Historical analysis performed by deeply partisan collumnists is dicey at best. Asking those same partisan analysts to vent their spleen and villify their opponents and irritants is ludicrous. As a historian, it irritates me to see the weight this irrelevant exercise has been given.

As I said at lunch on Monday: We need to stop looking inward for something to despise and instead look outward for something to accomplish. This poll is isidiously destructive and provides no meaningful good. This poll functions solely to divide us. The only thing we can learn from it is how to ignore this kind of hateful spewing.

What Mr Lasswell says sounds reasonable.

I think your list is less preposterous then the one that came out of the vote, and indicates a greater amount of reflection.

However, I don't see how a list of such broad scope could ultimately be very meaningful. Making such a list forces you to compare serial killers to bad politicians. Apples-to-oranges, that is.

Even confining the list to politicians is highly problematic.

Some might argue that the man who signed an executive order jailing 110,000 innocent citizens belongs on the list. Others wouldn't, saying FDR was just reflecting the fears and prejudices of his day.

I wonder how many "lives were ruined" by McCarthyism? 110,000? 20? How well are the Feds currently doing at finding the true terrorists, whom we know have operated among us, from the innocent, and will we some day blame all the excesses, if any, on one guy?

Fair analysis is good. Simplistic rankings, not so good.

Patrick,

Most of the people on my list are killers (Oswald), terrorists (McVeigh), dictators (Walker), and their apologists (Chomsky).

I agree that this sort of polling is divisive. And that is why I tried to take it seriously rather than list a bunch of Republican presidents. You'll notice only one of those is included. That was my way of agreeing with what you are saying while still choosing to participate.

I like your choices but I hate the idea of a list about something so significant. I really took off after John HAwkins on my blog about this one, as you probably saw. Hey, he's young and he makes mistakes. (I'm older and I make mistakes.)

You know lists of your favorite movies and rock groups are fine, but worst serial killers and most evil politicians? Doesn't cut it for me (unless it's meant for laughs... and then it better really be funny.)

I nominate: Curtis LeMay, for slaughtering millions, and chomping at the bit to slaughter many millions more.

Divisive choice? You bet. Gee Lewy, aren't you aware that the historical context is a bit more, er, complex than your description? Yes I am, and I could argue in LeMay's defence. But I would submit my choice is at least as responsible and serious as Kissenger.

I fully agree that context matters.

For Kissinger context see The Trial of Henry Kissinger by Christopher Hitchens.

For a defense of Kissinger's ideas rather than his behavior, see Kissinger, Metternich, and Realism by Robert D. Kaplan.

MJT,

I read the Kaplan article when it came out; I haven't read Hitch's book but I'm familiar with his arguments. If Henry belongs on the list, I would claim there are more than 19 in front of him.

Some more context: Anatomy of a Crisis. I'd say Kissinger comes out looking pretty good here.

--Lewy, who needs to learn how to spell defense.

Oswald was the patsy.

Okay, I'll admit to being towards the right side of the political spectrum. That said, your list is pretty sensible. Some I agree with wholeheartedly; but others are mixed.

Examples: Benedict Arnold was a traitor to the U.S., yes. His treason is possibly more understandable that many due to the very recently past revolution which created the entity against which he created that treason. It can be argued that he repented of his earlier "treason" against England. Of course, that's an objective viewpoint, not a partisan American one (he was scum!). He was also a great general and personally very brave, while at the same time envious and venal. If we measure him on a scale of actual harm to actual good he did the U.S., I suspect the good wins easily. He didn't accomplish much damage with his treason, though he might have so I can't excuse it.

I am likewise sympathetic to Jeff Davis. I feel he made a wrong choice, but I can understand how he arrived at that choice and it's not obviously a "wrong" choice in all moral senses. He did side with 'his' country, the South. Whether that was treason or not is what the war was fought about. It would be interesting to hear what the scribers of the Constitution would say on his action.

I'd say similar things about Nixon and Kissinger, and even Hoover. In other words none of them make my worst list, though I don't consider them better than mixed.

I feel the same about FDR.

