The Bill Clinton thread has been sidetracked so I’ll start this one, so everyone can have their say.
Who was the worst US president and why?
Regards digger
The 2 that are in a dead heat for the worst are Warren G. Harding and James Buchanan. These “hands down” are the 2 worst presidents ever!
The first of whom I have heard, and the second not.
So Buchanan must be the worst. 
Or maybe the other way around? 
What did they do, individually or collectively, to make America’s position worse that it is under Dubya?
nixon and harding, no contest
Carter
Ineffectual in international affairs & positively disastrous domestically.
Shrub is vying for his place on the podium though…
Yes, Harding was bad. Nixon was horrible. Dubya is a catastrophe. Jury is still out.
President when the US Civil war started. From wiki:
Before Buchanan left office, seven slave states seceded, the Confederacy was formed, all arsenals and forts in the seceded states were lost (except Fort Sumter and two remote ones), and a fourth of all federal soldiers surrendered to Texas troops. The government decided to hold on to Fort Sumter, which was located in Charleston harbor, the most visible spot in the Confederacy. On January 5, Buchanan sent a civilian steamer Star of the West to carry reinforcements and supplies to Fort Sumter. On January 9, 1861, South Carolina state batteries opened fire on the Star of the West, which returned to New York. Paralyzed, Buchanan made no further moves to prepare for war.
Historians in 2006 voted his failure to deal with secession the worst presidential mistake ever made.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Buchanan
Sorry but I think protecting the country (even if you agreed with the succession) is part your job as president.
Most of the “bad things” that happened under Carter were things beyond his control.
Tough decision to try and decide who the worst is. We are naturally somewhat prisoners of our generation. I know Harding was hopelessly corrupt. Nixon was a self-seeking liar; Buchanan? Yes, Sandworm you make an excellent point. Bush is breaking new records daily on his trip into oblivion. Hard choices. Let’s just say I have several “favorites”.
One bit of trivia: Lee was a Colonel in the Union Army stationed at the time of the secession in San Antonio. He refused to join the Confederacy initially when he was approached here and he was summarily “run out of town on a rail.” He wanted to consult with his home state first, as primary loyalties at the time lay with states and not so much the federal government.
Also, another bit of trivia: the German population in this part of Texas was considerable and they were staunch unionists and abhorred slavery. The Confederacy in Texas tried to make the German youth enlist in the Confederate Army. They refused and a band of them tried to escape to Mexico. Confederate irregulars caught up with them at Eagle Pass on the Texas-Mexico border and murdered them to a man. To this day you will never see a monument to Confederate war dead in any German Hill Country town, but there is a single monument in Comfort, Texas to those who died trying to flee the South.
Sam Houston also refused to approve secession. Lincoln offered him an army of 10,000. He turned Lincoln down, but the people Lincoln had in mind were the Germans in central Texas.
hmmmm…I would have to say nixon…he just dropped out on us…anyway he didnt even try…