Friday, May 25, 2007
James Gill
Times Picayune

Jimmy Carter was in Violet Monday, crawfishing over his assessment of the Bush administration as “the worst in history,” and regretting that he did not choose his words “more carefully.”

Sadly nobody asked Carter whether that meant he thought it possible that Bush is not the biggest doofus ever put in charge of the Republic.

He has thus thrown down a challenge to presidential historians. Perhaps there should be a Jimmy Carter prize for anyone who can make a case that, somewhere along the line, a more inept administration might be found.

Carter himself is living proof that we have not always been fortunate in our presidents, although the misadventure that did him in — his failure to rescue the hostages held for 444 days in Tehran — can hardly be compared with Bush’s bungled and bloody foray into Iraq.

Talking of bloody forays, contenders for the title worst in history might include the succession of presidents immediately before the Civil War — Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan. Of the three, Buchanan bears the heaviest responsibility for failing to avert secession and has gone down in history as a poltroon and political hack.

Buchanan is a definite contender, and the consequences of his shortcomings could hardly have been more dire. But it may be that no president could have resisted the historical forces that split the Union, and at least nobody has ever accused Buchanan of going out of his way to launch a foolish war on false pretenses.

When Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, his successor, Andrew Johnson, ruffled so many feathers that he was impeached and survived in the Senate by one vote. Since one of the biggest beefs against Johnson was his leniency toward former Confederates, opinions in New Orlreans will vary as to whether he has a legitimate claim to the title of worst president.

In the 20th century, two names spring to mind. Warren Harding headed an administration principally known for corruption and cronyism, and seems to have put drinking, gambling and adulterous sex above statecraft. Bush forswore alcohol 20 years ago, but shares Harding’s preference for loyalty over ability when handing out federal largess and appointments. Thus he continues to defend Alberto Gonzales, for instance, even while the Justice Department loses its last shred of credibility.

The Bush administration has seen no scandal to rival Teapot Dome, but that came to light only after Harding’s death and more unsavory facts may yet emerge from, say, an investigation into profiteering in Iraq.

Bush, moreover, has undermined the Constitution to a degree the likes of Harding could never have contemplated. Bush’s “faith-based initiatives” have, as Carter pointed out, contravened the principle of separation between church and state, and his “war on terror” has thrown due process out the window.

The second contender from the last century, Herbert Hoover, was perhaps unlucky to take office only months before the stock market crashed, but his subsequent performance merely paved the way for FDR and the New Deal. Hoover opposed the repeal of Prohibition, and his name seems to have become synonymous with misery, although his reputation was restored by his various good works after he left the presidency.

It is hard to think of a president as inarticulate and intellectually incurious as Bush, whose response to global warming has mostly been to ignore or misrepresent the scientific evidence. He likes to take credit for an economy that is humming along, and the jury’s still out on that issue.

Future generations might, however, have a heavy price to pay for the huge deficits Bush has run up while failing to reform Social Security and other entitlement programs.

He is a long way from the worst politician who ever sat in the White House. For a man of such modest accomplishments to win the presidency at all bespeaks a remarkable gift and, lame duck though he now is, he can still outmaneuver the Democratic majority in Congress over conduct of his war.

But Carter had nothing to apologize for except, perhaps, stating the obvious.