No mention of Warren Harding? Had a years long extramarital affair that led to a child (including sex in a White House closet). And the Teapot Dome scandal was the maybe the worst scandal involving up until Watergate.
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Re: President with worst character ever [j p o]
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Re: President with worst character ever [j p o]
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More in response to those who have proposed Presidents to be second on the list because of extramarital affairs or sexual harassment or even the criminal acts done by Nixon.....lets get some perspective here. Andrew Jackson was a slave owner, war criminal and ethnic clenser. None of the modern presidents even come close to the guys on the money. i get that people are complicated and should be evaluated as a totality - but doesn't any one of slave owner, ethnic clenser or war criminal move them into a place where no good deed can make amends.
Even judging people by the standards of the age those early presidents don't look good.
So I'd put Jackson first not second - but lets not put Nixon, Clinton, Trump, LBJ in the same discussion
Even judging people by the standards of the age those early presidents don't look good.
So I'd put Jackson first not second - but lets not put Nixon, Clinton, Trump, LBJ in the same discussion
Re: President with worst character ever [tigermilk]
[ In reply to ]
tigermilk wrote:
patentattorney wrote:
If you are going straight by cheating. There are like 10+ presidents who cheated on their wives. Trump, Clinton, Washington, Jefferson, Cleveland, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson.With student interns?
Ms. Lewinsky was 22 or 23 at the time.
The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W
Re: President with worst character ever [j p o]
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j p o wrote:
Sally Hemmings was the biological half-sister to Jefferson's wife. She was 3/4 European. Came under Jefferson's ownership as a toddler. Jefferson was 30 years older than her. He appears to have started having sex with her when she was 14, and certainly before she was 16 as she was pregnant at 16.over in the corner sits the lawful Mrs. J. All of these babies your blood sister keeps having that look remarkably like your husband.
Was she furious? Did her own dad set the pattern? Was it a merciful escape from Tom's attentions? I'm sure the Hemmings bio gets into all of that, colonial version of Maury.
Re: President with worst character ever [j p o]
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Ever? Not history major, but during my lifetime Nixon and trump soulless, slick willie skirt chaser.
Re: President with worst character ever [rich_m]
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rich_m wrote:
More in response to those who have proposed Presidents to be second on the list because of extramarital affairs or sexual harassment or even the criminal acts done by Nixon.....lets get some perspective here. Andrew Jackson was a slave owner, war criminal and ethnic clenser. None of the modern presidents even come close to the guys on the money. i get that people are complicated and should be evaluated as a totality - but doesn't any one of slave owner, ethnic clenser or war criminal move them into a place where no good deed can make amends. Even judging people by the standards of the age those early presidents don't look good.
So I'd put Jackson first not second - but lets not put Nixon, Clinton, Trump, LBJ in the same discussion
Back then sticks and stones really did break bones, and today names hurt people. That's why you have a whole generation of people who know nothing about history branding DJT as the worst human to ever occupy a public office.
Re: President with worst character ever [kiki]
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kiki wrote:
j p o wrote:
Sally Hemmings was the biological half-sister to Jefferson's wife. She was 3/4 European. Came under Jefferson's ownership as a toddler. Jefferson was 30 years older than her. He appears to have started having sex with her when she was 14, and certainly before she was 16 as she was pregnant at 16.
over in the corner sits the lawful Mrs. J. All of these babies your blood sister keeps having that look remarkably like your husband.
Was she furious? Did her own dad set the pattern? Was it a merciful escape from Tom's attentions? I'm sure the Hemmings bio gets into all of that, colonial version of Maury.
Mrs Jefferson lived a tragically short life filled with heartache due to lost children and continuously being pregnant. Her death cast a shadow on Thomas' life for the last 30+ years of his life. Not saying this justifies his affair, but I am not sure how much of the affair took place while Mrs J was alive, without researching further. It is not a major topic of the TJ bio i recently read.
Re: President with worst character ever [milkman1982]
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interesting, thank you
Re: President with worst character ever [spot]
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spot wrote:
j p o wrote:
You thought I was going to say Trump. But after spending a week in DC and the area I've decided Trump would have to work hard to make the top 5. My nomination is Thomas Jefferson, a guy I've always thought was at the very top of the president heap.
Sally Hemmings was the biological half-sister to Jefferson's wife. She was 3/4 European. Came under Jefferson's ownership as a toddler. Jefferson was 30 years older than her. He appears to have started having sex with her when she was 14, and certainly before she was 16 as she was pregnant at 16.
