Worst President Ever, Part 2

Let's do a little thought experiment. Let's think about a young Tea Partier, white (of course), male (of course), Southern (probably), chatting with his grandchild fifty years from now, explaining how, back when he was a young white male Tea Partier, times were really tough. Why my Tea Party buddies and I actually had to live through the worst Presidency in the history of America...

"You mean Barack Obama, Grandpa?"

"Yes, that's right, Barack Obama. I don't know how we ever survived."

"Tell us more!"

"Well, first there was the economy. When Barack Obama took office, the economy was the worst most of us had ever seen. The stock market had crashed, we were losing hundreds of thousands of jobs every month, housing prices had plummeted, and the American auto companies were about to go broke. Then President Obama bailed out the car companies and passed the stimulus..."

"You mean the Failed Stimulus, Grandpa?"

"Yep, the Failed Stimulus. Using my hard-earned taxpayer money to make things better. I hate that. After that, the job losses slowed down, and then we started gaining jobs and gained back all the jobs that were lost, but it took a long time. The stock market more than doubled and hit new highs, home prices rebounded, and the auto companies were doing great again.

"Then there was deficit spending. When George W. Bush -- you know, The Great George Bush -- was President, he started with a balanced budget left to him by the first President Clinton. But by the time he left and Obama took office, the deficit was a trillion dollars the first year. Then Obama passed the stimulus and made it worse. Then, as the economy recovered, the deficits started to go down, down to less than half of what they had been...

"And another thing. Under Bush The Great, we had been attacked by Osama Bin Laden, the worst terrorist attack in American history. As a result, we started two wars in the Middle East that both dragged on and on, and we never got Bin Laden. But President Obama ended both wars and caught and killed Osama Bin Laden.

"And then there was health care. President Obama pushed through a law that extended health care to tens of millions of Americans who had previously been uninsured. People who had to think about whether or not they wanted to go to the doctor when they were sick, because of the cost, suddenly had health insurance and could afford medical care. Millions of people suddenly were not in danger of going bankrupt because they got sick.

"And don't forget torture. Bush was not afraid to torture people; he just said that it wasn't really torture, even though we all knew it was. As a result, perceptions of America around the world were terrible while Bush was President. But during the Obama administration, the torture stopped, and America's standing in the world improved dramatically.

"And another thing was the Bush administration's policy toward gay marriage and gays in general was proud, open, undisguised bigotry. That all changed during Obama's time in office. The government started treating gays as equal to anyone else, and gays even got the right to marry in states all across the country."

"Gee, Grandpa, with all those good things, President Obama must have done some really terrible things to be the worst President ever."

"Uh, no, that was pretty much it. We just hated anything and everything he did. Especially that health care thing."

"So, er, Grandpa... When you say President Obama was the worst President ever... You really don't have shit to back that up, do you?"

"Uh, well, no...  not really. Can't really think of a single good reason, now that you mention it. But we really hated that guy..."

Worst President Ever!

A recent poll by Quinnipac University asked people who was the best President since World War II, and who was (is!) the worst. The best turned out to be Ronald Reagan, and the worst was the current President, our own Barack Obama.

Before we take a look at the many reasons why Barack Obama is the worst President since anyone can remember, and probably the worst ever, just some raw numbers from the poll are illuminating.

If I say that Republicans are really great at goose-stepping in unison, can everyone take that as a metaphor for Republicans all thinking the same things that they have been told to think and saying the same things that they have been told to say, and not as meaning that they are all murderous Nazis? No, too harsh?  Too bad. This poll shows some strong evidence of metaphorical goose-stepping by Republicans. (The phenomenon is not limited to this poll.)

Democrats were split (relatively speaking) on who was the best President; Clinton was the winner with 34%, but Obama and Kennedy got 18% apiece. However, an amazing 66% of Republicans polled thought that Reagan was the best, with the next highest former President chosen by only 6%, a 60% gap versus only 16% on the Democratic side. You can see how Reagan wins a poll like this. Republicans know the one true answer; Democrats have to think about the question.

Similarly, Republicans knew what to say when they were asked who was the worst President since WWII. 63% chose Barack Obama, while only 14% chose Jimmy Carter. Among Democrats, George W. Bush was the clear "winner" with 54%, but it was a little closer, with 20% making the obviously correct choice of Nixon, so Republican group-think helped select Obama as the worst President as well.

Another funny note on the polling: People have short memories, and the majority will almost always choose someone recent in this type of poll. Given that, it's astounding that only 1% of Republicans chose George W. Bush  as the best President, while 5% tagged him as the worst. When you can't even get a positive vote among your own party, you must be pretty bad. (Nixon was the only other President to poll negatively on the two questions within his own party.)

I have a sense of how long I like to make my blog posts. I don't normally like to make people read something too long, because I know that I rarely want to, so I am going to stop. That means all those reasons why Barack Obama is so terrible will have to wait for a part two.