Nowhere To Go But Down

So our boy W scored #36 (out of 42) in the C-Span survey of scholars ranking the prez-nits. Already some commentary here. But may I be the first (next?) to say, overrated!

Any list like this is bound to be a washed out consensus, and there are obviously still a few partisan GOPers in the academy holding out hope for a Trumanesque redemption. (BTW, how did Harry charge up to #5? I love that guy, but was he really better that Tommy J? OK, that pales next to Ronnie Reagan making the top 10. Sheesh!!) The major deficiency of that list, however, may be that it favors activity, any activity, over nullity. Note Franklin Pierce at #40 and W.H. Harrison at #39. Harrison really didn't have a "presidency"; he just had an inaugural, one so bad he killed himself by pneumonia. So I'd give that guy a zero. Are you really telling me that only three presidents (Pierce, AJohnson, Buchanan) were less than zero? The latter two deserve that status, no question. There gotta be a few more. Exhibit A: where's Tricky Dick?

And then there's Bush. Yeah he did a lot. All of it bad. Has any president ever started out with more and then dug a deeper hole with every move he made? Our boy was the Shit Midas, and I think that deserves a little recognition. True, I doubt he'll ever reach Buchananite glory--provoking the Civil War and then letting the South slip away unmolested--although W did eerily echo JB's blend of daring idiocy and feeble incompetence. AJ's rude botching of Reconstruction is quite a marker in its own right. Still, GWB's trail of destruction was so diverse and unblemished that it deserves a bit more neg respect. I look forward to a day where historians take less pity and more perverse joy in a job well undone.