Carter: Globally, Bush administration 'worst in history'

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Al_Masetti said:
You beat me to this witty remark!

11 countries went Communist during his administration.

Then there was the first attack on U.S. soil: the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, Iran … and Mr. Carter just covered the White House with yellow ribbons and tore his shirt.

Mr. Carter is one of the few duly-elected presidents who was defeated for re-election.

**

Bitter indeed. And and Roslyn still can’t believe that the California cowboy beat him. And she has been more vocally bitter.
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I’m sure in twenty years we will have a new ‘worst administration in history.’ But, I will say, Bush has had been in the right place at the right time for a lot of this to happen. It still needs to be noted a crises tends to take a long time in the making. To understand a war, sometimes it’s really important to look at the time of peace, before the war started. I must say, it’s easy to blame Bush, while he justifiably gets credit for part of that, he has been but standing on the shoulders of giants. LOL
 
Thekla said:
pollingreport.com/wh-hstry.htm

Please try to follow my logic. In the Gallup Poll from December of 2006 on Presidents and History, Jimmy Carter has a combined 22% score from people who believe that history will consider his presidency to have been either “below average” or “poor.” You can’t get worse than “poor.” George Bush has a combined 54% score from people who believe that history will judge his presidency to have been either “below average” or “poor.” And that was 6 months ago.

So when you are outscoring Jimmy Carter more than 2 to 1 on the bad president scale, that makes you the worst.
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Does anyone have the information on the types of judges President Carter nominated?
 
gilliam said:
You can always take polls, but the US public is notoriously fickle. If you were to poll the public during Lincoln’s time, I have absolutely no doubt that he would have ranked as the “worse president in US history.”
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I don’t think that you can compare Lincoln’s time to our time. Or even Truman’s time, for that matter. Today history is being written at a faster and faster pace. We have cable news and live satellite coverage and people who are in the middle of news stories calling in with cell phones and video clips. The public is finding out what is going on as it happens rather than having people tell us about it at a much later time.

People have said that Mr. Bush thinks he will be like a Truman; not approved of by the public at the time, but approved of later. But the problem with that idea is that this is not Truman’s time; it’s half a century later and the world is completely different.
 
Thekla said:
I don’t think that you can compare Lincoln’s time to our time. Or even Truman’s time, for that matter. Today history is being written at a faster and faster pace.

We have cable news and live satellite coverage and people who are in the middle of news stories calling in with cell phones and video clips. The public is finding out what is going on as it happens rather than having people tell us about it at a much later time.

People have said that Mr. Bush thinks he will be like a Truman; not approved of by the public at the time, but approved of later. But the problem with that idea is that this is not Truman’s time; it’s half a century later and the world is completely different.
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Truman wasn’t the only president in that category. Lincoln and a number of other presidents are in that category.

History is about the past. No matter how fast the Internet is, it can’t speed up history. The ramifications of the events of today will be played out over years and decades. There is no Intel chip-set that will accelerate that. Maybe that is something the enemy is more aware of then we are. We are talking about events occurring today that will take maybe a hundred years to play out completely. The enemy has the patience to wait this out.
 
dmelosi said:
Among those polled, I wonder how many were living when Jimmy Carter was president. Hard to compare a poll taken 6 months ago when everything in the news is negative about the current president and almost everything in the news is positive about the past president.
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In 1982, there was a Trib Poll that people said Carter ranked 10th worst and that was pretty close to when his presidency ended in 1980. Mr. Bush ranks 1st worst (by a 2 to 1 margin) in last year’s Quinnipiac Poll (I wonder if they’ll poll again this year.) In that same poll, Carter came in 4th worst so maybe history doesn’t help them.
 
Okay. Well try to follow my logic. On the exact same page you linked, the second poll is “who do you regard as the greatest US president?” GW Bush is ranked #8 (FEB-07). I would be hard pressed to say that the majority of the country thinks he is the worst, when at the same time he is higher on the list of the “greatest” than Carter…or his father.
Thekla said:
pollingreport.com/wh-hstry.htm

Please try to follow my logic. In the Gallup Poll from December of 2006 on Presidents and History, Jimmy Carter has a combined 22% score from people who believe that history will consider his presidency to have been either “below average” or “poor.” You can’t get worse than “poor.” George Bush has a combined 54% score from people who believe that history will judge his presidency to have been either “below average” or “poor.” And that was 6 months ago.

So when you are outscoring Jimmy Carter more than 2 to 1 on the bad president scale, that makes you the worst.
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rlg94086 said:
Okay. Well try to follow my logic. On the exact same page you linked, the second poll is “who do you regard as the greatest US president?” GW Bush is ranked #8 (FEB-07). I would be hard pressed to say that the majority of the country thinks he is the worst, when at the same time he is higher on the list of the “greatest” than Carter…or his father.
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Now you are just fooling around because his #8 ranking consists of 2% of respondents. And he used to have 11% in 2004 so he’s actually on his way south. As I pointed out above, Mr. Bush has a 34% “worst” ranking from the May 2006 Quinnipiac Poll and it will be interesting to see if they do the poll again this year. How about if you and I do a little side bet for fun. I say he’s going up to 45%. What do you say?
 
gilliam said:
Both of these presidents are still alive and at least for Bush, the ramifications of his presidency won’t be felt for years after his presidency (Carter’s presidency is long gone). Historically speaking, you can’t judge Bush yet, and I would say since the Middle East had such a profound impact on Carter’s presidency, that until this era passes in the Middle East, you can’t judge Carter’s presidency yet either. It is too soon.

