On the Suckage of Presidents

A Twitter exchange that begins here (expand the conversation) led me to contemplating the relative suckitude of U.S.presidents.

But it bored me, because I'm only thinking in terms of how much I hate each one.So let me just tell you about some presidents I really dislike a lot.

Jefferson, because he was a lying hypocritical slavefucker above all. I really mean above all.

Nixon, because Nixon.

Lincoln, because he was a lying skank who actually disliked brown people and, while he was acting to preserve the Union (as he should have), he took a big old shit all over the Constitution to do it, opening the door to future constitutional asswipe by none other than W Bush and President Dronzalot (among many others, both revered and not so much). In the words of the fantabulous Duane Ellison, Lincoln was only known as Honest Abe because he told every single person he ever met in his entire lanky motherfucking life that he was Honest Abe.

Reagan, because he was a lying motherfucker who just plain hated government, got elected on a platform of taking government from the people who needed it most, and permanently crippled the government's ability to govern. His sharpening of and focusing on executive power contributed to subsequent presidents' inability to deal with the legislative branch, but so did those presidents' collective and individual weaknesses--as is ever the cycle. It'll just be a fucking shame if the president who stops the waning power of the executive is fucking Chris Christie. On the other hand, my admiration for the waxing of the executive should be limited--all of my top four were guys who enjoyed, to one extent or another, executive primacy (yes, Nixon only until he killed it by his own hand).

There are others I'm not big on, but they pale in comparison, they're the Diet Coke of evil compared to these guys. It's not even worth ranking them. I suppose Jackson rises to near the top for his faux populism and his Hamilton-hating, but it was born of ignorance, not intelligent malice or any real understanding of how government ought be. There are others who were bad, but not so systematically bad by design that I'd bother to dislike them much; Buchanon comes to mind, far more hapless than evil.They were more products of time, circumstance, culture, and convention.

Other presidents started stupid wars for no reason; McKinley, Polk, Johnson, and more. It's hard to say how evil that makes them. It's easy to tag the Bushes (and, by extension, Obama) as evil for starting/perpetuating wars in the post-Vietnam era; we're supposed to know better. They're supposed to. Of course, every war in history has been followed by a lengthy period of a supposed desire for peace, suddenly overcome by circumstances deemed compelling. Are the Bushes worse than Woodrow Wilson? Perspectivized, it's hard to make the case.

Enough. I've conclusively proved my case, which is fuck Lincoln and his movie. QED. No, Whispers, that's it, I said QED.

Update: Alsotoo, LGM. Twice, actually, plus more if you scroll down. It's Weighing in on Lincoln Day at LGM. No Lincoln-lovers there, either, though it'd be a stretch to suggest that they share my abject disdain for the man, and Noon does a good job of mocking the Red Lincoln theory, which was best, most plausibly, most entertainingly, and most inaccurately plumbed by Harry Turtledove in his Southern Victory series (in which the South is not, ultimately, victorious).