mean IQ difference between races (I know, it's an awful belief, but I've taken a deep pass at the books on this topic and approached it with intellectual honesty, and the differences are robust and persistent); 4) irredentism in the Southwest, where Mexico has a reasonable claim on our seven SW states; 5) too large a % of our immigrants speaking one language, which retards the melting pot process further; 6) the extralegal nature of the immigration.

I could be wrong, but I think there's a high enough chance that I'm right, and that the consequences are awful and avoidable enough, that I feel the need to post lengthy, strident diatribes about it in weblog comments sections.

Posted by Zagnut | May 22, 2007 3:00 PM

Zagnut --

Unfortunately for your argument, whatever your "reasons for thinking" that Mexicans will not assimilate, the data say otherwise:

RAND STUDY SHOWS HISPANIC IMMIGRANTS MOVE UP ECONOMIC, EDUCATIONAL LADDER AS QUICKLY AS OTHER IMMIGRANT GROUPS

and

Hispanic Immigration Not a Threat to American Identity

Traditional patterns of linguistic assimilation result in the vast majority of immigrants becoming monolingual in English by the 3rd generation. Clear evidence also points to the continuation of these patterns in the case of Hispanic—and specifically Mexican—immigrants. ... Finally, the authors observe that by the 3rd generation, Hispanics’ preferences on policy questions related to bilingual education and declaring English as the official language of the U.S. “closely resemble those of whites and blacks.” ... By the 3rd generation 56% of Hispanics identify themselves as American, and “among native-born Hispanics, an American identity…far outstrips a purely ethnic identity.” In terms of love of country, the authors find that “patriotism among Hispanics, including the foreign-born, is as high as among white Americans.”

Posted by Alex R | May 22, 2007 3:33 PM

Alex R.:

41% of 4th Generation Mexican-American adults haven't graduated high school (The Hispanic Challenge.

How will the United States benefit from importing millions more Mexican Americans, if history suggests that 41% of their great-grandchildren won't graduate high school? How will these high school dropouts compete in a high-tech economy?

Why risk this Brave New World? Do we really need a class of epsilons?

Posted by Fred | May 22, 2007 3:54 PM

Alex R,

My lying eyes don't buy the theses of these two studies, "Hispanic Immigration Not a Threat to American Identity" and "Hispanic Immigrants Move Up Economic, Educational Ladder as Quickly as other Immigrant Groups."

Do you really, based on your life experience and observations, believe that Mexican immigrants and their descendants in the U.S. move as quickly up the economic and educational ladder as, say, Koreans and Indians? I can't believe someone could look at the student body of Berkeley, UCLA, and Stanford and make that claim. Which group of students must Berkeley provide affirmative action for despite their huge numbers in California, and which group makes up half of Berkeley's student body, even with much smaller numbers and losing seats to affirmative action?

Here's a study showing that, of *minority* tech start-ups in California, 20% are started by Indians, 13% by Taiwanese, and 10% by Chinese. Mexicans come in at 1%. As Sailer notes, "That's not a lot of return for having 10,000,000 Mexicans in California." And remember that a non-trivial chunk of these ten million are 3rd- and 4th-generation.

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2007/01/study-25-million-mexican-americans.html

Now, which study sounds more like the world you know: that Indians and Taiwanese start a lot of tech companies in California and Mexicans very few, or that "Hispanic Immigrants Move Up Economic, Educational Ladder as Quickly as other Immigrant Groups"?

Posted by Zagnut | May 22, 2007 4:05 PM

Re Al

I don't know about Carter but there is no question that Dubya is the greatest president since Clinton.

Posted by SLC | May 22, 2007 4:13 PM

Alex R.--

Here's a recent article from the L.A. Times which shows the following incarceration rates for *U.S.-born* members of the following ethnic groups (incarceration rate per 1,000):

Whites 1.7
Asians 1.9
Hispanics 6.7
Blacks 11.6

Ergo, U.S.-born Hispanics are incarcerated at *four times* the U.S.-born white and Asian levels.

This fact can't be reconciled with the rosy scenario painted by the two studies you cited.

http://www.latimes.com/business/careers/work/la-me-immigstudy28feb28,1,5086860.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

Posted by Zagnut | May 22, 2007 4:24 PM

Carter: greatest ex-president ever! Mixed legacy as a president. But Carter was the last liberal president we've had. Clinton was basically a moderate conservative as president in terms of foreign and domestic policy. It's hard not to like Bill, though. The whole saxophone-playing, bubba thing. And an indisputably great speaker. I really felt for him in the late '90's when the Republican congress had gone off the cliff into full-bore Inquisition mode. In a way, you could see the Clinton-Lewinsky surrealness as a prelude to the pseudo-fascism of the Bush administration, in terms of subverting the basic organs of democratic governance.

Go Carter!

Posted by Warren | May 22, 2007 4:36 PM

And I think it's obvious George W. Bush is the worst president ever. It's like saying the sky is blue. There have been unbelievably bad presidents in the past, but the stakes are so much higher today (post-FDR really), our global reach so much greater and the damage done so much more far-reaching in consequence, that it becomes impossible not to include this modern context into the evaluation of Dubya as president.

Posted by Warren | May 22, 2007 4:42 PM

Buchanan was effectively an unremitting disaster, whereas Johnson ran a surprisingly good foreign policy. (The Finian raids into Canada were of course illegal, and helped ensure that the U.S. would never get any voluntary accession of any part of Canada; but getting France out of Mexico and buying Alaska outweighs that in terms of American interests.)

On the other hand, Johnson was de facto a traitor by the end of his term. And Buchanan's mistakes were largely repaired by Lincoln, whereas Johnson's deliberate undermining of Reconstruction did damage that has never been undone.

I'll echo the comments about Jackson, too. Schlesinger has a big karmic debt to pay off for convincing 20th-century Democrats that the murderous lawbreaking insubordinate son of a bitch was a great hero.

Posted by Jacob T. Levy | May 22, 2007 8:15 PM

Jacob -- exactly my thinking. Buchanan: responsible for hundreds of thousands of dead Americans, and the perpetuation of a slave system that killed uncounted others, and Johnson, whose undermining of reconstruction led to the virtual re-enslavement of blacks in the country for another hundred years. Yep, they win the gold cup.

Bush, though, at a tie for third with Harding, should be proud.

Posted by IP Guy | May 22, 2007 9:26 PM

Buchanan failed to deal well with long-existing tensions in the US.

Bush created his own problems.

He committed a grievous unforced error in Iraq, polarized the country, diminished our standing and security, and drove us deep into debt.

None of those things were imaginable at the end of the long national nightmare of peace and prosperity that was the Clinton years.

Bush defeats Buchanan in the battle for Wost President Evar.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | May 22, 2007 10:32 PM