Worst President Ever?

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

When will FDR get the credit he deserves for keeping capitalism afloat in the US?

 

ha! I cant believe you believe that. FDR was influenced highly by Woodrow Wilson who was to say the least, not a fan of Capitalism..

 

I wish FDR had gotten his way with his "Economic Bill of Rights"

 

>The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation.

>The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment.

>The right of every family to a decent home.

>The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation.

 

Hardly anything remotely resembling capitalism. I think its funny that he was such a great President that we ended up with a consitutional amendment 7 years after his death forbidding any president from serving more than 2 terms.

 

And for my money, Woodrow Wilson is probably top 3 in the Worst...organizing Propaganda Agencies, shutting down newspapers that weren't for his Administration (freedom of the press? HA!), Organizing the American Protective League (warrant? we dont need no stinkin warrant, we ain't even official police!) etc..etc..etc..

[snuffbox 0]

I'm fully cognizant of conventional wisdom, Marv. However, I kinda like to look beyond that. In this case, the further look doesn't require a whole lot more than a normal grasp upon common sense.

 

Hoover (and the rest of his party)'s ideas were failing about as miserably as failing can get. 'Standing pat' died with Marc Hanna but the GOP, as now, was intent on dragging its carcass as long as it possibly could. With the economy in a heap and revolution in the air, the confidance of the American people in capitalism (or whatever label would have been given to the policies that they felt put them in the positions they were in) was just about spent and was not going to sit through four more years of "aw, it's ok for everyone else because I'm doing just fine"

 

Incredibly, Hoover himself had lost a small fortune along with everyone else that went down with the Depression. The guy took a huge personal loss and still couldnt wrap his head around the fact that there was a serious problem. Goes to show that even a guy as bright, well-intentioned, and personally experienced as Hoover can still be a fuckup sometimes.

 

W Bush, however, has none of those charecteristics and fucked up nearly everything he's done the last 7 years.

 

On Wilson - As a human being, Wilson ranks near the very bottom. As a president, he certainly did no worse than the bottom-5 I already listed (Nixon, W, Buchanan, LBJ, Hoover).

[Guest Beastalentier]

YOU VOTED FOR NADER

[The Niggardly King 0]

YOU'D VOTE FOR PAUL

[King Kamala 0]

That ain't true! Unless he was joking (which wouldn't be surprising), Czech said he voted for Hillary. Probably just to spite Barry Obama

[Guest Beastalentier]

I did, and that was why.

[The Niggardly King 0]

YOU VOTED FOR HILARY, JUST TO SPITE OBAMA, YOUR OPINION IS VOID

[snuffbox 0]

He already admitted he's not really keen on politics. That pretty much leaves 3 options: 1) Avoid it all entirely. Clearly, not happening since politics has some interest for Czech. 2) Take cues from dipshits and be a Marvin. Czech aint that un-keen. 3) Be a contarian.

 

So, just enjoy the Milky vibe that we all nuthug so tightly here.

[SuperJerk 0]

I can't believe I missed Marvin dissing FDR. Wow.

[snuffbox 0]

Glen Beck probably told him Hoover was among America's greatest leaders. And Frank Roosevelt tossed Stalin's salad on a regular basis.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Glenn Beck probably did a story on how the Yalta conference was secretly intended to create a New World Order, but Roosevelt's sudden death prevented it.

[snuffbox 0]

http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNew...=22&sp=true

 

Trickle-down/pissing-on economics just has to be due to work one of these days.

[EricMM 0]

THE TAX CUTS SAVED MONEY!

[snuffbox 0]

How long will it take people to realize that that concept will never work?

[SuperJerk 0]

I remember one time I cornered Mike on why, if supply-side worked so well, did Reagan raise taxes in 1982? He denied knowledge that Reagan ever did any such thing, of course.

[snuffbox 0]

He's handicapped, though.

[snuffbox 0]

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/ReproductiveH...9246&page=1

 

That whole abstinence-only education idea turned out well.

[EricMM 0]

This is why, regardless of house size Bush will always be the polluting president and a worse environmentalist than Al Gore. Because his policies pollute more than any mans house can.

 

No duh.

 

Ozone Rules Weakened at Bush's Behest

EPA Scrambles To Justify Action

 

The Environmental Protection Agency weakened one part of its new limits on smog-forming ozone after an unusual last-minute intervention by President Bush, according to documents released by the EPA.

 

EPA officials initially tried to set a lower seasonal limit on ozone to protect wildlife, parks and farmland, as required under the law. While their proposal was less restrictive than what the EPA's scientific advisers had proposed, Bush overruled EPA officials and on Tuesday ordered the agency to increase the limit, according to the documents.