Carter has secured a place fairly high on the bad list. I don't see that his presidency was more effective than it would have been if a random citizen had been appointed the task. I used to say (and I have lived in Georgia for over 20 years now, so I see him as a local) Jimmy was the best ex-president. The he got religion (some odd New Age version of Baptist, certainly not Old Time Baptist) and decided he must love everyone, even totalitarian despots (so far he's okay... but then he veers) and ignore all their sins. Not their past crimes against humanity for which they've begged forgiveness, which would place them into the "okay, be a good boy from now on" category. But the sins they continue to commit. Thus Castro is Jimmy's pal and walks on water, while the rest of the Cubans try to walk on water to Florida. And Kim is a goold ol' boy who just like bouncing little girls on his knee. Yes, I consider this naivete to be actively dangerous, even now since he keeps smootching up very nasty dictators.

I won't go into the other ol' boy from Arkansas.

But no one is perfectly good, or perfectly bad. If I squint hard enough I can even spot some good things about Bill & Hill. Well, maybe the plural is excessive.

I would nominate Jerry Falwall for the 20th spot, because his Moral Majority made it possible for Pat Robertson to infect the Republican Party with theocracy.

Due respect, but I'd pull Hoover off that list. Hoover was a shitty President, but he was a pretty decent human being overall. Founded all manner of charitible organizations, made and donated huge quantities of money, et cetera.

That said, why not George Wallace or Bull Connor? Or Chief Justice Taney of Dredd Scott fame? There are so many truly foul racists to choose from in our history.

Kimmitt,

No not Herbert Hoover, J. Edgar Hoover, the guy who made Martin Luther King public enemy number one.

I thought about putting Herbert Hoover on the list, but declined for the reasons you gave.

How about Aaron Burr? He tried to steal the 1800 presidential election when the Republicans made a procedural mistake with the kooky rules for electing the president back then, then he kills Hamilton when Hamilton, an enemy of Jefferson's, urges other Federalists to do the right thing and not conspire with Burr.

Aaron Burr is on my short list of possibilities...

Je$$ee Jack$on, for doing more to foment racial division and disharmony than anyone else since the days of segregation....

Jesse Jackson? OK sure. And George Steinbrenner. The thread is getting silly.

Tommy Lasorda, because he managed the Evil Dodgers.

More seriously, you need at least one feminazi on your list, because they've done so much to victimize American boys, especially African-American ones who can't graduate from high school any more, let along go to college.

On the whole, I think your list is pretty solid.

Hoover and McCarthy I sympathize with, but only marginally. I think there were others in their time that are more deserving of mention and I feel that revisionistic history has been unkind to both; but they were first rate a-holes - no question.

I would probably have to nominate Alger Hiss, or possibly Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, as spot 20. Nothing like a good old fashioned communist spy to round out the hall of villans.

I'd like to nominate our blogger, Mr. Totten, who stated he would crucify people like me (paleo-cons) some while back. But, he quickly pulled out the nails so he's probably off the worst list for now.

Yo. Ob. Sv. Virgil K. Saari

In the U.S. it is difficult to pick really famous bad people. Many of the popular badies of both the right and the left are simply politically correct choices and are not really thoughtful. For example, Michael includes Jeff Davis but not Robert E. Lee. Why? Lee has a well deserved reputation for honor and fairness and he even freed his slaves. But he was almost single handedly responsible for the mass slaughter of the civil war because he enabled the confederacy to survive for 4 long years. (That said I would still not pick him) Someone who deserves consideration would be Boss Tweed, a truly venal person. Same with Jay Gould. Those who would crucify modern crooks like Ken Lay should check out the last couple of decades of the 19th century. I have pretty negative feelings for Henry Ford, the vicious anti-semite and Joseph Kennedy the Hitler apologist. Oswald and Sirhan were terrible killers but were they worse than the vicious sickos of the South who lynched so many black Americans or the thousands of enablers who kept them in de facto chains until well into the 1960's? The recently deceased Lester Maddox is one of the most sickening Americans I have ever come across. And today's sickening jerks of the Civil rights movement (so-called) are in the process of undoing all the good King and their other forefathers did for the black people and for America as a whole with their disgusting reverse rascism. So I agree that such a list is difficult at best. Much harder than a list of the greatest Americans. Why not run a contest for that?