Had 6 children, 4 survived. None, including Hemmings, were freed before Jefferson died and then only two of the children were freed in his will. Jefferson never acknowledged any of the children as his and in fact he and his family always denied it until proven by DNA in the 20th century.
So he was an obvious hebephile/pedophile (since we don't know Hemming's sexual maturity or when he decided he wanted to have sex with her), kept his wife's 1/2 sister as a sex slave for almost 40 years, left 4 of his children in slavery until he died, and never provided anything to them as inheritance.
And no, that wasn't acceptable at the time. People tried to use the rumors about it against him.
So who comes in 2nd?
Some of your facts are incorrect. Jefferson freed two of the children before his death and then the other two in his will. This seems like a pretty good write up: https://www.monticello.org/...ngs-a-brief-account/
The two that left Monticello were never officially freed. They left, entered white society, and forever denied their parentage. Could be that he didn't think he never needed to officially free them, but he didn't take any real action to do so. But yes, they were no longer in slavery at the time of his death. The other two children, as well as Hemmings were. And Hemmings as never officially freed though she didn't live as a slave after he died.
I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.
Re: President with worst character ever [milkman1982]
[ In reply to ]
milkman1982 wrote:
kiki wrote:
j p o wrote:
Sally Hemmings was the biological half-sister to Jefferson's wife. She was 3/4 European. Came under Jefferson's ownership as a toddler. Jefferson was 30 years older than her. He appears to have started having sex with her when she was 14, and certainly before she was 16 as she was pregnant at 16.
over in the corner sits the lawful Mrs. J. All of these babies your blood sister keeps having that look remarkably like your husband.
Was she furious? Did her own dad set the pattern? Was it a merciful escape from Tom's attentions? I'm sure the Hemmings bio gets into all of that, colonial version of Maury.
Mrs Jefferson lived a tragically short life filled with heartache due to lost children and continuously being pregnant. Her death cast a shadow on Thomas' life for the last 30+ years of his life. Not saying this justifies his affair, but I am not sure how much of the affair took place while Mrs J was alive, without researching further. It is not a major topic of the TJ bio i recently read.
Yeah, Martha died in 1782. Tom started raping/making sweet love to her enslaved half-sister sometime between 1787-89.
I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.
Re: President with worst character ever [rich_m]
[ In reply to ]
rich_m wrote:
More in response to those who have proposed Presidents to be second on the list because of extramarital affairs or sexual harassment or even the criminal acts done by Nixon.....lets get some perspective here. Andrew Jackson was a slave owner, war criminal and ethnic clenser. None of the modern presidents even come close to the guys on the money. i get that people are complicated and should be evaluated as a totality - but doesn't any one of slave owner, ethnic clenser or war criminal move them into a place where no good deed can make amends. Even judging people by the standards of the age those early presidents don't look good.
So I'd put Jackson first not second - but lets not put Nixon, Clinton, Trump, LBJ in the same discussion
People make a lot of assumptions about 'the standards of the age'. We are not talking about whether it is ok to eat meat.
Many of the founding fathers kept slaves. Washington claimed to be against slavery but kept/sold/rented slaves his entire life and never spoke out against it publicly. When a particular slave escaped he captured him, put him on a ship to be sold into notoriously bad conditions at a sugar plantation in the Caribbean.
You might say the standards of the time made this ok. But did they? Franklin came back from France, got rid of his 2 slaves, joined the Quakers, and publicly worked against slavery. European countries were banning slavery. Half the country more or less opposed slavery. So it was most certainly not universally accepted.
So before you can make the argument that something was ok at the time you better make sure that it was actually ok. Just because you could get away with something does not mean people thought it was ok.
So yeah, I would agree, Jackson is probably 2nd in character. Harding is probably worst in ethics, I think his scandals beat Watergate by a long way.
I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.
Re: President with worst character ever [patentattorney]
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in the oral office.
Re: President with worst character ever [j p o]
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trump has a disastrously bad character - he's petty, venal, selfish, arrogant, insecure, disloyal, and etc.
but what keeps him from ascending to the upper echelon, i think, is that he's so small-fry. i'd be upset if, for instance, my kids grew up anything like him, and i wouldn't want to be friends with anyone like him. but ultimately he's not a monster, he's just a stupid grifter.
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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan
http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/
but what keeps him from ascending to the upper echelon, i think, is that he's so small-fry. i'd be upset if, for instance, my kids grew up anything like him, and i wouldn't want to be friends with anyone like him. but ultimately he's not a monster, he's just a stupid grifter.
