US leaders’ hall of shame unveiled

FROM engaging in sexual relations with an intern to letting the Vietnam War escalate, US presidents have been blamed for some egregious errors.

President James Buchanan had the worst blunder, for failing to avert the US Civil War, according to a survey of presidential historians organised by the University of Louisville’s McConnell Centre.

The survey’s top 10 presidential blunders were announced on Saturday during a President’s Day weekend conference, called Presidential Moments.

“We can probably learn just as much - or maybe even more - by looking at the mistakes rather than looking at why they were great,” said political scientist and McConnell Centre director Gary Gregg.

Scholars who participated said Buchanan didn’t do enough to oppose efforts by southern states to secede from the union before the civil war.

The second worst mistake, the survey found, was Andrew Johnson’s decision just after the civil war to side with southern whites and oppose improvements in justice for southern blacks beyond abolishing slavery.

Lyndon Johnson earned the number three spot by allowing the Vietnam War to intensify, Prof Gregg said.

Where does Bill Clinton’s Monica Lewinsky scandal rank? Many scholars said it belonged at number 10, saying that it probably affected Clinton’s presidency more than it did American history and the public.

The top 10 blunders listed were:

1. James Buchanan’s mishandling of the southern states ahead of the civil war.

2. Andrew Johnson’s post-civil war policies.

3. Lyndon Johnson’s involvement in Vietnam.

4. Woodrow Wilson’s refusal to compromise on the Treaty of Versailles after World War I.

5. Richard Nixon’s involvement in the Watergate cover-up.

6. James Madison’s failure to keep the United States out of the war of 1812 with Britain.

7. Thomas Jefferson’s Embargo Act of 1807, a self-imposed prohibition on trade with Europe during the Napoleonic Wars.

8. John F Kennedy allowing the Bay of Pigs Invasion that led to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

9. Ronald Reagan and the Iran-Contra Affair, the effort to sell arms to Iran and use the money to finance an armed anti-communist group in Nicaragua.

10. Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky, which led to impeachment proceedings against him.