Although I have to consider the Rosenburgs very bad indeed, I still find the whole thing an exercise in wallowing in filth. The crimes of a life are best examined in context of that life. The significance of the crime in relationship to that life provides context. The failure or perfidy provides us with a study in character we can reflect upon and learn from. Comparing John Wilkes Booth, a delusional idealogue whose great crime was to murderously usurp power, with Dick Nixon, a ruthless powermonger who great crime was to fail executively, is possibly meaningful as a comparison. Throwing Timothy McVeigh and Noam Chomsky into the pot turns the soup to mud.

Each of these people is worthy of deliberate and thorough excourciation. Many of these people provide meaningful and interesting contrasts, one to another. All of these people together is an excuse to hate all humanity in general and all Americans in particular.

The difficult thing to do is to find something to cheer, something to praise. Rather than falling into the endless cycle of recriminations, can we find something better to discuss?

These are all fine, reasonable choices, as valid as Hawkins' own picks -- which most people ignored to attack him as if he was personally responsible for Bill and Hillary appearing on the list. (Hawkins is a lot smarter than the bloggers he surveyed, heh.)

Anyways, you want a 20th person on the list? How about Elijah Muhammed, for leading the Nation of Islam, inspiring then killing Malcolm X, and propagating anti-Semitism in the black community?

If one must consider a "worst figure" in any history, one has to take into account several factors.

1) Followers / believers

2) Effect on history itself

3) Damage done

4) Amount of power

Sure there are other factors involved, but if you are aiming to determine the 'worst' of the worst, you must narrow it down to - obviously - the size of the 'atrocities'.

That being said, I think I'd add Jim Jones to that list of yours.

Regarding the comments about these types of lists being divisive, I can't really see anything wrong or unfair about getting opinions on a certain theme. That's all you're doing, and that's all John Hawkins was doing. While others' opinions may not 'impress' you, they are, after all, what other people think.

I think Nixon, Kissinger, and Pat Robertson should not be on a 'worst' list. Unlike truly evil people, they never had pre-meditated goals of destroying anybody's futures. They were/are part of something we can never understand: their own personal lives.

It's amazing how a person's mind can be molded to fit an evil person's beliefs and goals. And I think John W Lindh may have been a victim to this.

Of course, these reasons do not excuse their actions and/or mistakes. But they should offer a little perspective on establishing criteria for a worst figure in (American) history list...

A brilliant list. Am amused by the nit-pickings. My choice for 20th: Henry Ford, or the guy who conceived of the idea of urban renewal.

Dick Nixon was the champion dirty asshole politician even before Watergate, as his colleagues noted in the 50's. However, he was also a good President and left of JFK in many areas. Sure Watergate broke a taboo once hidden in America, but in a sense from that day forward the Executive Branch has never had as much deference or power afforded to it, so in a leftist opinion that would be considered a plus?

The Noam Chomsky log I think is a schizephrenic stage you're going through now? I hate him and his pal Normy Finkelstein, however, he ain't one of the 20 worst Americans.

By the way, OJ ripped apart this country more than Dick Nixon probably did. He split it right down the middle and all because he had to kill his wife himself in a cowardly heinous manner. /sarcasm.

The 20th slot idea is a nice parle on a little marketing angle to it. :-))

So I'm not going to thus bite, I also don't really give a shit enough either.

I'd take off Lindh, who deserves a spot on the top twenty morons list instead (ooh, what an enticing project!), and replace him with Ray Kroc, who not only masterminded the corruption of the American diet but is almost single-handedly to blame for the sprawling mess around every interstate highway interchange.

As for number 20, how about Andrew Jackson? Being the man behind the Trail of Tears (not to mention the killer of many, many Indian women and children in his pre-presidential military career) makes him villainous and being the first president to challenge openly the authority of the Supreme Court to restrain the executive branch makes him downright un-American, no?