 

"It is unprecedented and an unlawful act of political interference for the president personally to override a decision that the Clean Air Act leaves exclusively to EPA's expert scientific judgment," said John Walke, clean-air director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

 

The president's order prompted a scramble by administration officials to rewrite the regulations to avoid a conflict with past EPA statements on the harm caused by ozone.

 

Solicitor General Paul D. Clement warned administration officials late Tuesday night that the rules contradicted the EPA's past submissions to the Supreme Court, according to sources familiar with the conversation. As a consequence, administration lawyers hustled to craft new legal justifications for the weakened standard.

 

The dispute involved one of two distinct parts of the EPA's ozone restrictions: the "public welfare" standard, which is designed to protect against long-term harm from high ozone levels. The other part is known as the "public health" standard, which sets a legal limit on how high ozone levels can be at any one time. The two standards were set at the same level Wednesday, but until Bush asked for a change, the EPA had planned to set the "public welfare" standard at a lower level.

 

The documents, which were released by the EPA late Wednesday night, provided insight into how White House officials helped shape the new air-quality rules that, by law, are supposed to be decided by the EPA administrator.

 

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) questioned in a March 6 memo to the EPA why the second standard was needed. EPA officials answered in a letter that high ozone concentrations can cause "adverse effects on agricultural crops, trees in managed and unmanaged forests, and vegetation species growing in natural settings."

 

The preamble to the new regulations alluded to this tug of war, stating there was a "robust discussion within the Administration of these same strengths and weaknesses" in setting the secondary standard. The preamble went on to say that the decision to make the two ozone limits identical "reflects the view of the Administration as to the most appropriate secondary standard."

 

The effort to rewrite the language -- on the day the agency faced a statutory deadline -- forced EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson to postpone at the last moment a scheduled news conference to announce the new rules. It finally took place at 6 p.m., five hours later than planned.

 

Under the Clean Air Act, the federal government must reexamine every five years whether its ozone standards are adequate, and the rules that the EPA issued Wednesday will help determine the nation's air quality for at least a decade.

 

Ozone, which is formed when pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and other chemical compounds released by industry and motor vehicles are exposed to sunlight, is linked to an array of heart and respiratory illnesses.

 

The EPA set the allowable amount of ozone in the air at 75 parts per billion, a level stricter than the current limit but higher than what the scientific advisers had recommended.

 

Carol M. Browner, who served as EPA administrator under President Bill Clinton, also encountered objections from the OMB when she established new ozone standards in 1997. In that instance, the president backed the EPA over White House budget officials.

 

"We did not allow OMB to push us into a decision we were quite certain was outside the boundaries of the law," Browner said in an interview. The Clean Air Act, she added, creates "a moral and ethical commitment that we're going to let the science tell us what to do."

 

Asked for a comment yesterday, EPA spokesman Timothy Lyons said the agency had complied with the Clean Air Act. "The secondary standard we set is fully supported by both the law and the record, and it is the most protective eight-hour standard ever for ozone."

 

When asked about Clement's role, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said: "The White House sought legal advice from the Justice Department and made its decision based on that advice."

 

The EPA's documents suggest that senior officials and scientific advisers resisted the White House's position. Last year, the agency's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee wrote -- using italics for emphasis -- that it unanimously supported the EPA staff's conclusion that "protection of managed agricultural crops and natural terrestrial ecosystems requires a secondary [ozone standard] that is substantially different from the primary ozone standard. . . ."

 

When the OMB's Susan E. Dudley urged the EPA to consider the effects of cutting ozone further on "economic values and on personal comfort and well-being," the EPA's Marcus Peacock responded in a March 7 memo: "EPA is not aware of any information that ozone has beneficial effects on economic values or on personal comfort and well being."

 

Lisa Heinzerling, a Georgetown University law professor who specializes in the Clean Air Act, said Dudley's letter to the EPA represents "a misunderstanding of the statute, a misunderstanding of Supreme Court precedent and a misunderstanding of the science as the expert agency understands it."

[Kinetic 0]

>The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation.

>The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment.

>The right of every family to a decent home.

>The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation.

 

 

Good god, that Roosevelt was some kind of monster.

 

[Guest Beastalentier]

Eric is guilty of the same sort of eschatological hyperventilating as Pat Robertson, in some ways.

[EricMM 0]

Even if so, and probably not, but even if so at least I get my reasons from scientists and not religion.

[Jingus 0]

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/ReproductiveH...9246&page=1

 

That whole abstinence-only education idea turned out well.

