Crackpot History

(The subtitle is “And The Right To Lie”…anyone who guessed the title of this ‘80s Adam Ant song gets a free pair of ray-bans and some form-fitting Lycra workout pants.)

This is the only link I can find to this story that doesn’t require registration, either for Salon or The Philadelphia Inquirer. However, it links to Comcast, which is really funny about this sort of thing. You may have to click through a couple of windows to get to the story (it shows a photo of Bill Clinton in the left column).

The story comes from the AP and reporter Elizabeth Dunbar, and it appeared over the holiday weekend (timed for President’s Day, of course). It has to do with what are, supposedly, the worst blunders in presidential history according to a survey of presidential historians. As you may have guessed, I wouldn’t be saying anything about this unless I had some problems with this list, which I do (I don’t have any kind of advanced degree or anything, but I know what I know).

Just to make sure of my facts, I watched some episodes of the series “The American President” that ran a few years ago on PBS, which featured interviews with scholar Richard E. Neustadt and interviews and commentary by Hugh Sidey, who wrote extensively about the presidency for Time Magazine for years (when it was still a serious publication).

In case this link stops working, I’ll reprint the list here (not many keywords that news aggregators will find I know, but I think this stuff is important):

1. James Buchanan's failure to avert the Civil War.
2. Andrew Johnson's pro-white policies after the Civil War.
3. Lyndon B. Johnson's expansion of the Vietnam War.
4. Woodrow Wilson's refusal to compromise on the Treaty of Versailles after World War I.
5. Richard M. Nixon's involvement in the Watergate cover-up.
6. James Madison's failure to keep the United States out of the War of 1812.
7. Thomas Jefferson's Embargo Act of 1807, a prohibition on trade with Europe.
8. John F. Kennedy's allowing the Bay of Pigs Invasion that led to the Cuban missile crisis.
9. Ronald Reagan's Iran-contra affair, the effort to sell arms to Iran and use the money to finance an insurgency in Nicaragua.
10. Bill Clinton's sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

1) I think listing James Buchanan as the worst presidential offender of all time is stupid, though it is not the worst item on this list. I say that because the run-up to The Civil War occurred not just during Buchanan’s term (the only bachelor president and the only one from PA), but also during the term of Buchanan’s White House predecessor, Franklin Pierce. Both are generally acknowledged to have been bad presidents, but as far as I’m concerned, Pierce was worse because he allowed the territories acquired during his term, Kansas and Nebraska, to decide the slavery question for themselves instead of trying to mandate the states as “free” (though it’s possible either decision would have created a bloody outcome), thus allowing the problem to fester (and make no mistake…the Civil War was a fight to hold onto slavery as a big part of the antebellum traditions of the South – to say it was over “states rights,” though true in part, is a gross oversimplification).

Pierce was actually a traitor, writing to his former Secretary of War Jefferson Davis after Davis became president of the Confederacy that “the sooner we are apart, the better,” meaning that the union should be dissolved. Buchanan, though a politician more than a statesman, attempted to leave the slavery question alone, which infuriated the Northern abolitionists. Despite the fact that both Pierce and Buchanan catered to the South, secession nevertheless began when South Carolina left the union under Buchanan in 1860.

If Buchanan can be “blamed” for anything, it can be his refusal to support Stephen Douglas, the nominee of the Democratic party (Buchanan being a Democrat also) for president in 1860. This led to the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln, and that event had more to do with kick-starting The Civil War than anything. However, there is a large body of evidence to support the claim that the war would have started regardless of who was president, and Lincoln was one of the finest we’ve ever had.

2) Andrew Johnson was essentially a white supremacist, but as a senator from Tennessee before the declaration of The Civil War, he took a stand against secession and supported emancipation (which earned him the spot of V.P. on the ticket with Lincoln in 1864, a move Lincoln and others would regret). Johnson did veto a bill granting full citizenship to former slaves after the war, though Congress overrode his veto as part of the escalating tensions between Johnson and Congress that led to Johnson’s impeachment; he was saved from removal from office by a single vote. Because of his struggles with Congress, Johnson was ineffectual to the point where I don’t believe he could be blamed for having an impact one way or the other, though he was a bad president to be sure. The pain reconstruction inflicted on the South, as far as I’m concerned, was more the fault of Congress at that time. Johnson also remains the only president elected to the U.S. Senate (from Tennessee) after his term in the White House ended.

(By the way, if you want a laugh, try reading this version of Johnson’s life from the White House web site…unbelievable.)

