I was somewhat surprised to see that historians consider one former U.S. president to have been more stupid than George W. Bush (pdf). I knew Warren Harding was corrupt and disengaged, but I didn’t know he had the intellect of a doorknob. They also think that Andrew Johnson, James Buchanan, Harding, and Franklin Pierce were worse presidents than Dubya. Oh well, at least he beat Nixon. I don’t know why Harding gets such a bad rap. It’s not like the country devolved into civil war, endured an epic financial collapse, or invaded the wrong country on his watch. Maybe he really was as bad as the others, but I don’t see it.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
He had sex in the White House and a real scandal (though not one involving him personally). He also died and left us Coolidge and Hoover.
Harding is like the libertarians’ favorite president; good enough? Lol.
No, Dubya was/ is stupider. Harding had the self knowledge to know he was out of his depth
They seem to rank Obama down because of his “family, background, and experience”. What on earth does his family have to do with how good a president he is?
Why’d he beat Nixon? Character and Southern Strategy aside, sure seems like Nixon’s policies contributed more to the nation than Shrub’s.
Well, I guess that whole Vietnam escalation thing didn’t work out too well either.
learned from that.
Should have called it a “surge” instead of “escalation”. Then it would have been a good thing </snark>.
There you go. See, we as people are moving forward over the years – more perfect union and all that.
From the linked pdf:
There you go. If you’re looking at that list Nixon was easily more intelligent than Bush, Nixon actually had foreign policy accomplishments (opening up diplomacy with China) that offset his war policy, Nixon was a better communicator (I know he ranks poorly compared to, say, JFK, but put any recorded Nixon speech next to any recorded GWB speech – not transcripts, but recordings – and the difference is pretty fucking obvious), Nixon was a realist when it came to the economy. And Nixon may have been a crook, but he actually did compromise. Unlike W who thought “compromise” meant “do it my way”.
As far as what else they were rating:
Looking over that list, it’s hard to see how Bush could rank better than Nixon actually. Maybe he ranks higher in “willingness to take risks”. And since Obama got dinged on the “family background” thing I’m assuming that some kind of elitist aristocratic crap and Nixon’s non-aristocratic background would ding him there too.
Nixon did actually get impeached, though, so maybe that lowers his marks for “working with Congress”. Definitely lowers his score for “luck” relative to GWB.
Ack – on re-reading your comment I realize you thought Booman’s “beat Nixon” comment meant that Bush scored higher than Nixon. But Booman meant “beat Nixon” as far as the “race to the bottom” goes – Bush scored worse than Nixon but higher than 4 other presidents. So your gut reaction is the correct one – Nixon was bad, but Bush was worse.
Gotcha. Thanks for your thorough and interesting analysis.
Harding was well liked and nothing like W.
W had the chance to unite the country after 9/11 and look what he did.
It is also the rotten to the core aspect of W that has done so much damage to the county.
Harding’s courageous speech arguing for improved race relations should have vaulted him at least out of the stupidest category. And it was given in Birmingham, AL, 1921 in front of a mixed race (albeit segregated) audience. Show me where the very highly (Siena) rated Wilson or TR made a similar speech in their 8 years each. Harding, surprisingly good for his time on race.
Moral IQ, in this area at least, very high.
Poor Dubya indeed! He just can’t seem to come in first at anything. He can’t even make first worst!
Harding seems to have been pretty much like Dubya in his lack of interest in anything having to do with government. He was picked by the Republicans for pretty much the same reason as Dubya — non-threatening and electable. He wasn’t interested in governing, and he was stupid. True, he didn’t get the United States into war, but that wasn’t his fault. The times weren’t right yet. Both of them rank at the bottom.
As to Andrew Johnson, I have never figured out why he is so low on the list, given the troubled situation he inherited after Lincoln’s assassination. I would put Bush’s great great grand-daddy Franklin Pierce lower on the list Buchanan is an odd case. His cabinet was full of southern sympathizers who subsequently went over to the Confederacy (like Jefferson Davis). He played a bad hand extremely badly, but he had a bad hand.
Dubya had a good hand and ruined it.
Disagree about Harding, and I tried to suggest above that with his one remarkable race relations speech given in the belly of the beast, Birmingham, AL, Harding showed that at least to the extent we give credit for moral intelligence, he was not stupid.
He also to his credit tried to get passed anti-lynching legislation (which failed of course, but it was close for a while), something FDR did not even try, and Harding established the Bureau of the Budget, indicating he did have an interest in good or proper-functioning government.
Not at all a dummie in the ignorant (Shrub) or uneducated (Shrub, A Johnson) sense, but probably in the decent guy but mediocre mind category of a Harry Truman, someone somewhat in over his head.
As for Andrew Johnson, he was ignorant, uneducated and morally low, though probably someone with what is called “native smarts” (not unlike his namesake Lyndon). An outright racist who however managed to fool Reconstruction cong’l leaders early in his presidency about his intentions; but w/n a few months, as he began to ignore or undercut cong’l Recon measures, his true stripes emerged.
He was properly impeached and should have been removed from office — but Repubs handled the senate process ineptly, they were split (a few pro-conviction senators didn’t like the senate President Pro Tem (who would have replaced Johnson), and a recent researcher interestingly argues a few previously pro-conviction senators (like Ross of KS) had been bought off by pro-Johnson forces.
Andrew Johnson badly damaged the early Reconstruction effort and it never recovered, and we got nearly a century of Jim Crow instead.