You can always take polls, but the US public is notoriously fickle. If you were to poll the public during Lincoln’s time, I have absolutely no doubt that he would have ranked as the “worse president in US history.”
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I resent to being called fickle. I praise the president for the economic turnaround but when he continues to deny all advice to get out of Iraq as though he has the ultimate solution he is making a mistake. I don’t for a second believe it is the worst presidency ever but it is a disastrous one.
 
I think this is a real odd time, where Bush could actual be in position to be the “worst administration in history.” The stakes are different than when the US tangled USSR, there is a more vast array of options on the table. While everyday is a new turning point in history, I think these past few years have been more critical than many years before.

I guess to get a good feel of what actually is a good measure of “the worst administration in history,” maybe it would be good to ask, what was the worst administration in Russia or England or France? Why? The problem with some of the polls are, it really doesn’t give a good reason as to why. It might be a good idea to really separate out the emotion from some of the opinions to come up with more objective reasons and for that matter credibly reasonable subjective opinions. I suppose the problem with history is that we tend to view it often with our fashionable measures of our time.
 
goofyjim said:
I resent to being called fickle.
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Sorry 😊

But John Q Public is fickle. It is one of the first things you learn when you work in politics. (I worked on a number of campaigns, including McGovern’s when I was younger).
 
gilliam said:
Sorry 😊

But John Q Public is fickle. It is one of the first things you learn when you work in politics. (I worked on a number of campaigns, including McGovern’s when I was younger).
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Personally, I think the president is doing a fine job on the economy but a lousy one on foreign policy. OTOH, the Congress is just the opposite. I agree with their idea of getting us out of Iraq but not with rolling back the tax cuts. I wish I could get the best of both parties. I hate having to choose between the lesser of two evils.
 
jman507 said:
I think this is a real odd time, where Bush could actual be in position to be the “worst administration in history.” The stakes are different than when the US tangled USSR, there is a more vast array of options on the table. While everyday is a new turning point in history, I think these past few years have been more critical than many years before.
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I agree it is a strange time. If 10 years ago an ex-president called a sitting president the worst ever, it would have been truly shocking - but in the current situation, not that shocking.

As someone else said, things are very complex, and call for complex thinking, diplomacy, and as many good relations as we can get. This administration just isn’t up to it.

As a wise man once said, “if your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.”
 
gilliam said:
Sorry 😊

But John Q Public is fickle. It is one of the first things you learn when you work in politics. (I worked on a number of campaigns, including McGovern’s when I was younger).
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Oh, Gilliam, I thought better of you than that. 😉
 
mary_bobo said:
Bitter indeed. And and Roslyn still can’t believe that the California cowboy beat him. And she has been more vocally bitter.
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“There ya go again!”

[IMHO, Reagan won with a couple of excellent phrases. Bush beat Gore with merely a glance and a tilt of his head.]
 
Carter takes advantage of his standing as a great humanitarian to say things that he probably shouldn’t say.

He is definitely the best “ex-President” in history. His campaign against the guinea worm is admirable, as is his involvement with Habitat for Humanity and a host of other charitable endeavors.

But being a great humanitarian doesn’t give him the authority to pronounce judgement on another President.

I agree, we won’t know the ramifications of Bush’s administration for many decades. It’s foolish to draw conclusions about history while history is still the “present time.” Let the present become the past, and THEN draw conclusions.
 
White House fires back: Jimmy Carter 'irrelevant’
Bush spokesman defends ‘W’ after ‘worst in history’ claim
Posted: May 20, 2007
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The White House is firing back at former President Jimmy Carter, calling the Georgia Democrat “increasingly irrelevant” in the wake of his remarks labeling the Bush administration the “worst in history.”
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In an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Saturday, Carter was quoted as saying, “I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history.”
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Full Story
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As for Habitat for Humanity. As long as Carter is associated with it, it is off my list.
 
Thekla said:
Now you are just fooling around because his #8 ranking consists of 2% of respondents. And he used to have 11% in 2004 so he’s actually on his way south. As I pointed out above, Mr. Bush has a 34% “worst” ranking from the May 2006 Quinnipiac Poll and it will be interesting to see if they do the poll again this year. How about if you and I do a little side bet for fun. I say he’s going up to 45%. What do you say?
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I say your earlier point is more salient…wait to see what history says. Personally, I think he will look better a couple of decades from now. Just as people who thought Carter was great directly after his presidency later realized what a failure he was, those in the middle who have been swayed by the anti-war crowd will realize they were wrong over time.
 
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