Top 5 Worst Americans in last 100 years?

[Leftist78]

I'm inspired by the Hoover thread to do this one. I figured it would be interesting to see what the consensus view is on who was the worst for our country in the last century. Mine are in no particular order

1. J. Edgar Hoover

2. Roy Cohn

3. Joe MCcarthy

4. George W. Bush

5. George Wallace

[Ishoutandscream2]

1. Need a spot for Tricky Dick

But I would say you've given a pretty good list.

[davidinalameda]

2. as bad as George Wallace was

I don't think that he ranks in the top five-Nixon definitely belongs in the top five

[Leftist78]

8. hmm...

yeah possibly. I think because I'm Southern I have a special hatred for George Wallace and others like Strom Thurmand because of how they stoked the fires of racial hatred for political gain. That legacy haunts the South I love to this day.

[TomClash]

55. But he repented

He won almost all of the black vote in the 1982 Gubernatorial campaign.

[Clark2008]

68. Just keep remembering that it's a legacy - as in history -

and we keep making monumental gains down here in race relations.

:hug:

[TaleWgnDg]

3. Surely, included should be Ronald Reagan!

[Leftist78]

14. yes

Reagan was horrible and did great damage to a lot of people. He gets at least a dishonorable mention. I liked what Chomsky said about him. I don't want to misquote but it went something like the nicest thing you could say about Reagan is that he probably didn't know that much about what was actually going on in his administration.

[Firenze777]

20. Reagan was a marketing tool

people felt good about him, abdicated their responsibility to actually think and participate. from then on, big business quietly dismantled the protections for the earth and the less affluent that inhabit it.

[Hardrada]

4. Lee Harvey Oswald

Gotta make room for him.

[proud2BlibKansan]

24. No not him but his handlers

[stansnark]

51. oswald ?? you're kidding...

oswald didn't kill anybody

[april]

71. daddy bush ,little georgie and jeb ,neal

jeb & neal cheated the savings and loans we are still paying for that and daddy made sure his little boys did not go to PRISON

[april]

72. oh and Mom Bush when she made the comment that the people

of new orleans were much better off in the dome !!

[april]

70. get real..he was framed do you believe that bs?

[Glorfindel]

5. Ronald Reagan did the most damage, by far...

as for the worst human being, I'd have to go with Dick Cheney. The one I personally despise the most is Zell Miller, but he was never in a position to do much more than make a fool of himself, thank God.

[davidwparker]

15. I was looking for Reagan's name myself.

[dajoki]

88. Yes...

Raygun was horrible. He cost me the best job I ever had with his union busting tricks. And my most personally despised is pRicky Santorum, but like Zell Miller, never really had enough power to do much, other than make an ass out of himself. And we Pennsylvanians took care of him(makes me proud to be from PA).

[snowbear]

6. Ack!

01.

02.

03.

04.

05.

06.

07.

08.

09.

10.

[LibDemAlways]

7. I would make #4 a tie between

chimp and Cheney - the evil puppetmaster.

[More Than A Feeling]

9. How about Timothy McVeigh.

America's worst home grown terrorist.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

10. Assuming this is a list of political types, not serial killers

(though there can be some overlap of those categories) --
Obviously, George Bush.
I'd agree with Joe McCarthy.
There's also that perennial favorite, Dick Nixon.
And I have to include both Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld -- those two have done incalculable damage.

[Doctor_J]

11. Rove

pure evil.

[Monkeyman]

13. yep

[JI7]

12. hard to list just 5, i would say Cheney, Rumsfeld, Reagan, Rove belongup

there also.

and of course there is Tim McVeigh. unless you mean in terms of how much influence they had in America.

[beth9999]

89. McVeigh was just...

... a neocon tool.

[GoneOffShore]

16. You need a runner up category

to add in
John Mellon Scaife
Grover Norquist
Phyllis Schafly
Daniel Pipes
Trent Lott
Tom Delay

[jschurchin]

19. Do you mean Richard Mellon Scaife?

[GoneOffShore]

32. My bad.

It's late.

