During the last half of this century we have had 10 presidents, mostly bad:
Truman, Harry S.; 1945-53, a self-reformed small time political hack who remade himself into a true-man.
Eisenhower, Dwight David; 1953-1961, better than he seemed, but not as good as he should have been; our last leisure-time president and our first television president.
Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; 1961-1963, an American Caesar, gifted, manipulative and good, he was the Camelot that ended the American age of myth.
John, Lyndon Baines; 1963-1969, Jekyll and Hyde, a good-old-boy politician unsuited for the job, not the Andrew Jackson or the FDR he wanted to be.
Nixon, Richard Milhous; 1969-1974; an egomaniacal criminal who came to office by preaching the hate and fear that Americans love and who wasn't clever enough to keep from being caught.
Ford, Gerald R.; 1974-1977. un-elected and irrelevancy, political play-dough.
Carter, James Earl; 1977-1981, the only decent man elected during the last half of the century, a good president among a bad people.
Reagan, Ronald Wilson; 1981-1989, the delusional lunatic who was the worst president the nation has ever endured. Like Nixon, he preached hate and intolerance in the two dimensional simplicity Americans adore.
Bush, George Herbert; 1989-1993, a spy turned profiteer, phony, greedy, devious.
Clinton, William Jefferson; 1993-, an unprincipled opportunist with principles of tissue paper.
We can judge presidents by what they did. Reagan, Bush and Johnson pointlessly slaughtered many thousands. Johnson sincerely fought poverty.
We can judge presidents by what they didn't do. Eisenhower didn't stop McCarthy or McCarthyism. Kennedy didn't invade Cuba and didn't start World War II.
We can judge presidents by the character they have shown us. Truman made himself a champion. Nixon made himself a petty crook. Carter made himself humble.
We can judge presidents by the fads and manias of the press. Clinton likes to get his dick sucked. I can't condemn him for that, so do I. Reagan thought he was a cowboy, a professor, a fighter pilot and every other part he played on screen. I can't condemn him for delusions. My sickness is asthma.
One narrow, but accurate way of judging presidents is by their appointments to the Supreme Court. The current membership of the court was appointed by 4 presidents, or 5, depending on how you look at it. It is a very bad court. If you want to know why the court is so bad, so evil, look at who appointed them.
Scalia, Antonio; appointed by Reagan in 1986 at the height of his dementia, is unquestionably the worst, Supreme Court justice in a century and likely the worst justice in the Court's 209 year history. He is cruel, narrow mindedly bigoted, truly maniacal and evil, worse in many ways even than Reagan. He is our standard for evil; and is given an index of 100.
Rehnquist, William; appointed first by Nixon in 1972 at the height of his raving paranoia and then elevated to Chief Justice in 1986 by the insane Reagan, was, until Scalia, the worst justice of the century. He is a profoundly evil, twisted person who is a Nazi in everything but name. By comparison to Scalia, he is given an index of evil of 93.
Thomas, Clarence; appointed in 1991 by Bush during his killing-bravado phase, is a bad man, a disgrace and a liar. He is a traitor to law, reason and justice, just the kind of phony Bush liked best. He is given an index of evil of 91.
O'Connor, Sandra Day; appointed in 1981 by Reagan as the worst woman he could find for the job, is less bad than Scalia and Rehnquist, but very bad, nonetheless. Until recently, she was the blot on womanhood who argued against females on the Court. She's earned an index of evil of 85.
Kennedy, Anthony; appointed in 1988 by Reagan, is the least evil and least bad of the lunatic's appointments. He was probably really appointed by Al Hague. He's an intellectual dwarf, only slightly worse than many past justices. He's garnered an index of evil of 56.
Stevens, John Paul; appointed in 1975 by Gerald Ford, is pretty much a lukewarm irrelevance like Ford. He's given an index of evil of 53.
Souter, David; appointed in 1990 by George Bush, is less bad than the majority, but hardly up to the job; a small fish in a big pond. He is given an index of evil of 44.
Breyen, Stephen; appointed in 1994 by Clinton before the feeding frenzy over his sexual scandals, has, so far proven himself to be less bad than expected. He's given an index of evil of 38.
Ginsburg, Ruth Baden; appointed in 1993 by Clinton, is the least bad justice on the Court. She's a midget in a giant's shoes, a pathetic glimmer of Brendeis and Brennan who is no threat to the right-wing macho males. She is given an index of evil of 30.
From these evaluations, we can grade the presidents:
Clinton: 66
Ford: 47
Bush: 32.5
Reagan: 16.5
Nixon: 7
Not very good grades, but close to correct.
Return to Judges Who Shouldn't Be Menu
Return to HOMEPAGE.