3) LBJ can be blamed for expanding the war in Vietnam, but I think Nixon should earn a dishonorable mention at the least for escalating the war into Cambodia in 1970…it got China’s attention, but at a terrible cost).

4) This is probably the worst item on this list as far as I’m concerned.

The punitive terms of the Treaty of Versailles after World War I, terms which were meant to humiliate Germany and subsequently gave birth to the nationalism exploited by Hitler to start World War II, were vehemently opposed by Wilson. The fault for those terms lies with the other three participants: Vittorio Orlando of Italy, Georges Clemenceau of France, and David Lloyd-George of Great Britain (particularly Clemenceau). One area where Wilson did refuse to compromise regarded Wilson’s proposed League of Nations, the precursor to the U.N. Wilson demanded that the Senate ratify the treaty with the League included, and this didn’t happen. Another important factor to consider, though, is that Wilson had suffered a debilitating stroke prior to the time that the treaty was being considered in the Senate, and his judgment had become seriously impaired as a result.

As far as I’m concerned, Wilson’s refusal to compromise was correct. He was in large part a visionary president; the only “mistake” he made was not to present his plan for the League 20 years later when this country was more prepared to accept it.

5) No argument here

6) I think this is the second worst item on this list. The run-up to the War of 1812 had been going on for at least five years, with Great Britain trying desperately to regain a foothold in North America below Canada and avert further U.S. expansion, even to the point where the British were siding with the Indians against us (particularly the warrior Tecumseh…and I know the question of genocide on the part of settlers against Native Americans remains heavily disputed and is a separate issue as far as I’m concerned). President James Madison inherited this situation which began under the presidency of Thomas Jefferson (7), but as a result of our eventual victory in this war (or, at least, a stalemate that forced England out for good, since they were basically spent after fighting both us and Napoleon at the same time), the U.S. was able to move forward with expansion free from British influence. Also, war fervor helped elect Madison to a second term, with war breaking out soon after his re-election. The bottom line is that I think this is another conflict besides the Civil War that no one person would have been able to prevent.

7) This is absolutely correct. Thomas Jefferson was probably one of the greatest intellects who ever lived, and he wanted to be seen as “the people’s president,” acting strictly within constitutional authority and doing away with ceremony and protocol (and also the Internal Revenue Service for a time). His first term was almost a storybook, with balancing our budget and eliminating our debt as probably his most noteworthy accomplishments. However, his second term went in the complete opposite direction. When British ships engaged in war with France attacked U.S. commercial ships at sea, Jefferson signed The Embargo Act which closed all U.S. ports and crippled the economy, nearly leading the New England’s secession from the Union (believe it or not). This was the beginning of the escalating conflict with Great Britain that led to the War of 1812 under Madison.

8) I know JFK signed off on the Bay of Pigs, but all I will say is that everything else related to the invasion was conceived during Eisenhower’s presidency, and probably the main reason this didn’t happen under Ike was because of the fallout from the U-2 spy plane incident with Francis Gary Powers (something else that should have made this list as far as I’m concerned).

9) The first domino to fall, so to speak, that led to this was the bombing of our military base in Beirut in 1983, which led to our response of bombing in Lebanon, which led to the taking of our people as hostages, which led to this item. This definitely should be somewhere on this list, though.

10) Yeah, I guess you have to keep the freepers happy with this one.

I would argue that other items that should be included on this list would be the Alien and Sedition Acts passed under John Adams’ presidency (though he wisely didn’t enforce them), the “Gilded Age,” Tammany Hall corruption under Ulysses S. Grant, our bloody incursion into the Philippines under William McKinley, and the Iranian hostage crisis under Jimmy Carter (who should have at least had some idea that that could happen if we decided to aid the deposed Shah of Iran…fair is fair, after all).

And by the way, for anyone who thinks I’m taking it easy on Clinton, here are four things that he can be blamed for, as far as I’m concerned: 1) The “Blackhawk Down” incident in Mogadishu, 2) NAFTA (we continue to live with the effects), 3) Granting Most Favored Nation trade status to China in 1994 (ditto), and 4) The Microsoft trial in the 90s (if someone can explain the importance, I’m “all ears”).

I don’t know if the intent here was to create some kind of easily digestible list that could be regurgitated one day in a game of trivial pursuit or something, but I would have expected something far better from a group of people who profess to know what they’re talking about.

And none of this considers the biggest presidential blunders of all, as far as I’m concerned, and that would be Dubya’s failure to ignore the report on August 6th, 2001 notifying him that al Qaeda was determined to strike in this country, as well as the second Iraq War which we are currently fighting and likely will be for some time.