[Xipe Totec]

17. 1.- George W. Bush

2.- Dubya

3.- The Son of a Bush

4.- The pRetzeldent

5.- The Chimperor

[Jcrowley]

18. Other

Alan Dulles

Henry Kissinger

George Schultz

George Kennan

The Consumer

[Leftist78]

35. damn...

forgot about Kissinger. He wakes up every morning and drinks a cup of pureed puppy. Also like The Consumer. We are collectively responsible for a lot of the shitty things out there ourselves.

[WCGreen]

21. Father Coughlin...

The man who used his religion and his hatred of Jews to delay the US getting into WWII....

[Leftist78]

34. Good one...

Again I'd like to say, everyone can feel free to list there own. That was the point of this thread.

[skipos]

22. IMO Wallace truly repented for his idiotic behavior. nt

[Warpy]

23. Wallace doesn't belong there

because years in a wheel chair didn't turn him bitter, they mellowed his outlook considerably. He slowly came to realize the passion of youth had made him an ass and that there was a much better way to approach things.

If you want a champeen redneck racist, try Jesse Helms. He's got so much other horror to recommend him to your list he should be a shoo-in.

The other one who doesn't belong there is old Hoover. He was misguided and totally wrongheaded, but he wasn't evil. The rest of them are.

[Leftist78]

29. k...

I know, I know he repented and won his last term in office with over 90% of the black vote...blah blah blah I don't care, as the poster-boy for segregation he did more damage than most and while I can see Jesse Helms or Strom Thurmond, Wallace produced more hate in the American south than any other one person. I wouldn't forgive Hitler, Stalin, or even Bush if they said "oh...my bad I was wrong." Saying you're sorry doesn't take it all away. As far as Hoover, are you KIDDING me? The man was a monster.

Of course you are free to make your own list. That is sorta what this was about.

[joeprogressive]

46. By your standards Byrd would be a horrible person too.

I believe Wallace is truly sorry for his actions just as Byrd is. We all mistakes.

[Leftist78]

48. The issue

is not whether or not he was sorry later, but what he did. His impact on American Politics particularly Southern Politics was so negative we're still not able to get past what he and a handful of others caused. Because of Wallace and his ilk, people naturally associate racism with the American South. Never mind that racism is a worldwide problem and it's been just as much an issue in Boston as it has been in Birmingham, because of Wallace, Thurmand, Bull Conner, and a handful of others, it's always more associated with the Southern states.

As for Byrd, what we're talking about is net affect on America. Byrd's has been mostly positive, Wallace's was almost totally negative.

[Warpy]

56. J Edgar might belong on that list (probably does)

but the Hoover I thought of when I answered the post was Herbert.

[On the Road]

30. RIght -- Wallace Was an Opportunist

he was considered a social moderate until getting beaten by a more ruthlessly segregationist candidate.

Then later in his life he repented and tried to undo some of the bad he'd done. Strange and contradictory man, but IMO not one of the worst of the century.

[PsN2Wind]

25. Limbaugh should make the list

for making the simple minded ditto-heads vote against their own interest which helped foist Dubya upon us.

[Leftist78]

31. limbaugh...

deserves his own list :)

[MrTriumph]

26. Gingrich

x

[Monkeyman]

27. John Wayne Gacy

[Karenca]

28. Cheney - Rumsfeld- Bush 2- McCarthey - Ken Lay - nt

[BlueStater]

33. Hmm...

1) The Chimp
2) Dick Cheney
3) Tricky Dick
4) Joseph McCarthy
5) Oliver North

If we could extend the list beyond five, I'd also include Limbaugh.

[leftofthedial]

36. ghw bush

gw bush
dick cheney
j edgar hoover
lee atwater


raygun was scum, but he was just a prop

[Codeblue]

37. My (less educated) list

Again in no particular order

1. Joe McCarthy

2. George W. Bush

3. Ronald Reagan

4. J. Edgar Hoover

5. LBJ

[Leftist78]

38. Not bad

but LBJ was really Mcnamara's toy on Vietnam, also gets the blame for escalating something that we'd been involved in since Eisenhower. He shares a large portion of the blame for sure, but it wasn't all his.

