Define "worst"

As his motorcade parades down the winding street, President George W. Bush enjoys affectionate cheers, the type of which Elvis knew during his prime. He exits confidentially from the bullet-proof limo into the adoring crowd, as starry-eyed women clad in Stars and Stripes top hats lovingly embrace him. Massive placards adorn the area, proclaiming the throng as "Proud to be Partners" with the Commander in Chief, while other posters exclaim, "President Bush Making History." It was June 11th, 2007, and Lil' Bush appears to be the most popular man in the country.

Too bad this all happened in Albania.

Back on his native soil, the picture isn't quite as rosy, to put it mildly. The latest Newsweek poll shows his approval rating at 26 percent, and even the folks at FOX News were only able to manufacture a 34 percent approval rating for their man. While one in four Americans is sitting at home watching TV thinking "Yup, ol' Georgie is doin' a great job. Wouldn't change a thing. Stay the course, buckaroo!" the rest of the country is somewhere between disgusted and outraged, or at least expressing something that passes for outrage these days.

The reasons are obvious enough: number one of course is the "situation" in Iraq. First, describing the current state of affairs in Iraq as a "situation" makes the whole thing sound like an unfortunate misadventure that will get cleared up any time now. I guess it sounds better than "horrific shit show." But if you're the head honcho, you call yourself a war president and you stake your entire presidency on an unnecessary war against a country that was not threatening you, and it goes as bad as it has in Iraq - well, you've got a situation on your hands, don't you? Expecting anything more than the worst approval ratings in history is probably asking too much.

It doesn't help that nearly every other aspect under the umbrella of "things in Bush's control" are also in a state of some level of dysfunction. The federal budget deficit is growing near to the point where the public may soon need to become familiar with the word "quadrillion;" health care, the economy and taxes, honesty and integrity, an irrational war on science, wanton corruption from within ... the list goes on and on. In the end, the Bush administration receives failing grades for competence in nearly every phase and characteristic regarding the policies it has decided upon, as well as for the ethical decency of the administration's staff. It's to the point where Republicans are switching parties in an attempt to distance themselves from the darkness surrounding the White House.

As the time wanes on W's ugly tenure, the aforementioned worst approval ratings in history have begat an effort to try and define his place on the presidential totem pole. Lately, the phrase "worst president ever" has been popularly associated with our current leader, as such he is. The phrase "worst president ever" mixed with Bush's name returns approximately 223,000 hits on Google (compared to 109,000 for Clinton). Prominent historians, from Arthur Schlesinger at Harvard to Sean Wilentz at Princeton, have recently made their cases for Bush as being the 43rd best president in the history of the United States.

A Wilentz's article, a featured cover story last year in Rolling Stone, describes a 2004 poll in which "an informal survey of 415 historians conducted by the nonpartisan History News Network found that eighty-one percent considered the Bush administration a 'failure.' Among those who called Bush a success, many gave the president high marks only for his ability to mobilize public support and get Congress to go along with what one historian called the administration's 'pursuit of disastrous policies.'"

To simplify, those who specialize in putting a historical perspective on things (sorry, Dittoheads - they can't all be leftist communist sympathizers like you'd prefer to believe) assert nearly to a man that GWB is atop the list of bad prez's, and the only thing he's really good at is using that good ol' boy charm to get people to go along with his cockamamie schemes.

But this brings up the obvious question: what, exactly, makes for a dreadful president? By which criteria shall we use to judge those charged with the preservation of the union and furthering the wellbeing of the nation? Does one look at the state of the union currently, or must one wait until years have gone by to view the lasting damage? Is it a case of personal incompetence or picking the wrong people with whom to surround you? Are economic indicators the main litmus test or national security?

All thought questions, and depending on who you ask, there are likely to be several different answers.

For now, let's look at some other really lousy presidents.

Warren Harding
Harding (1921-1923) didn't do a whole lot; he died in office after only two years. Nevertheless, he was able to gain historical prominence as a lovable nincompoop. Rumor has it that he once openly admitted that the job was above him. One critic said of his Bush-esque command on his native language: "He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash."

Gee. Flap and doodle? That pretty damning stuff.

Harding also had a Clintonian zipper problem, as his affiars are also quite well known. But in the end, his presidency just isn't pockmarked with much residual, catastrophic consequences. So he falls a bit shy of worst ever.

Richard Nixon
Oh, if only. If only he didn't have to resign in disgrace after comitting criminal offenses. If only he wasn't semi-delusional and paranoid. If only he had figured out a way to get us out of Vietnam. Unfortunately, he had these few issues. But in the end, his foreign policy prowess and near political genius keeps him from falling into worst.

Jimmy Carter
My mother worked in the Carter administration, so it pains me to have to put him on this list. But truth be told, he did very few things of note, none of them very successfully. Granted, many of the weren't his fault, but the guy at the top takes the blame. It certainly wasn't his fault that the Republicans made a secret deal with Iran behind his back. But you got to be in the game to win it. However, much like Harding, lasting damage from the Peanut Man is minimal to non-existant.

This isn't looking good for Bush, is it? Truth is, there is very little positive one can say about his presidency, from any angle on any issue. The one bright spot is that no terrorist attack has landed on American soil since 9/11, and one could make the argument that many of his policies - ranging from tactics of questionable constitutional legality to placing Americans closer to the terrorists - have directly resulted in the safety of the homeland.

And the stock market hasn't crashed.

That's about it.

So I'll reserve judgment for right now. It is possible that he could somehow make an 11th hour comeback, but - shakes 8 ball - my sources say no. Right now, it's safe to say that W is leading the pack to come in last place. And I am preparing to answer the following question which my future teenager will ask of me: "Daddy, how did everyone allow George Bush to get elected?"

Evan Redmon is a manager of a public golf course in Washington, D.C. and writes a few things about stuff sometimes. Contact him at evanredmon@yahoo.com if you really want.