This may come off as Clintonian, but I don't think you can have a conversation about this that's not fraught with misunderstanding if you don't explicitly lay out, as Gagin begins to do above, what you mean by "worse" and "worst". Gagin provides a brief set of criteria:

1) Followers / believers

2) Effect on history itself

3) Damage done

4) Amount of power

My own criterion would be the fairly simple utilitarian formulation of "who has done (or is doing) the most harm to the greatest number," or something along those lines--in other words, I'd put "damage done" at the top of the list. I'm nowhere near the scholar to confidently assemble the list itself, but I'm curious about how Michael came up with his rankings (and here I'm specifically wondering how Chomsky and Lindh got on the list, and especially how Lindh got ahead of McVeigh). I'm even more curious about how the original list wound up as it did--it seems to me that the criteria the voters applied was more along the lines of greatest dislike, rather than greatest harm--how else to explain the presence of Hilary Clinton and Al Sharpton yet the absence of Henry Kissinger and Joseph McCarthy?

Christopher,

My list has no particular ranking. It's hard enough to come up with a list without looking like a jerk (I tried, really) and without having a truly exhaustive knowledge of American history.

Ranking the 19 would be more work than the exercise deserves. Patrick Lasswell is right. It's too much wallowing in negativity as it is.

I wish I were asked by John Hawkins for my list of the best 20. That list would be hard to make, too, but more worthwhile.

Michael,

My apologies for overlooking the "in no particular order" disclaimer--I should have been paying closer attention.

I do still wonder about your choices--I think that Chomsky's influence on the course of human events is pretty infitesimal compared to even Robertson's, much less Kissinger's.

On the other hand, I didn't know that about Ramsey Clark. Jesus.

Do a greatest Americans poll!

Make your own list as well as compile a best of from your readers. That could be fun as well, and maybe revealing.

Another comment I'd like to make about this list though: what makes it harder (for me anyway) is to put anyone on the list who was just political and played inside the rules. Yes they are wrong or misguided but they have a constituency (Carter, Chomsky, Robertson, Fallwell from your list and others in the comments), and possibly one that might feel unrepresented otherwise.

For the 20th spot, you could consider William Pierce, author of The Turner Diaries, or David Duke.

I'd nominate that idiotic Nation of Islam leader Farrakhan,for 20th spot. He sits in our midst training people to hate and divide us. He truly is an asshole and a terrorist.

I often draw fire in internet discussions because I have a pronounced tendancy of killing pointless conversations. Since for some people trolling this is their primary form of social interaction, I probably deserve much of the grief I get. It does bother me to see this many decent, smart and articulate people deliberately putting this much pain into their lives. This list is like using steel wool as a marital aide, it may be a new sensation, but that doesn't mean it is a good idea.

How about Tom Watson, populist agrarian reformer who preached black-white solidarity in the 1880s to early 1890s, and then, when it became evident that the southern Democratic Party was successfully using race-baiting to defeat the Populists and retain political power, became a notorious racist, anti-Semite and anti-Catholic? Watson wrote articles whipping up anti-Semitic hysteria during the Leo Frank case, including some that are credited with contributing to Frank's lynching. Perhaps more significant from a historical viewpoint, C. Vann Woodward (I think) viewed Watson as being emblematic of the self-interested Southern politicians whose demagoguery led to the widespread enactment of southern Jim Crow laws in the 1890s and the first decades of the 20th century. I don't remember the details of this, since I read Woodward's "Strange Career of Jim Crow" more than twenty years ago, but I do recall that Watson figured significantly in the narrative.

"Since for some people trolling this is their primary form of social interaction, I probably deserve much of the grief I get. It does bother me to see this many decent, smart and articulate people deliberately putting this much pain into their lives"

Oh the horror! Here's some more pointlessness for a Sunday afternoon.

Worst Contemporary American Comic - Gene Wilder

Worst American Baseball Team - 1962 Mets

Worst American Musical Genre - Rap/Hip Hop

Worst British Musical Genre - Gilbert and Sullivan

Worst Voice of a Contemporary Politician - Joe Lieberman

Worst Televised American Pundit - Robert Novak

Worst Excuse for a Professional Television Commentator - Dan Abrams

Worst Example of Fair and Balanced American News - Fox

Worst Example of Fair and Balanced British News - BBC World Report

Worst Attempt at Contrived Sex Appeal - Brittney Spears

Worst President on American Currency - Grant

Worst Founder on American Currency - Hamilton

Worst "Modern" Science Fiction Movie - Dune

Worst Simile of the thread - "like using steel wool as a marital aide" :-)

"Worst Simile of the thread - "like using steel wool as a marital aide" "

Sorry Beafeater,

I didn't mean to be impugning anyone's lifestyle choices with that simile. I think you would probably be better off with the little blue pills, but to each his own...

