The Worst President Ever?

If you've spent any time lately on Facebook, you've undoubtedly noticed one of your "friends" and his/her vote on whether George W. Bush was the worst President ever. Worst. Ever. Gets you to thinking, doesn't it? I mean, what's the criteria for being the worst President ever? Those are two words with quite a stigma, "worst" and "ever."

For Presidents, there's a long list of factors to consider, evaluate, and ultimately judge - domestic and foreign policy, economic stability and growth, human and civil rights, education, health care, national security, and international leadership, just to name top of the list. It's easy to forget a President doesn't do it alone, and I'm not just talking about cabinet Secretaries. Our "Checks & Balances" government includes the Legislative (Congress and Senate) and Judicial (Supreme Court) branches. It's far from a one-man show, but that clouds our sound bite attention spans and one-liner appetites.

You want the office, you (and your family) has to bear the scrutiny. Yeah, it's a bit unfortunate, but all candidates know the game.

Now, for the matter of G.W. No question, he had a tough row to hoe. September 11, 2001 knocked the luster off his inauguration faster than you can say "Osama is a sniveling little bitch hiding in a cave." Despite how bad ass our military is, public opinion never embraces a modern war for long - the graphic pictures from the frontlines are just too much for many of us to stomach. Bookend the wars with the global economic meltdown. In between is a shit sandwich of failed diplomatic relations and a variety of other woes. Tough eight years, no doubt.

But, worst ever? For that, you have to compare, and to do that, we need to flip back the pages of history just a wee bit.

Andrew Johnson was a white supremist who opposed Reconstructionist efforts to extend the most basic of civil rights to freed black slaves. Richard Nixon visited China, yes, but he also rode roughshod over the Constitution and abused the power of the Presidency, eventually getting implicated in the Watergate burglary. James Buchanon divided our country into the North and the South, where brothers fought brothers. Calvin Coolidge oversaw wide-spread corruption and the dawn of the Great Depression. James Polk attacked Mexico unprovoked and took one third of its land.

And I'm just getting started.

I don't want to defend W. I also don't want to indict him. Smarter people than me will debate the merit of his Presidency and its rank among the others. Key words above are "smarter people" - in those I trust, and I look forward to reading their opinions. No, what, or rather who, I want to indict are the less than smarter people who serve up opinions like Courtney Love serves up eight balls to house guests.

Now, I think I should be the last one to assert that everyone isn't entitled to their own opinion - after all, I write a blog titled, "Just this guy's opinion." But, before spouting off, it's good to at least assume some degree of credibility. I'm not suggesting you have to be a Presidential scholar to weigh in on the debate, and you certainly don't need to know Tippecanoe (William Henry Harrison) and Tyler (John Tyler) too. But, there has to be some litmus test to serve as a qualified contributor to the discussion. I've never been one to shy away from proposing guidelines, so here it goes - the somewhat definitive criteria that must be passed before passing judgment, in at least the neighborhood of an educated opinion, on the "worst President ever" includes:

• You have to know how many U.S. Presidents there have been. I'll cut you some slack if you don't know all their names. But, you absolutely must know the number. How many Presidents have there been, including President Obama? If your answer is a number other than 44, then resist your temptation to spout off - you're simply unqualified.
• Second consideration: If you're over 18, not a convicted felon, and a citizen of the United States, you must be registered to vote. If you're too stupid to exercise your right to choose government representation, you're too stupid to afford an opinion; at least too stupid to offer one that anyone wants to hear.
• Next, you must be able to name all the Presidents, in order, since you were born. This is a minimum requirement. If you want to judge merits relative - worst ever, after all - you at least need to know some names of the others in which you're comparing. Forget for the moment platforms and policies - all I'm asking for is names. Now, if you can't name names, you can't offer up "worst ever" or "best ever." You'll have to settle for just "good" or "bad."
• Of the Presidents who held office before you were born, you have to know the names of at least 10%. C'mon, it's 10%. Are you smarter than a 5th grader?
• You have to know the difference between Washington state and Washington, D.C. I'm not just talking geography either. I need to move this one to the top of the list.
• You have to swear to never have voted a straight party ticket just for the sake of voting a straight party ticket. If you don't examine the individual merits of each candidate, regardless of party affliation, you do not make decisions on all the available data. Said differently, you don't make good decisions. Said even more differently, no one wants to hear the opinion of someone who doesn't make good decisions.

So, there you have it. Was George W. Bush the worst President ever? I don't know. To tell you the truth, I don't care. I just want to make sure that the current President and all of the next Presidents don't become the worst ever. As for those of you compelled to express your opinion on history, I look forward to hearing them - but only if you first pass the minimum qualifications.

Then again, what do I know? That's just this guy's opinion.

Like what you read? Hate? Vote on Twitter @RayHartjen.

Messy Divorce in the Works: GM's Arranged Marriage

Soon after taking over the helm at General Motors, CEO Fritz Henderson introduced the GM of the future – “Lean, flexible, and customer-focused.” During the same “rally the troops” announcement, he also introduced its new largest shareholder, the United States government. Hmmm. Something seems out of place there: Lean, flexible, customer-focused, and the United States government. Can you pick out the one that doesn’t fit the series?

