Who was the worst president of the Unitied States?

Nibble on this: One way to decide this question is to ask who walked into a good situation and screwed things all up (see the previous post). When George W. Bush took office the economy was good and growing, the budget was balanced, the United States was at peace, and it was "a sunny afternoon in America" (re: Ronald Reagan's quotation about "morning in America"). The only spot on the picture was the lingering question about the legitimacy of the election that the Supreme Court of the United States,without precedent, ultimately awarded to Bush.

Despite the good situation they inherited the Bush administration began in their first weeks planning the war on Iraq. The planning began a full 8 months before the 9/11 attacks, which we now know had nothing to do with Iraq.

Why did they want to take the U.S. into war? Not for any noble reason. The Bush administration made a major change in policy, the Bush Doctrine, which said that the U.S. would now begin preemptive wars, purely offensive wars, against countries that may pose a threat to us. But Iraq never posed any credible threat to the United States. And, the purpose for the war was not strictly to gain control of Iraq's oil, though that was surely part of it. It was much more prosaic and ignoble than that. A major reason the Bush administration wanted a war from before day one of the first Bush term was to rapidly install and entrench the neoconservative agenda. That agenda, pioneered in the first Bush administration, was partly, to privatize as many defense and military functions as possible.

What this means is that private corporations, big business and well connected others, would have a much bigger money pie to divide at the same time having little or no accountability to the American people. In short, the Bush administration is allowing their big business and other rich friends to use the U. S. treasury as a personal, limitless ATM while weakening our military. In the process they have sent thousands of volunteer armed forces personnel to their deaths; people who had families that loved them and depended on them. Tens of thousands have been wounded.

After the 9/11 attacks the world was behind us. We had support from not only our traditional allies, we had unprecedented support from countries who are usually our adversaries. All of this support was foolishly squandered by the Bush administration in pursuit of principles and ideas that, ironically, George H. W. Bush once called "voodoo economics."

The rationalization for the Iraq war was clearly wrong indicating either dishonesty or incompetence on the part of the Bush adminstration. The economy has steadily eroded hurting everyone except the wealthy. By one account we are spending 4 million dollars an hour in Iraq, much of which is unnacounted for (remember the 1 billion dollars in cash that was supposed to be for "reconstruction" projects that simply disappeared?). The budget is in shambles. Our allies are disgusted with us, our enemies are growing in number and hate us more than ever. We fought a war that did not need to be fought and continue to fight it because it continues to be a cash cow for Bush administration rich friends and supporters. The middle class, working class, and poor in America, many of whom are (or were) Bush supporters at the polls are suffering economically, personally, and philosophically. All of this has been done by the Bush administration in only 6 years with 2 more left to screw things up even more. My goodness, you couldn't make this stuff up.