The Worst President Of All Time, Agree Or Disagree?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10948224/The-Obama-years-The-trailers-were-great-the-movie-was-horrible.html

[royfromaus]

I wouldn't know. What is your opinion?

[ToraToraTora]

Not the worst in my opinion, that goes to Clinton, but he's there or there abouts. Though I do applaud his attempts at doing something about the US's barbaric health system.

[Gromit]

No. He has got Obamacare through which is something no other President has been able to achieve, and extracted the US from Afghanistan and Iraq. And kept the Us out of Syria and Libya.

His second term has felt a bit lame duck though.

I'm sure George W Bush was much much worse.

[boxtops]

On what basis is this view premised? Define "worst".

[Clanad]

The line-up of scandals facing Obama goes on and on but probably doesn't make much news in the European or UK press. Some of these have the potential for ending his Presidency prematurely. His agenda for "transforming America" as promised in his campaign prior to 2008 was not what most Americans envisioned. We have the highest business taxes in the world and our economy actually shrunk by 3% in the second quarter of this fiscal year… unheard of historically.

Our unemployment rate is about 6.3% but the back story on that figure is having the highest percentage of the American work force unemployed and having so much difficulty find work that they've actually given up. We have a program here associated with our Social Security program (usually considered to be a retirement program that both workers and employers pay into) where, if a person can prove any sort of disability, they can live on public assistance. The numbers enrolled in that program have skyrocketed since Obama was elected.

Members of his own party say he's tired of being President and it shows by the number of vacations he and his family take each year.

Obamacare, the moniker that's become attached to the insurance scheme he and the Democrats forced through both houses of Congress has been an unmitigated disaster. I recognize the UK generally likes its universal system, but this is nothing like that (I see an increasing discomfort discussed with your own program). A Socialist from the git-go, Obama would only be truly happy if the government controlled every aspect of American life. We have an election coming up in November that will dramatically effect the 'balance of power' in both Houses of Congress… Obama's Democrat Party are running from[i him as fast as their little twinkle toes can scurry. He's actually been disinvited from campaigning for many of them.

Of course, any discussion of these and other [i]facts] is shouted down from the left as being racially based, so no real exchange of ideas is ever accomplished...

[Gromit]

The second term of Clinton's administration the US was actually reducing some of its debt, the first time that had happened in 20 years. Under Reagan and Bush 1 the debt had risen. Under Clinton it went down. The debt sharpely rose again under Bush II.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/US_Federal_Debt_as_Percent_of_GDP_by_President.jpg

[Kromovaracun]

He is not a particularly good president, but is nowhere near as dreadful as his predecessor.

[boxtops]

"the UK NHS works just fine"? I'd argue that. It's desperately short of cash, and overloaded with work.

[ichkeria]

As noted by others: to be commended for his healthcare reform in a country where, much to the bafflement of many in Britain at least, this is seen as the equivalent of introducing live bunny boiling.
Foreign policy wise a disaster I'm afraid, though his predecessor must take some of the blame for that by giving foreign intervention a bad name.
I'm not an expert on US Presidents but Bush jnr would easily be top of my list of bad ones in my memory

[naomi24]

No, I don't think he's the worst president of all time. George W. must be a front-runner for that title.

(The NHS isn't short of cash - the management is short on management skills).

[mikey4444]

Complete and utterly disagree ! What tosh !
Worse than Nixon ? Worse than Bush, father and son ?

TTT... is it a coincidence that both Clinton and Obama are both democrats, that leads you to your view ? Both elected twice in a row as well...so all those Americans were wrong, four times ?

[New Judge]

It a strange thing about US Presidents. Each and every time one comes along you think "He cannot possibly be worse than his predessor". But......

[ludwig]

Disagree. F* knows what everyone expected, but it seems that because he was the first black president anything less than solving all of the world's problems in four years would be a failure.

[Canary42]

Disagree.

[zebo]

Do read Darryl Huff's How To Lie With Statistics. A polling organisation can give you any outcome you want by asking the right group. I'm sure it's possible to slant a poll to "prove" that he's one of the best ever!