Worse than James Buchanan: That is, according to a poll done for the History News Network, which reveals that the historians surveyed rate the current incumbent below the fifteenth President, remembered mainly for being the only President never to marry. Buchanan also sided with the Southern wing of the Democratic Party in the years leading up to the Civil War (and against Stephen Douglas), backed the Dred Scott decision, and did nothing when the traitorous states began seceding after the election of his successor, one Abraham Lincoln. And today's scholars regard Mr. Bush as being worse than that.

Well, it's early; we still have three years to go before all the bodies are counted before it's fair to conclude that Bush is the Worst President Ever. But in terms of actual accomplishments, it's hard to argue with that judgment. There's little tangible to be counted in terms of successes, a fact that puts him behind such men as Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, U.S. Grant and Warren Harding, and his failures have been monumental. Buchanan's mistakes were those of a leader of a rather insignificant backwater compared with the great nations of Europe, and ironically his appeasement of the Southern states hastened the Civil War, which ended slavery a heck of a lot faster than the political process would have done by itself. Bush, on the other hand, began his term leading a peaceful and prosperous nation, the world's sole superpower, and within five years made us a supplicant nation economically and a loathsome bully internationally.

Comparing Buchanan to Bush is like comparing some third-rate Roman consul during the early stages of the First Punic War with the Emporer Commodus. Of course Bush is worse; he led a greater nation, and his impact proved more devastating. [link via AmericaBlog]