Does this matter? Why? Why not?
Editing by Carolyn Bennett
US defense analyst Ivan Eland is author of Putting ‘Defense’ Back into U.S. Defense
Policy; The Empire Has No Clothes:
U.S. Foreign Policy Exposed; Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on
Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty; and Partitioning
for Peace: An Exit Strategy for Iraq. Eland is also Senior Fellow and
Director of the Independent Institute’s Center on Peace and Liberty. This week
one of Eland’s articles poses and answers the question “Is Barack Obama the
Worst President in American History?”
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eferencing one of his books, Eland chooses list A as America's worst presidents. Others
have chosen list B. You might want to reflect on your choices of good and bad US presidential leadership and legacy and the reasons underlying your choices.
James
Knox Polk: 11th president of the United States (1845–1849). Under his
leadership the United States fought the Mexican War (1846–1848) and acquired
vast territories along the Pacific coast and in the Southwest. Polk’s beginning
and ending: b. November 2, 1795, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina; d. June
15, 1849, Nashville, Tennessee.
William
McKinley: 25th president of the United States (1897–1901). Under his leadership,
the United States went to war against Spain in 1898, acquiring global empire
including Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. McKinley’s beginning and
ending: b. January 29, 1843, Niles, Ohio; d. September 14, 1901, Buffalo, New
York.
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (American scholar,
statesman remembered for his legislative accomplishments and high-minded
idealism): 28th president of the United States (1913–1921). Wilson’s leadership took the United States into World War I
and “became the creator and leading advocate of the League of Nations (Nobel Peace
laureate recipient 1919). His second term saw passage and ratification of the
Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Woman Suffrage (White American women’s right to
vote). While seeking American public support for the Treaty of Versailles
(October 1919), Wilson was incapacitated by a stroke, which lasted
for the rest of his term and “caused the worst crisis of presidential
disability in American history.” Wilson’s beginning and ending: b. December 28,
1856, Staunton, Virginia; d. February 3, 1924, Washington, D.C.
Harry
S. Truman: 33rd president of the United States (1945–53). His leadership
took the United States through “the final stages of World War II and through
the early years of the Cold War, vigorously opposing Soviet expansionism in
Europe and sending U.S. forces to turn back a communist invasion of South
Korea.” Truman’s beginning and ending: b. May 8, 1884, Lamar, Missouri; d. December
26, 1972, Kansas City, Missouri.
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n his choice of four worst U.S. presidents Ivan Eland concludes
that these presidents “led the country into needless wars that changed America
for the worse.”
He says, “Polk purposefully started a war with a weak state,
Mexico, to steal a third of its land and, in doing so, aggravated regional
tensions that eventually led to America’s most searing and cataclysmic war –
the Civil War.”
McKinley’s blemish, Eland says, was undertaking “the
Spanish-American War to launch the United States, which had revolted against
the British Empire, into its own imperial role by acquiring colonies and
beginning the long, interrupted trajectory toward America as an interventionist
superpower.”
He condemns Truman for “convert[ing] a local war in Greece
into an expensive worldwide Cold War against the Soviet Union, which began with
a stalemated hot war in non-strategic Korea that led to the creation of the
national security state, the imperial presidency, and the shelving of the
traditional requirement that the American people, rather than its leader, would
decide if war was needed.” 
As to America’s 28th president, Woodrow Wilson, Eland says,
he “ignor[ed] America’s tradition of staying out of Europe’s wars, took the
nation into World War I, which laid the seeds for the Bolshevik Revolution,
Hitler’s rise, World War II, and the Cold War.”
Therefore, by comparison, Eland says, the current US
president, though “a bad president whose stock is dropping, … because his war
against ISIS” is likely to exacerbate “Islamic radicalism and terrorism” is not the worst president in US history. For that dishonor, Eland chooses Woodrow Wilson for having, Eland says, “ruined
the 20th century and is now working on the 21st.”
B
Franklin
Pierce (nickname, Young Hickory): 14th president of the United States
(1853–57). His leadership “failed to deal effectively with the corroding
sectional controversy over slavery in the decade preceding the American Civil
War (1861–1865).” Pierce’s beginning and ending: b. November 23, 1804,
Hillsboro, New Hampshire; d. October 8, 1869, Concord, New Hampshire.
James
Buchanan: 15th president of the United States (1857–1861). His
leadership tried but “failed … to find a compromise in the conflict between the
North and the South to avert the Civil War (1861–1865).” Buchanan’s beginning
and ending: b. April 23, 1791, near Mercersburg, Pennsylvania; d. June 1, 1868,
near Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Warren Gamaliel
(G.) Harding (nostalgic promises won presidency by largest popular-vote
margin): 29th president of the United States (1921–1923). His leadership “accomplished
little of lasting value [and] soon after his death a series of scandals doomed
the his presidency” causing it to be “judged among the worst in American
history.” He died during his third year in office. Harding’s beginning and
ending: b. November 2, 1865, Caledonia [now Blooming Grove], Ohio; d. August 2,
1923, San Francisco, California
Herbert
Clark Hoover (lauded as a humanitarian earned during and after World War
I as he rescued millions of Europeans from starvation): 31st president of the
United States (1929–1933). His
leadership was unable to alleviate domestic (US) “widespread joblessness,
homelessness, and hunger during the early years of the Great Depression.” Hoover’s
beginning and ending: b. August 10, 1874, West Branch, Iowa; d. October 20,
1964, New York, New York.
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hat do you think?
Sources and notes
Biographical briefs on US President, Britannica: (2013). Encyclopedia
Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica Deluxe Edition. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica.
Eland bio, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Eland
“Is Barack Obama the Worst President in American History?”
Ivan Eland, November 4, 2014,
http://original.antiwar.com/eland/2014/11/03/is-barack-obama-the-worst-president-in-american-history/
A lifelong American writer and writer/activist (former academic and staffer with the U.S. government in Washington), Dr. Carolyn LaDelle Bennett is credentialed in education and print journalism and public affairs (PhD, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan; MA, The American University, Washington, DC). Her work concerns itself with news and current affairs, historical contexts, and ideas particularly related to acts and consequences of U.S. foreign relations, geopolitics, human rights, war and peace, and violence and nonviolence. Dr. Bennett is an internationalist and nonpartisan progressive personally concerned with society and the common good. An educator at heart, her career began with the U.S. Peace Corps, teaching in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Since then, she has authored several books and numerous current-affairs articles; her latest book: UNCONSCIONABLE: How The World Sees Us: World News, Alternative Views, Commentary on U.S. Foreign Relations; most thoughts, articles, edited work are posted at Bennett’s Study: http://todaysinsightnews.blogspot.com/ and on her Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/carolynladelle.bennett. http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/08UNCONSCIONABLE/prweb12131656.htm http://bookstore.xlibris.com/Products/SKU-000757788/UNCONSCIONABLE.aspx Her books are also available at independent bookstores in New York State: Lift Bridge in Brockport; Sundance in Geneseo; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center in Buffalo; Burlingham Books in Perry; The Bookworm in East Aurora
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