"I didn't mean to be impugning anyone's lifestyle choices with that simile"

Hi Pat,

If Mom would let me play with my Star Trek memorobelia on Sabbath, I wouldn't have to blog today. Now don't impugn steel wool as an "aid" until you've tried it...

Cheers,

- Beafie

"I wish I were asked by John Hawkins for my list of the best 20. That list would be hard to make, too, but more worthwhile."

You will be. The Conservative bloggers have already done theirs.

http://www.rightwingnews.com/special/greatestfigures.php

How can Hamilton be on anyone's "worst list of founding fathers." The man was one of the two fathers (with Madison) of the Constitution and he correctly prophesized that America's future greatness lay in commerce, unlike Jefferson who foresaw a country filled with yeoman farmers. Hamilton was a giant in the realm of political philosophy and also a brilliant Sec. of the Treasury under Washington. Too bad such a modernist was killed in such an old fashioned (and stupid) way.

I'm not one of the leftist-apologists-for-terrorism that you rightly denounce, but John Walker Lindh does not belong on that list.

How about David Duke?

I also have a hard time with this list. I hated Hawkins list: Clinton and Carter? Flawed, but hardly egregious.

Pat Robertson on the list? I don't like him, but he's started a lot of good charities, and as far as introducing "theocracy," well, I don't even know where to go with that. Theocracy over the nation is a bad thing, but theocracy over a small political faction of one party is less of a big deal: the rest of us keep it in check, and always have.

Utah was established as a theocracy until the feds stopped it. Carter is a born-again Christian and evangelized to world leaders that stayed in the White House!! (source: Tony Campolo.)
Billy Graham used to visit leaders to pray... No, Pat is oafish, but again, he's just a limited voice of influence: he has no more power than a small segment of the polity give him.

If you want to talk about abusing faith, talk about Robert Tilton, the sleaze from Texas, or Jim Bakker... Jim Jones, since he actually ordered killings, is more apt.
What about L Ron Hubbard, the scifi writer that has a large chunk of Hollywierd believing they are aliens? Baghwan Shree Rajneesh? K. Vanden Heuvel?

I'd put McVeigh at the absolute top of the list. That twisted, self-righteous mutant never showed a glint of remorse. Add behind him Tom Metzger and all the other neo-nazi leftists that previous posters have mentioned. Bonnie and Clyde, Dahmer, Gotti, Capone, Gacy... evil killers.

Not ideologues.

On Carter...

I think he belongs on the list. We should recognise that any such list is always going to be partly dependent on the time in which it is written. We should always assign more blame to someone who created dangers and evils that we face today than someone who created dangers that, while bad, no longer exist, because such a list is not a measure so much of who was bad as it is of what we think is important.

So, having said all that, let's remember that Carter was one of the biggest contributors to the current fact that North Korea have nukes. As an ex-president (i.e., a man with no democratic mandate or government authority whatsoever), he went and negotiated with the North Koreans, and agreed a deal whereby the US would give them fissile material on the condition that they promised to use it for electricity generation and not for weapons development. He was well aware that he was dealing with people who have quite happily killed millions of their own people for the sake of convenience, yet believed he could trust their word. He then announced the deal to the world before he'd got agreement from the White House. Clinton and Gore deserve some opprobrium for this: they should have realised that this was a time where party affiliation wasn't as important as the security of millions of people, and denounced Carter and told the world the deal didn't stand. Instead, so as not to embarass a fellow Democrat, they authorised his deal. But credit where credit is due: Carter deserves the overall blame for creating such a stupid and dangerous situation in the first place.

I don't give a shit whether Carter's left or right-wing. I don't care whether he did what he did out of ideology, evil, stupidity, or naivety. Thanks to him, millions of people are in real and imminent danger of annihilation. Put him on the list.