I’m not saying the government is not exactly the best equipped to literally stick its nose into someone else’s business. Not yet; I’ll get to that in a minute. Before I do, let’s build a bit of a case by taking a look at some recent headlines:
- In the first quarter of 2009, General Motors saw its revenues fall by nearly half to $22.4 billion. Remember, that’s a drop of nearly 50% off a less-than-stellar first quarter ’08.
- Those $22.4 billion in revenues did absolutely nothing to stem GM’s hemorrhaging $10.2 billion negative cash flow over the quarter. Think about that - $22 billion in sales, yet $10 billion more went out of the company than came in. No household, run by us ignorant tax payers, would dare spend 50% more than it takes in. Nobody with any financial responsibility and wherewithal would.
- Uh oh. The U.S. government is currently sporting a nifty $11.2 trillion national debt (that’s $11,200,000,000,000. Assuming a U.S. population of 305 million, per person that’s – uh, never mind, my calculator won’t accept 11.2 trillion as a value).
- Let’s call a mulligan on this year; what about next? Oops, the new federal budget for fiscal 2010 weighs in at a hefty $3.6 trillion. At a minimum, that ’10 budget will add $1.2 trillion to the national debt. That’s in addition to the record $1.9 trillion (again, a minimum) that the debt will grow in fiscal ’09.
- By the time the Iowa presidential caucus rolls around in 2012, the projected national debt will be $17 trillion. If you take the New York Yankees’ opening day payroll this season of $202 million and kept it unchanged, the national debt in 2012 could pay for the next 84,158 seasons of Yankee baseball, with just a pinch left over to cover the first half of the next season. [The good news is that over the next 84,000 or so baseball seasons, the Yankees will probably figure out how to sell their $2,500 front row seats]
- Okay, budget aside, how about the “lean” aspect? Let’s see here, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, some 5 million private-sectors workers have lost their jobs in the last year, and the unemployment rate in that sector tops 9%. On the public-sector side, government, employment has grown in nearly every month of the current recession, and its unemployment rate is just 2.8%. I know what you’re thinking - you’re thinking those aren’t all federal government jobs; that they include state jobs. Yes, but many of those jobs are funded by federal economic stimulus grants.
- Good luck with the federal influence in union negotiations, GM, where your healthcare benefits for retirees and workers add an additional $2,500 in cost per car (Prescription drugs alone cost GM $1.9 billion.). Remember those jobs referenced in the public sector – lots of union influence. In California, unions spent $50 million in 2005 to help defeat ballot measures that would cap government spending (i.e.; protect public-sector jobs). The school system of Los Angeles County faces a $600 million budget deficit this year alone. Too many votes for politicians to not spend tax payer money there.
- As far as austere spending, GM is not going to learn a whole lot from the U.S. government, those famed purchasers of thousand dollar toilet seats. Remember the outrage on Capital Hill and in the public eye when the heads of the Big Three (what a misnomer, huh?) auto makers each flew to Washington on private planes? Well, you’d never catch a fat cat Washington politician flying in a private aircraft – particularly on junkets sponsored by campaign contributors.
- Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi regularly flies coast to coast on “business” at tax payer expense in a military aircraft (read: private). By the way, for you “greenies,” each one of those flighst produce an estimated 80,000 pounds of carbon, much more than the average American produces in a year.

I love the U.S. government – I wouldn’t want to live under any other kind of system. It does a lot of things well. But, looking to the government to help managing a lean, flexible, and customer-centric organization is like hiring Courtney Love to protect your liquor and medicine cabinets. By June 1, General Motors will propose a sweeping business reorganization plan to Uncle Sam, whereupon, the government’s economic wizards (I know, I’m laughing too), will, if the proposal so convinces them, grant the company a new lifeline of federal dollars. That money, in the billions, won’t be used to create a sustainable enterprise; rather it will be used to float GM as it enters bankruptcy.

With our high powered journalistic machines at every media outlet in the U.S. fixated on whether Ms. California was going to loose her crown over a couple of booty call photos this week, you probably missed a juicy tidbit that slipped in under the slamming car door. General Motors decided to push up its next scheduled payment to suppliers. Ordinarily, its key suppliers would be paid June 2. GM is pushing that date up, sooner, to May 28. Now, you might be asking yourself, why would a company that so desperately needs cash look to spend their hard earned, or rather hard begged, cash early? GM is doing so because it knows it’s declaring bankruptcy on June 1, and wants to ensure that suppliers will continue to ship needed parts – needed so GM can continue to build cars that no one particularly wants or needs.

Bankruptcy is going to be a mess, just like the Chrysler bankruptcy is currently. A couple of GMs will eventually emerge: A “bad” GM with outdated brands and defaulted debt, and a “good” GM with union ownership, even more outdated brands, and an uncompetitive offering in an already overcrowded car marketplace.

An arranged marriage not exactly made in heaven – is it too late to stand up and object?

The government – you and I, and all the other tax payers – have already floated billions of much needed working capital to companies. It’s a necessary evil to keep companies afloat and workers employed. It’s an investment. When it’s an investment in a company with a somewhat promising future – in the banking industry, for example – it’s likely a good investment. When it’s an investment in a company that saw its glory days fade decades ago, it’s a “learning experience.”

Okay now, learning! Now that’s something the U.S. government can teach the private sector.

Just this guy’s opinion.

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