How Does One Become a “Worst American?”

posted at 2:39 pm on August 14, 2010 by Jazz Shaw
[ Blogosphere ]   

There’s been an ongoing flap this weekend over John Hawkins’ decision to conduct a poll of conservative bloggers and assemble a list of “The 25 Worst Figures in American History.” You can look over the list yourself, (I won’t reproduce it yet again here) but a main bone of contention has not been simply over people’s choices of who should make the villain hall of fame, but the criteria used for selection. What sort of people should be considered? One of our hosts here, Ed Morrissey, has already weighed in on that portion of the controversy while not contributing to the final poll.

But when a political blogger surveys for a list of the 25 worst Americans from political bloggers, isn’t politics the implied context? When John sent out the query, that’s certainly how I understood it. Otherwise, such a list would quickly become a descending-order body count for American serial killers, and would be entirely useless and inane.

If all you read was Ed’s post, that seems a reasonable point – though one I’ll still argue with shortly – but the confusion probably arose from John’s less than artful introduction to his survey results.

Out of all the gangsters, serial killers, mass murderers, incompetent & crooked politicians, spies, traitors, and ultra left-wing kooks in all of American history — have you ever wondered who the worst of the worst was? Well, we here at RWN wondered about that, too, and that’s why we decided to email more than a hundred bloggers to get their opinions.

Ed’s post, linked above, has John’s original invitation included in an update and you’ll see where the confusion came from. That context of the invitation was not in the same tone as the emphasized introduction above.

Others have helpfully weighed in with their own lists and analysis of the kerfuffle, including Doug Mataconis, who I shall presently eviscerate. As usual, Rick Moran beat me to the punch while I was writing this and already said much of what I wanted to express, (Curse You, Red Baron!) but did it while taking a much heavier sledgehammer to the poll contributors than I would.

As usual, I tend to get a bit long winded on these things, so if you want to see my own list, just skip to the bottom. But before getting there, I’d like to take a moment to look at some of the arguments about exactly who should make such a list, what sorts of offenses would qualify, and the quibbles over some common suggestions.

At one end of the spectrum we have Ed Morrissey’s contention that we should discount serial killers, mass murderers and their ilk, since they boil down to nothing more than “a body count.” While I can see how Ed’s explanation of being misled by John’s rather vague invitation into thinking we should primarily include political figures, I disagree that “worst Americans” would leave out the real monsters. They did far more damage than the raw number of corpses they stacked up. Every mass murderer who terrorizes entire cities like Beltway Sniper John Allen Muhammad and every serial rapist ruining the lives of dozens of women steals something important away from everyone. They take away our faith in a civilized system to protect us. They make us look at strangers with wary glances rather than welcoming smiles. They continue to kill our innocence, not just the bodies of those they defile. They are clearly some of the worst Americans.

But does the wrong-doing in question have to be intentional? Doug Mataconis – to take one example – rightly (in my opinion) leaves Jimmy Carter off of his revised list because he considers the Georgia peanut farmer to be “incompetent, not evil.” Where does the line from incompetence to criminal stupidity get crossed? Edward Smith, captain of the Titanic, was clearly not out madly dashing across the Atlantic looking for icebergs to crash into in the hopes of killing all of his passengers. (Not to mention himself.) He was, by all accounts, an experienced seaman with decades at the helm under his belt. But he made one massive, terminal mistake which took hundreds of lives. Was he evil and malicious? No. Should he land on this sort of list? It’s an interesting question.

But that brings us back to the question of politicians in general. If you approach this as nothing more than an exercise in partisan rock throwing, it’s easy enough to compile a list of politicians from “the other team” that you don’t like and lump them in here. This has little or no value. People who aspire to a life of public service, including high elected office, should be considered to be trying to serve and improve the country, even if some of us completely disagree with their philosophy and how they go about it. (If you’re looking for an excuse to really hate me, those of you I see on Twitter every day talking about Obama’s secret plans to destroy America because he’s some sort of Manchurian Candidate simply put me to sleep.)