____________________________________
https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan
http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/
Re: President with worst character ever [j p o]
[ In reply to ]
After thinking about this for a while, I think I have to go with LBJ. Not because he was a philanderer (which he was), but that he repeatedly lied to the American people about the nature of his Vietnam policy, especially in 1964 when he was up for election against Barry Goldwater, all the while knowing he intended on escalating the war. On top of this is the hubris of Johnson and his civilian advisors thinking that the best use of military force in Vietnam was to "change attitudes," which led directly to a self-defeating strategy. Reading HR McMaster's book "Dereliction of Duty" made by blood boil when it documented lie after lie by the Johnson admin and from Johnson himself, leading to 50,000+ dead Americans and 2 million dead Vietnamese.
___________________________________________________
Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.
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Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.
Re: President with worst character ever [j p o]
[ In reply to ]
pretty sure were on the same page here. Slavery wasn't considered ok by most people in the 1800s.
Don't know enough about Harding to judge whether he made bad appointments and was weak in managing them or if he was just corrupt to the core. Either way - not good character traits. Such an interesting time in history. Post war, prohibition, and all that but a couple of years too early to flesh out the major characters with talking news clips.
Don't know enough about Harding to judge whether he made bad appointments and was weak in managing them or if he was just corrupt to the core. Either way - not good character traits. Such an interesting time in history. Post war, prohibition, and all that but a couple of years too early to flesh out the major characters with talking news clips.
Re: President with worst character ever [j p o]
[ In reply to ]
j p o wrote:
You might say the standards of the time made this ok. But did they? Franklin came back from France, got rid of his 2 slaves, joined the Quakers, and publicly worked against slavery. European countries were banning slavery. Half the country more or less opposed slavery. So it was most certainly not universally accepted.Further fuel for that fire, slavery has always been illegal in Massachusetts. In the 1788 constitution, it was put in there as illegal.
Re: President with worst character ever [scorpio516]
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How many leaders worldwide in time immemorial were paragons of virtue?
Re: President with worst character ever [iron_mike]
[ In reply to ]
iron_mike wrote:
trump has a disastrously bad character - he's petty, venal, selfish, arrogant, insecure, disloyal, and etc. but what keeps him from ascending to the upper echelon, i think, is that he's so small-fry. i'd be upset if, for instance, my kids grew up anything like him, and i wouldn't want to be friends with anyone like him. but ultimately he's not a monster, he's just a stupid grifter.
You nailed your entire description perfectly. I can't think of any positive reason for why anyone would want to associate with him.
Re: President with worst character ever [windywave]
[ In reply to ]
there's a lot of space beyond paragon of virtue before we get to slave owners committing in war crimes and ethnic clensing.
an interesting discussion would be to what extent character has ever mattered for presidents. John Quincy Adams would be in the mix for president with the best character but the election of 1828 was a blowout loss (EC and popular vote) to the president who i think has the worst.
an interesting discussion would be to what extent character has ever mattered for presidents. John Quincy Adams would be in the mix for president with the best character but the election of 1828 was a blowout loss (EC and popular vote) to the president who i think has the worst.
Re: President with worst character ever [rich_m]
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rich_m wrote:
there's a lot of space beyond paragon of virtue before we get to slave owners committing in war crimes and ethnic clensing. an interesting discussion would be to what extent character has ever mattered for presidents. John Quincy Adams would be in the mix for president with the best character but the election of 1828 was a blowout loss (EC and popular vote) to the president who i think has the worst.
I'm talking all time. I can't think of one that would pass the three part test laid out above
Re: President with worst character ever [patentattorney]
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patentattorney wrote:
Obviously Clinton abused his office. Monica was like 22-25 when the affair happened. "student intern" implies a much younger age. Johnson and Kennedy also are alleged to have been coxsmen so I am sure they had affairs with employees. would you consider a slave a student intern?
I think Cleveland was accused of rape. Roosevelets affair was with his secretary, very similar to monica. Eisenhower, same thing as an employee. Johnsons affair was like his entire adult life.
Not saying that having affairs is good. But it certainly isn’t an auto top of list.
But, but... CLINTON!!!
Go Pound Sand wrote:
patentattorney wrote:
By all accounts Johnson was a huge jerk. Jackson also seemed like a dick. Its really hard to account for personality traits based on how little we actually know about the private lives of presidents before 1980ish. Similar to athletes/celebs.
I recall LBJ used to have his aides, reporters, etc. follow him into the bathroom while he took a shit. Apparently, he wanted to maximize his time. That alone should put him near the top of the list.
That stinks.
They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot