Thursday, February 23, 2006

Update - Worst President (pre 1992)

Well, this was not the most competitive Prezzie™, but it was I think the best argued. As I expected, Democrats outnumbered Republicans in the nominations, but the winner shows that we’re not all ahistorical celebrity-obsessed clowns on this blog. This strikes me as a dangerous precedent, so tomorrow we’ll return to the usual topical trivia and we can stick our brains back in neutral.


Anyway, results in the traditional reverse order…
McKinley (1)
LBJ (1)
JFK (1)
Wilson (1)
Nixon (2)
And our runaway winner, representing twenty years of feckless Democrat-led drift into Civil War:
James Buchanan (3)

Good for him. A world-beating performance, I’m sure we all agree. Top historians certainly do – they have just voted his paralysis in the face of looming secession the #1 presidential mistake ever made. By extension, we are all top historians now, so go get yourselves a tweed jacket and a pipe and report back here in time for the evening “tutorial” with the hot hippie chick in your freshman class.

I toyed with the idea of ending with a Most Obscure President award, but Harrison and Fillmore have already been given an airing in previous Prezzies, which would make this one rather redundant. I personally looked forward to filing Martin van Buren under this category too, if only as a libation to Davey Crockett’s noble shade. But in any case the category itself presents problems on logical grounds, in that any President that any of us publicly-schooled savages has actually heard of is by definition automatically disqualified.

So instead we’ll unleash all that pent-up Clinton and Bush phobia that we’ve been struggling to restrain all week. Time was the defining personality question was: Elvis man or a Beatles man? Now it’s Clinton joke or Bush joke. Let’s hear your favourite Bush or Clinton story, preferably cleaned up for our family audience…

Just to get you started, here’s that traditional stand-by: you have Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Stalin in your sights but only two bullets in your gun – what do you do, hotshot? What do you do?


Reload.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

FDR joke. Well, maybe it's true.

I have no clue what the boobs are doing there. Er, "babes". I meant to type "boobs", but I typed "boobs" by mistake. I mean, "babes". Is what I meant to type.

Anonymous said...

Aw, get your ethical priorities straight, Ivan--what kind of a question is that? Of course you shoot Stalin twice. The only good Soviet is a dead Soviet, didn't they teach you that under Iron Maggie? (note that I didn't say Russian, out of sensitivity for your ancestors). I bet your ex-Hungarian wife agrees with me 110%.

As to the Clintons, I have this much to say: unlike a certain jefe politico from Wyoming, when Slick Willie shot his friend, there was no gun involved.

--Desargues

Ivan the Terrible said...

Well, anon, it has a certain credibility. I wouldn't have trusted him either, in her shoes - not 'cos he was incompetent, but 'cos he was a *politician*...

And Des - yes, good point re the relative priorities of a dead Stalin vs ventilated Clintons. But on the other hand, if we're really going to analyse this, Stalin is already dead, and even if he was alive he couldn't run in 2008. He'd be too right-wing for the Dems, anyway :)

Ivan the Terrible said...

Oh - and fantastic babes, by the way, anon. Always nice to see someone taking the time to attach an appropriate illustration for their content. It made think better of FDR than I have for a loooong time.

Anonymous said...

Ivan, as far as the Clintons are concerned the joke is that those two sewer trout managed to swim upstream into our body politic.

In truth, I'm still too traumatized by 1993-2000 to wax funny about it.

Cheers.

Ivan the Terrible said...

Fingers crossed, then, for ABH in 2008 :)

HA HA HA said...

"The Economic Stabilization Act of 1970 authorized the President to stabilize wages and salaries at certain levels, and the Pay Board was created to oversee the controls."

wana chaggne my vot for wrost. nixcon. nixen nixan nixon. wtfffff?!

Ivan the Terrible said...

Wage control vs Civil War - well, it's a tough call...

Foot Eater said...

This pushes the envelope of 'family friendly' somewhat but I'll give it a shot anyway:


President Clinton looks up from his desk in the Oval
Office to see one of his aides nervously approach him.

"What is it?" asks the President.

"It's this abortion bill, Mr. President. What do you want to
do about it?" the aide asks.

"Just go ahead and pay it," responds the President.

Ivan the Terrible said...

Hah! Yes - he was pro-choice where it counted...

Rebecca Haden said...

I just wandered by today, so I missed the Worst President voting, but I am astonished that no one offered Andrew Jackson. His famous remarks on his "Indian Removal" policy -- "Marshall has made his decision; let him try to enforce it" or something similar, since I am quoting and therefore probably misquoting from memory -- ought to have garnered him at least a couple of votes.

Ivan the Terrible said...

Hi Rebecca - good to have you on board. Yes, Old Hickory earnt a few lumps too, but I would've put his bank and land grant shenanigans top of the list. Never mind - maybe next year :)

Anonymous said...

I'm not a Bush-hater, but I liked this one:

President Bush is taking the daily briefing on the Iraq war. A general informs him, "three Brazilian soldiers were killed yesterday by an IED."

"Oh NO!" Bush sobs, burying his face in his hands. He slumps in his chair and groans, "Oh God, this is terrible. Not three Brazilian soldiers! Oh, God..."

Generals and cabinet members exchange puzzled glances. "Sir, are you all right?"

With a shuddering effort, Bush pulls himself together. "Yes...yes, I think I'll be okay. So...how many is a brazillion?"

(dipnut of isntapundit.com)