The Worst US President of All Time?

Is Bush really the most disastrous leader in US history? The press, historians and politicians seem to be saying he is either the worst or only Fifth worst.

Rolling Stone: “George W. Bush's presidency appears headed for colossal historical disgrace”
Rolling Stone: “George W. Bush is in serious contention for the title of worst ever”
Rolling Stone: 415 historians conducted by the nonpartisan History News Network found that eighty-one percent considered the Bush administration a "failure."


Washington Post: “It's unfair to claim that George W. Bush is the worst president of all time. He's merely the fifth worst. In the White House Hall of Shame, Bush comes behind four other Oval Officers whose policies were even more disastrous: James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Richard M. Nixon and James Madison.”
“he will be remembered for the Iraq conflict for generations, long after tax-cut-driven deficits, No Child Left Behind and comprehensive immigration reform are forgotten. The fact that Bush followed the invasion of Afghanistan, which had sheltered al-Qaeda, with the toppling of Saddam Hussein, will puzzle historians for centuries. It is as though, after Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor, FDR had asked Congress to declare war on Argentina.”


The Independent: “The question "who is the worst US president" is something I have thought long and hard about and the answer is very simple: it is the incumbent president. I had previously thought that Nixon was the worst and there were other candidates such as Warren Harding - but they all pale in comparison to Bush. He has displaced all his predecessors. Nobody has been quite as appalling”


The Guardian: “Americans believe George Bush is the worst president since 1945, while Ronald Reagan was the best, according to a Quinnipiac University telephone poll of 1,500 registered voters”


ABC News: “An increasingly unpopular war, an ethics cloud, and broad economic discontent have pushed public opinion of the Bush administration from bad to worse, infecting not only the president's ratings on political issues but his personal credentials for honesty and leadership as well.”


2001 Nobel Prize-winning economist George Akerloff told the German magazine Der Spiegel "this is the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history."

“Bush is quite likely the worst president in the 200-year history of the United States. This has enormous implications for the international community, since his country is not a small republic like the Maldives or Andorra, but a global behemoth.
His power as the most powerful man on earth derives not from a particular intelligence or set of talents, but by virtue of his position as the leader of the dominant military and economic nation on our planet.” Huck Gutman

“Bush is not merely the worst president in recent memory. He's the worst in all US history. And he's won the distinction not on a weakness or two, but in at least nine separate categories, giving him a triple trifecta.” Harvey Wasserman

Compilation of Bush quotes:
"You don't get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier."Describing what it's like to be governor of Texas. (Governing Magazine 7/98)
"If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." (CNN.com, December 18, 2000)
"A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it." (Business Week, July 30, 2001)

I believe that George W Bush could go down as the worst president in US history. There isn't much that Bush can do now to salvage his reputation from being viewed by the entire world (with the exception of many Americans) as a laughingstock. His presidential library will be built on his main failures: Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina...