Top Historians rank the worst presidents ever...

Posted by Evan Derkacz at 8:11 AM on December 4, 2006.

I'm not usually given to liberal porn like this. Rankings of worst or best presidents or assessments of the relative mental health of followers, are fun, but usually fatally flawed or otherwise unserious. But there's a certain gravitas to this ranking due to its age: 58, the man writing about it: Eric Foner, and the paper publishing the story: the Washington Post.

Here's a snippet, plucked from context: ...slashed income and corporate taxes and supported employers' campaigns to eliminate unions. Members of their administrations received kickbacks and bribes from lobbyists and businessmen. "Never before, here or anywhere else," declared the Wall Street Journal, "has a government been so completely fused with business."

Aside from the fact that the WSJ's current editorial board routinely applauds this kind of behavior, it's notable for the disturbing similarity to our current dear leader.

Or how about this:

Polk should be remembered primarily for launching that unprovoked attack on Mexico and seizing one-third of its territory for the United States.

Lincoln, then a member of Congress from Illinois, condemned Polk for misleading Congress and the public about the cause of the war -- an alleged Mexican incursion into the United States. Accepting the president's right to attack another country "whenever he shall deem it necessary," Lincoln observed, would make it impossible to "fix any limit" to his power to make war.

Foner concludes: worst president in history.

Tagged as: bush, presidents

Evan Derkacz is an AlterNet editor. He writes and edits PEEK, the blog of blogs.