[Codeblue]

40. True

Only five people on the list though...plus, I'm really not educated about all the of the back-door scheming behind Vietnam. Anyway, I won't talk about the other reasons I think he's one of the worst. Everyone already knows all about that...

[MADem]

45. LBJ, for all his failings, signed the Civil Rights Act. That should give him a dispensation NT

[anitar1]

39. I would also add Newt Gingrich to that list.

God knows he played a big part in bringing us to where we are today.

[dicknbush]

41. Grandpappy Bush .......Prescott

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1312540,00.html

Several things. One if he hadn't spawned Herbert Walker then we wouldn't be dealing with the Dim Son.

2 He aligned himself with Hitler even after Pearl Harbor and Roosevelt had to close his bank down because he (Prescot) was dealing with the Nazi's.

[Hardrada]

42. Edward Teller

who brought the H-Bomb into being and who was incessantly pushing for nuking people and arms build-ups. Need him on some list.
Robert Welch who founded the John Birch Society.
Strom Thurmond who started the southern push away from the Democrats.

[lumpy]

69. Definately Edward Teller. Evil incarnate

without conscience warmonger.

[election_2004]

43. Michelle Bachmann should definitely have a top spot....

....on such a list.

As far as the others, there are so many to choose from...Alan Keyes, Marilyn Musgrave, Gary Bauer, Pat Buchanan, Rick Santorum, Tom Coburn, Jim DeMint...and that's just scratching the surface.

So many wingnuts, so little time...

[jarab]

44. I think Huey P Long belongs somewhere up top ...

This sick crook was "aiming" for the WH (concluded by many historians) until someone put him out of his misery at an early age (42?). I suppose some here would like to cull him from the list for partisan reasons, but I think he was dangerous beyond definition.
jmo
...O...

[joeprogressive]

47. I would remove Wallace and add Babs.

I would take Wallace off because he did admit to his mistake just as Robert Byrd did. Barbara Bush is horrible and I believe the major genetic contributor to W's problems.

Edit for further clarification: Although Babs is not as bad as many others mentioned on the list in a global impact manner, the fact that she produced W puts her in the top echelon.

[joeprogressive]

49. Honorable mentions go to

Ken Lay, Skilling, Fastow etc., Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and the Catholic Cardinal who covered up the pedophile scandal.

[fujiyama]

50. Your list isn't bad

Wallace was scummy (and then seems to have sincerely repented as it black people that took care of him after he got shot), but I might replace him with Strom instead. He was the one that filibustered the civil rights act...

I agree that Bush, Hoover, McCarthy should be on the list...They had a terrible impact on the country. Actually going further, Rove has had a very destructive impact on the American political process...

In terms of policy, I think Henry Kissinger takes that cake. That guy really is evil.

[jgraz]

53. Yep, no list is complete without Kissinger, IMHO

1. Dick Cheney
2. George W. Bush
3. Henry Kissinger
4. Donald Rumsfeld
5. Joe McCarthy

[stansnark]

52. what? no rockefellers ?

[Cameron27]

76. John D. Rockefeller,

evil bastard.

The descendants of the Ludlow Massacre thank you.

[Comicstripper]

54. REV. FRED PHELPS

'Nuff said.

[jgraz]

57. Ugh, what a sick ugly fucker

Still, I gotta go with the body count.

[Greyhound]

58. For a list of the last 100 years, all have been since the 50's.

We must include raygun and nixon. Wallace was terrible but, he didn't have nearly the impact of raygun, so I say they should be swapped, and nixon gets dishonorable mention.

And what about the Texas mafia that gave us every re:puke: administration, the entire Carlyle Group, at least half of the PNAC scum, Volker, LBJ, the Saudi royals, and the stranglehold that the "defense" industry has had on our government for the last 60 years?

Not to even mention the Rockefellars, Vanderbilts, DuPonts, Hearst, ad infinitum...

Quite a list, once you start thinking about it.