The most eyebrow-raising part of that survey:

the highest overall prevalence is among black girls - nearly half the blacks studied had at least one STD. That rate compared with 20 percent among both whites and Mexican-American teens

Betcha nobody (aside from the O'Reillys and Coulters) will ever bring up that point. I could imagine that just mentioning this apparent fact would bring on the crying about omg-raycist~!

 

Ozone, which is formed when pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and other chemical compounds released by industry and motor vehicles are exposed to sunlight, is linked to an array of heart and respiratory illnesses.

Wait... ozone's bad now?

[Spaceman Spiff 0]

Ozone in the upper atmospgere = good.

 

Ozone at ground level = bad.

[snuffbox 0]

What was the point of that Jingus? Abstinence-only works because black girls have a better chance of getting cervical cancer than others?

[SuperJerk 0]

The "Penn and Teller's Bullshit" episode dealing with why abstinence-only programs are awful is both accurate and hillarious. I suggest everyone youtube it at once.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7kKnLW7S-s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OY349NgAA5I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roiQwD9XAoY

[Jingus 0]

What was the point of that Jingus? Abstinence-only works because black girls have a better chance of getting cervical cancer than others?

No, abstinence programs have generally proven to be useless. My point was that I bet there's a serious lack of discussion most places about why black girls have such a higher rate of infection. Far-righties will spew their "SEE, YOU CAN'T TRUST THE DARKIES" drivel over the AM band about it, but everyone else will probably ignore it entirely.

[Jobber of the Week 0]

This study seems odd to me because it's only looking at females, but they're getting the STDs from somewhere, and it's probably men, yeah?

[Guest Tzar Lysergic]

Toilet seats!

[snuffbox 0]

http://online.wsj.com/article/declarations.html

 

Here's some comfort for him, for all Democrats. In Lubbock, Texas – Lubbock Comma Texas, the heart of Texas conservatism – they dislike President Bush. He has lost them. I was there and saw it. Confusion has been followed by frustration has turned into resentment, and this is huge. Everyone knows the president's poll numbers are at historic lows, but if he is over in Lubbock, there is no place in this country that likes him. I made a speech and moved around and I was tough on him and no one – not one – defended or disagreed. I did the same in North Carolina recently, and again no defenders. I did the same in Fresno, Calif., and no defenders, not one.

 

He has left on-the-ground conservatives – the local right-winger, the town intellectual reading Burke and Kirk, the old Reagan committeewoman – feeling undefended, unrepresented and alone.

 

This will have impact down the road.

 

I finally understand the party nostalgia for Reagan. Everyone speaks of him now, but it wasn't that way in 2000, or 1992, or 1996, or even '04.

 

I think it is a manifestation of dislike for and disappointment in Mr. Bush. It is a turning away that is a turning back. It is a looking back to conservatism when conservatism was clear, knew what it was, was grounded in the facts of the world.

 

The reasons for the quiet break with Mr. Bush: spending, they say first, growth in the power and size of government, Iraq. I imagine some of this: a fine and bitter conservative sense that he has never had to stand in his stockinged feet at the airport holding the bin, being harassed. He has never had to live in the world he helped make, the one where grandma's hip replacement is setting off the beeper here and the child is crying there. And of course as a former president, with the entourage and the private jets, he never will. I bet conservatives don't like it. I'm certain Gate 14 doesn't.

-Peggy Noonan.

 

Probably not a good sign for the President. I know he likes to convince himself that, since Harry Truman got a rebound in the eyes of history, he too will be vindicated. Unfortunately for Junior, HST never alienated Missouri and he had actual accomplishments to go on besides Korea (which was a successful mission).

 

Really, the only straw that he has to grasp is being in office at the start of the War On Terror much like Truman leading the beginning of the Cold War and our containment policy. Unfortunately for the sitting president, he did nothing to stop our country from being attacked, granted amnesty to the terrorist leader Bin Laden, then subsequently invaded an entirely unrelated country and attempted the guranteed-failure of a plan known as nation-building. Other than his work in Africa, George Bush Jr. has absolutely nothing to hang his historical hat on.

 

And, John McCain is right, history will definitly not be kind to what happened before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina.

[Atticus Chaos 0]

I take some comfort in the fact that once he's out of the presidential bubble, he'll have to live with being one of the most despised men in America. Even now, he can't go to a ballgame without getting jeered. He'll likely get booed at in the street if he even goes outside.

 

No one's going to care about his memoirs, his own party want nothing to do with him and the next president (whether its Mccain, Clinton or Obama) will likely shut him out. He can kiss his elder statesmen status goodbye.

 

While he is clearly incompetent, he's not stupid. I think he's aware enough to know he's going down in history as one of the worst presidents ever.