Last night I wrote about President Bush and the recent Supreme Court decision that he could not try military detainees using military tribunals.  I pointed out the obvious.  President Bush was not the only President to lose such a case before the Supreme Court.  I made reference to President Lincoln suspending the writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War and President Roosevelt relocating Japanese Americans to camps during World War II.  I said that what President Bush has done does not compare with these two acts of President Lincoln and President Roosevelt.


Recently, I came across an article published in the Peoria Journal Star on February 19, 2006, page A13.  It was entitled “Scholars rate 10 worst presidential mistakes.”  I usually don’t place much emphasis on such ratings.  However, I thought this was interesting for what is not listed.


It began as follows: “U.S. presidents have been blamed for some egregious error.

So who had the worst blunder?  President James Buchanan, for failing to avert the Civil War, according to a survey of presidential historians organized by the University of Louisville’s McConnell Center.”


I won’t give each of the other nine listed blunders.  But, I will list the Presidents in order from two through ten and the concept the action revolved around.


Andrew Johnson—reconstruction after the Civil War
Lyndon Johnson—the Vietnam Conflict
Woodrow Wilson—the peace treaty after World War I
Richard Nixon—Watergate
James Madison—War of 1812
Thomas Jefferson—Embargo Act of 1807
John F. Kennedy—Bay of Pigs
Ronald Reagan—Iran-Contra Affair
Bill Clinton—Monica Lewinsky Affair


Personally, I don’t think any single President could have prevented the Civil War.  The gulf was too great between the two conflicting views.  However, notice the following: George Bush is not listed and neither is Abraham Lincoln nor Franklin Roosevelt.  The action of President Lincoln to suspend the writ of habeas corpus during war did not make the top ten list of blunders.  The relocation of thousands of Japanese Americans during World War II did not make the top ten list.  


Just maybe these scholars recognize that extraordinary measures sometimes have to be taken during conflicts.  Measures that would not occur at other times.  Measures that can not be debated for two years while the country is under attack.  Measures that the Court later said were not acceptable.    


I am sure of this.  The libertines will not stop trying to convince the public that George Bush is evil.  He is evil to them because he is changing the libertine plunge into immorality and pulling us back to a country that follows moral truths.  What could be more evil than that to a libertine!!!