[LeftishBrit]

59. I would say...

(1) Joe McCarthy; (2) Dick Cheney, who is really pulling Bush's strings IMO; (3) Ronald Reagan; (4) Henry Kissinger;
(5) a toss-up between Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond.

It made me think of who I would nominate for worst Brits in politics. I couldn't narrow it down to 5; here are my 6 choices:

(1) Maggie Thatcher - well, obviously!

(2) Tony Blair - for betraying his party's ideals and dragging the whole political spectrum to the right, and of course for getting us involved in this immoral war.

(3) Neville Chamberlain - for trying to get on with Hitler for far too long.

(4) Enoch Powell, for his encouragement of racism.

(5) Ian Paisley, for his NON-contribution to peace in Northern Ireland. (Not saying the IRA types were any better; but most of the worst were not mainstream politicians, so don't come into this thread.)

(6) Sir Eric Geddes - a more idiosyncratic choice, perhaps. He was a politician just after WW1, and chaired the committee on Government Expenditure, which demanded drastic cuts in government spending. This had a disastrous effect on services for poorer people, and among other things, prevented the progressive 1918 Education Act from being implemented and kept state education in the dark ages until after WW2.

I would have had to include Rupert Murdoch, who though not a politician has more political power here than most elected officials; but he isn't British!

[Hardrada]

77. How about that Mosley guy who married Diana Mitford?

A fascist sort, I think.

[LeftishBrit]

81. Good point - he was evil

[dajoki]

60. For what it's worth, my two cents...

Dubya & Cheney(too me, they can't be seperared)

Herbert Hoover

Joe MCcarthy

Sirhan or whoever was responsible for Bobby Kennedy assination(we'll never know how great he could have been)

Charles Manson

[Gemini Cat]

61. So many asshats! Hard to pick five.

Dulles
Hoover
Bush (Prescott)
Nixon
Kissinger

[enki23]

62. rush limbaugh needs a slot.

probably near the top. he'd be honored, of course. but so long as we're being objective, he deserves a slot. quite possibly more than bush baby does.

[fat dad]

63. Can't forget Andrew Mellon

Secretary of the Treasury for Coolidge, Harding and Hoover. First Supply Sider, he cut taxes for the rich and big corporations, cut regulations on investments, etc. Caused the WSJ to say that never before has Wall Street and DC been such a partership. Started the war on drugs as a war on hemp to benefit special interests. Ushered in the Great Depression. Grandfather of Richard Mellon Scaife.

He's top three on my list.

[chimpymustgo]

65. 1. Kissinger 2. Cheney 3. Poppy 4. J. B. Stoner 5. Jerry Falwell

6. Joe McCarthy
7. J. Edgar Hoover
8. Tom Delay
9. Jesse Helms
10. Rumsfeld
11. Bull Connor
12. James Baker
13. Prescott Bush
14. Herbert Hoover
15. Rush Limbaugh
16. John Negroponte
17. Richard Perle
18. Richard Nixon
19. Newt Gingrich
20. Daniel Pipes

I'll stop now...

[terrya]

85. Great list, but I'd subsitute 2 names:

I'd replace J. B. Stoner with Pat Robertson.

And I'd replace Herbert Hoover with Roy Cohn. Hoover was a bad President, but if you're going to put McCarthy on that list (and I sure agree with that choice), then you must add Roy Cohn as well. Cohn was an evil, evil man.

Completely agree with you on Kissinger as number one. If there is a hell, I hope that evil motherfucker rots in hell for all eternity.

[Bobbie Jo]

64. Umm...I'd kick Smirk up a couple notches.......n/t

[angry_chuck]

66. what about the corps?

there are evil men behind these evil entities that are shaping our gov (and way of life!) in every way...
mainly in finance...

1 Rockefeller
2 Warburg
3 Morgan
4 Rothschild
5 Kuhnloeb

Ever heard of the CFR, PNAC, Trialteral Comission, Bohemian Grove, and on and on. Search on Google or Wiki.

