Why does every on this site insist that Bush is either the best or the worst president?

Question

I mean if you look at history there are president much better and much worst.

Better:
FDR
Washington
Truman
Jefferson
Ect.

Worst:
Hayes
Garfield
Hoover
Ect.

Reported for what?

Answer 1

President James Buchanan was recently called the worst President ever by a bunch of historians, due to the fact that he basically didn't try to hinder the Civil War from happening in the first place.

I agree, though. It seems to be one of two extremes. It's not like he can just be "good", "okay", "whatever", "not great", or "bad"; he has to be BEST or WORSE... no matter what.

Personally, I don't believe he's a good President, far from it, but I acknowledge that there have been President worse than him, especially the one in the first paragraph. Most of the people on Answers who seem to "campaign" for or against the President tend to go to the extremes, either saying the Constitution be changed so he can serve again, all the way to people saying he should be impeached, tried, convicted, and executed (yes, I HAVE seen people say this!)

I think that maybe some of these people need to take a breather. I like politics, too, but a person needs to be able to step back, look at history, and say "Wait, he's probably not the ______ [best/worse] President ever to serve our country.

Answer 2

Im not sure what Bush has done. I tried to think of one positive thing he has done for my life and i cant think of one. He just so happend to be in charge when September 11th happend. If Elmer Fudd was president during those attacks he would have been able to inspire hope and promise revenge. I am a politically neutral person so none of this is partisian at all, but he failed at every other buisness he has ran so why should the American Presidency be any exception? I guess if i had to rank him on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the best i would give a 5 or 6

Answer 3

I read in the most recent US News & World Report, that the mode of the day for Gen-Y is decidedly leftist. The article is balanced, in my opinion, and worth a read.

Could be that the majority of users only remember Bush? And have had only hearsay from liberal professors regarding Clinton?

Just speculation. Oh, and war-time presidents aren't usually popular until later.

Answer 4

Actually, if you look back at my answers about bush I've only asserted that he is the president. I never said if he was the best or worst. Unlike most of the people on this forum Im mildly indifferent to him. Politics is a job and people dont seem to understand that because of thier passion.

Answer 5

George W. Bush is in serious contention for the title of worst ever. In early 2004, an informal survey of 415 historians conducted by the nonpartisan History News Network found that eighty-one percent considered the Bush administration a "failure." Among those who called Bush a success, many gave the president high marks only for his ability to mobilize public support and get Congress to go along with what one historian called the administration's "pursuit of disastrous policies." In fact, roughly one in ten of those who called Bush a success was being facetious, rating him only as the best president since Bill Clinton -- a category in which Bush is the only contestant.

The lopsided decision of historians should give everyone pause. Contrary to popular stereotypes, historians are generally a cautious bunch. We assess the past from widely divergent points of view and are deeply concerned about being viewed as fair and accurate by our colleagues. When we make historical judgments, we are acting not as voters or even pundits, but as scholars who must evaluate all the evidence, good, bad or indifferent. Separate surveys, conducted by those perceived as conservatives as well as liberals, show remarkable unanimity about who the best and worst presidents have been.

Historians do tend, as a group, to be far more liberal than the citizenry as a whole -- a fact the president's admirers have seized on to dismiss the poll results as transparently biased. One pro-Bush historian said the survey revealed more about "the current crop of history professors" than about Bush or about Bush's eventual standing. But if historians were simply motivated by a strong collective liberal bias, they might be expected to call Bush the worst president since his father, or Ronald Reagan, or Nixon. Instead, more than half of those polled -- and nearly three-fourths of those who gave Bush a negative rating -- reached back before Nixon to find a president they considered as miserable as Bush. The presidents most commonly linked with Bush included Hoover, Andrew Johnson and Buchanan. Twelve percent of the historians polled -- nearly as many as those who rated Bush a success -- flatly called Bush the worst president in American history. And these figures were gathered before the debacles over Hurricane Katrina, Bush's role in the Valerie Plame leak affair and the deterioration of the situation in Iraq. Were the historians polled today, that figure would certainly be higher.

Answer 6

Children -- pubescent teenagers especially -- have to simplify things into black-and-white. Ergo, Bush is either the best or the worst.

And pay no mind to the black knuckles guy. Just a ranter.

Answer 7

Because we are primary sources. We're experiancing as it happens. We were not alive during other presidents, so we can't really have true sympathy for those who had to deal with them.

Answer 8

This site is ful of to many people who see evrything in black and white,no nuances.You're right about Bush but what about the ridiculous generalizations on other topics?

Answer 9

Some people have their heads in the sand, and others help them to get it out of the sand.