Reckless Boldness Productions

Commentary by Jake Tobaksa:

Traditionally Buchanan gets the nod because the Union split on his watch. I’m not sure that is entirely fair, as it would have taken an extraordinary president to keep it together. But as president he was a mediocrity. That has usually been the case with the presidents who get low ratings. Buchanan was one of string of poor presidents. Grant and Harding, who rank near Buchanan were incompetent presidents who also allowed massive corruption to flourish.

But modern presidents are more powerful, and more dangerous. In the 19th century there were probably only two significant presidents who were also bad presidents: Jackson and Polk. But in the 20th century there were seven or eight significant presidents (I’m on the fence about JFK being significant, and on the fence about his being good or bad) and at least four were questionable. Wilson, LBJ, Nixon, and Reagan were all significant presidents who did some really bad things. All did some good things, too. I guess Wilson might make it into the good column, Reagan is maybe not as bad as he is painted – but still bad. Johnson, despite the many good things he did, or tried to do, still had Vietnam. Bad! Nixon … need I say it? One of the very worst.

Carter of course was a very poor president, but worst? Don’t be silly. Our worst president was in the 21st century, and (hint) it isn’t Obama. If you need another hint, he was definitely a significant president, and after only 9 months in office Obama doesn’t qualify as that, either. The list of things that were worse after his terms is long – indeed, it is hard to think of anything that isn’t worse: the economy, the debt, our international standing, the morale of our military, the state of the many government agencies, etc. In trying to come up with something good, something along the lines of Johnson’s Civil Rights Act of 1965, or Nixon’s opening ties with China, all I can come up with is his not getting in the way when Bernanke and Paulson were trying to keep the world economy from crashing last fall. And that seemed to be because he froze like a deer in the headlights, so his not screwing up was kind of a lucky accident.

Turning to Obama, I had much lower expectations than my friends, so while I am disappointed, I am not all that surprised. Between his Afghan adventures, and his fumbling with various of the War on Terror legacy (Gitmo, torture, surveillance of US citizens, etc.) we are getting Bush Lite. It isn’t clear to me (and probably won’t be clear to anyone for decades, if ever) whether his efforts to rescue the economy have helped or hurt. But it is clear that some of it was not especially competent, such as the GM bailout. He tackled a problem that needed tackling – health care – but as urgent as that is he should have waited until folks knew what was happening with the economy. It is highly unlikely that anything helpful will be passed by Congress at this point, so, like the Clintons, the real effect is to take a mess and once more make it politically untouchable for fifteen years or so, by which time it will be that much worse. And that seems to be the result of hubris.

As for Palestine, Iran, North Korea, Russia … All too early to tell, but it doesn’t look like we can expect any breakthroughs.