If you want the real shit read The Creature form Jekyll Island by Edward G Griffin
http://amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/104-5033952-0698311?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=the+creature+jekyll+island&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=Go

The borrower is always servant to the lender. The federal reserve lends our gov its money. You do the math.

[jgraz]

67. John Forbes Kerry

made ya look! :evilgrin:

[Labors of Hercules]

73. what right wing repuke bloggers think... *rubs chin*... very interesting...

Well that's enough about the rules -- without further adieu, the worst figures in American history are as follows (with the number of votes following each selection)...

Honorable Mentions: Ted Bundy (5), Jane Fonda (5), John Wayne Gacy (5), John Walker Lindh (5), Joe McCarthy (5), Michael Moore (5), Boss Tweed (5)

17) Franklin Delano Roosevelt (6)
17) John Walker (6)
17) Lee Harvey Oswald (6)
17) Robert Byrd (6)
16) Aldrich Ames (7)
14) Richard Nixon (8)
14) Aaron Burr (8)
12) Al Sharpton (9)
12) Charles Manson (9)
8) Timothy McVeigh (10)
8) Lyndon Johnson (10)
8) Hillary Clinton (10)
8) John Wilkes Booth (10)
7) Alger Hiss (12)
6) Noam Chomsky (13)
4) Jesse Jackson (14)
4) Jimmy Carter (14)
3) Bill Clinton (15)
2) Benedict Arnold (19)
1) The Rosenbergs (15) & Julius Rosenberg (5) (20 total votes)

note that Tricky Dick even shows up on THIS list... -LoH

[Joey Liberal]

74. Ted Bundy, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, W, Ann Coulter

That's some evil people!

[april]

75. daddy bush , mom ,little georgie and jeb ,neal

daddy bush ,little georgie and jeb ,neal
jeb & neal cheated the savings and loans we are still paying for that and daddy made sure his little boys did not go to PRISON ..Barbra she made the comment about the people in New Orleans being much better of in the dome

all they have done to AMERICA is take

[mitchum]

78. Reagan, J Edgar Hoover, Teller, bush 41, bush 43...

honorable mention for McCarthy, Cohn, Pat Robertson, Rove, Richard Mellon Scaife, Strom Thurmond, Lester Maddox, John Stennis, Harding, Milton Friedman, Roger Ailes, Kissinger

edit to add Kissinger
How in the hell did I forget Herr Doktor?

[Bombtrack]

79. Bill O'Reilly is certainly in my top 5

I'd have to think harder to give you my other 4

[opihimoimoi]

80. Rush, BillO, Hannity, The GOP, W Bush........

[ellisonz]

82. Covering the bases of evil.

1. Henry Kissinger
2. Richard Cheney
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Simmons
4. George W. Bush
5. J. Edgar Hoover

[Contrary1]

83. Jim Jones and Charles Manson

need to be on a list like this...

I think we should go for the top 50.

[election_2004]

84. Oooh, forgot John Cornyn....

He'll most likely run for GOP Majority Leader once McConnell peters out.

[jgraz]

86. I think any list must reserve a spot for "Bush Voters"

After all, none of this would be possible without them.

[Joe Bacon]

87. My top 5

1) J. Edgar Transvestite, Hands down #1, the repressed closet queen. One can only imagine what old J Edgar said to his lover Roy Cohn while they were getting it on...

2) Joe Mc Carthy who destroyed hundreds of lives and never found one single card-carrying member of the Communist Party

3) Richard Mellon Scaife, who got away with the murder of Steve Kangas and continuing to be the main bankroller of the fascist right

4) Francis Scaheffer, right wing kook who led the formation of the Christian Right and orchestrated the Republican hijacking of Christianity. The same ass who went from Tv Preacher show to TV Preacher show wearing a Solidarity pin while denouncing "Satanic" American labor unions...

5) Max Shactman, the ideological godfather of Leo Strauss who used Social Democrats, USA to incubate the scum known ad Neoconservative. More than anyone else, Shactman was the man responsible for dismantling the Socialist Party.

[mtnester]

90. Got to inlcude Manson

because.