But again, at what point does a bad plan cross the line to a criminally bad plan which, given your experience and position, you should have known better than to implement? Going back once again to the choices by the other entrants, almost everyone selected Jimmy Carter. (Except Doug, who had him on his original list from five years ago.) Look, I served in the military under Carter. His economic policies were a disaster and his tentative stance on the use of military force damaged our international standing, in my opinion. He was awful. But was he a “worst American?” Did he have malicious plans for the nation he duped into electing him?

No. As I see is, he honestly – if misguidedly – thought his fiscal plans would help. On the national security front I saw him as a God fearing man who honestly believed that he could both speak softly and hold off using the big stick, preferring a path of peace and diplomacy. It was unproductive and, in the end, largely damaging. But I still believe he meant well and I would not today put him on a list of villains.

I have a few bones to pick with some of the common choices on several of these lists as well. Why is anyone selecting Aaron Burr? Doug and Ed are unhappy because he shot Alexander Hamilton. It was a duel! Nobody made Hamilton show up and he had a gun as well. Reports of his “intentionally missing Burr” have been widely disputed. He is also accused of trying to set up some sort of Western Empire and leave the union. He was eventually cleared of those charges by the Supreme Court and many analysts of the period believe it was a plot by his political rivals. The man served his nation for a lifetime, was a Vice President got beaten up for it. Give him a break.

A lot has been made, particularly by James Joyner, of whether or not Benedict Arnold was an “American” and I had to agree that it’s a valid question. But he did work for the American military until his own petulance and desire for power drove him into a jealous rage. We didn’t have much in the way of an established naturalization process here during that period, so pretty much anyone – rebel or loyalist – who lived here without a home in England to which they planned to return, could reasonably called an “American.” I apologize for questioning that earlier. But I still leave him off the list because he was a petty man who had a plot that failed and he really didn’t do much to affect the outcome of the revolution.

And really, Doug… Andrew Jackson? Yes, he was guilty of horrible things regarding Native Americans. I don’t deny that. But in the context of the era, we should also find some room to remember that people thought and acted differently. We are making villains of many who didn’t do enough to stop slavery, but I don’t see anyone including some of the founders who owned slaves on their lists. As Ed said in his original post, context, context, context.

I won’t even waste space on those who select currently elected Democrats with whom they disagree for such a list. Rick Moran already took care of that.

Frankly, this is embarrassing. Putting the Clintons, Pelosi, Reid, Gore, Sharpton, and other contemporary Democrats ahead of someone like Nathan Bedford Forest who was at least partly responsible for creating the KKK after the Civil War and spent his spare nights riding around the countryside whipping, lynching, and burning at the stake innocent African Americans demonstrates an extraordinary ignorance of American history.

Everyone who opposed the Iraq war could just as easily assemble their own list and put George W. Bush somewhere on there. It’s pointless.

But enough of that. This has already gone on far too long. Let’s get to my list of some of the worst actors in American history. I’ll follow Doug’s example and go in alphabetical order, since it’s hard to say here who is the worst of the worst. Here are the dirty dozen.

1.) John Wilkes Booth – See Oswald, below

2.) Nathan Bedford Forest – If you don’t know who or what he was, head for Google.

3.) John Wayne Gacy – Anyone who rapes and kills that many children deserves a special place in hell. And on our list.

4.) Alger Hiss – Enough said

5.) Jim Jones – He didn’t just poison a ton of people. He did it under the pretense of speaking for God and upset the applecart of faith for many.

6.)Ken Lay, Jeffrey Skilling and Bernie Madoff – All three come in at a tie. Not unlike religious examples robbing us of our faith in God, they robbed thousands of their cash, hopes, dreams, and faith in an honest marketplace where people could realize the American dream.

9.) Timothy McViegh – Patriots… please.

10.) Lee Harvey Oswald – I don’t care what you thought of J.F.K. or the fact that he led to Johnson, the guy shot the president and sent shock waves through the nation.

11.) D.C. Stephenson – Grand Dragon in the Klan and friend of one of the most corrupt politicians in Indiana history, his crimes against the nation and his fellow man are legendary.

12.) John Anthony Walker – You want to talk about intentionally doing things to destroy your own country? His picture is by the term in the encyclopedia.

There you have it. Some of the worst we have to offer. Sleep well.

Blowback