You forgot Joe Kennedy, after all he was a huge Nazi sympathizer.

Here are a few who may warrant inclusion on my list:

James Buchanan - He fiddled while America was ripped apart.

Gus Hall (or any other Communist Party leader): I should need to say no more, except that the Communist Party has had a much more baleful influence in this country than George Rockwell's Nazis.

Robert McNamara - He had a big role in giving us the Vietnam War.

I think the principle of intent should apply here.

Did Carter INTEND to create the danger, or just make a mistake, a bad one?

That would make him among the most "incompetent" Americans, but not the WORST.

I have a hard time believing he didn't have America's best interest at heart... which is my standard for knowing who I admire. As long as they have America's best interest at heart, I can disagree with them about the means, but agree with their goals. In the same way, a greedy self-server on the right, who does not care about America's best interest is as repulsive as a communist.

I can disagree with Gephardt or Lieberman, Totten or Simon, but know they love the USA, and thus, in a vicarious way, care about me and my family. Really, that's where the peace begins, the conspiracy of practicality: realize that your ideological opponent might have, at essence, hopes for the best for you. The Golden Rule.

That's what stands out about the anti-war left, Clark and Chomsky,and why Totten et al liberalis can reject them: they have the worst interests of America at heart. They want us to suffer, to lose stature and power and freedom.

I guess it comes down to love and hate. Carter, Clinton, Bush and Robertson all love this country, and want what's best, and while we can RUSH to stop them because we disagree with their polcies, that hardly makes them the "Worst."

A spy, a murderer, a traitor, a bigot, a terrorist, a deceiver, are all examples of the worst, because they want the worst to happen to all of us. They are creatures of hate.

IMO.

And as I think about it, many on the left are convinced, I think wrongly, that Bush does not care about this country's best interest, but only about the wealthy. Well, that's unrealistic, but may explain how they respond.

I was glad to see someone else mention Tom Watson-- your David Dukes and even George Lincoln Rockwells are pikers compared to him as a demagogic racist. They appeal to the leftover minority of racists; Watson helped create a majority of racists.

For somewhat similar reasons I would knock Nathan Bedford Forrest off the list (remember that his Klan, bad as it was, was not the same kind of thing as the modern Klan; also give him credit, as the book April 1865 does, for NOT continuing the Civil War as a guerrilla fight, which he was perfectly qualified to do for decades if he'd wanted). That speaks to some decency in him that is absent elsewhere on the list. Instead I would suggest the man who gave us the Civil War by polarizing antebellum politics so viciously, and pushing essentially fascist measures to preserve the political power of the Southern landowner classes-- John C. Calhoun.

One more vote for Hamilton--he was a brilliant innovator in numerous fields, and critical in setting up the Bank of the United States, which repaid Revolutionary War debts and set the U.S. on a sound financial footing early in its history. He also was a mixed-race West Indian immigrant, so it's very un-PC to critque him (:) If you don't think a sound financial footing is important, compare the constructive counter-example of Argentina--similar natural resources, similar immigration patterns, as rich as the U.S. was early in its history.

That Mr. Calhoun is styled a proponent of "fascist" measures speaks of an odd sort of "fascism" with a very weak central government; protection of minorities from the rule of King Numbers, etc.

In my school days in the early 1970's Mr. Hubert Humphery and Sen. Eugene McCarthy were given the style fascist as were Mr. Russell Kirk and Mr. Ludwig von Mises.

I wonder if Mr. John Randolph of Roanoke and Mr. John Taylor of Caroline were fascists of the like of Mr. Calhoun? Do advise.

Yo. Ob. Sv. Virgil K. Saari

Calhoun not a fascist because he believed in a weak central government? You bet he did!

Let's see:

Successfully pushed gag rule which forbade debate on slavery in Congress

Tried to censure and expel members such as Joshua Giddings and John Quincy Adams who tried to raise the issue in Congress

Architect of don't-give-an-inch strategy on slavery which led to such American activities as postmasters destroying Northern newspapers which Southerners had subscribed to, and the librarian of the U. of Virginia burning abolitionist publications

Nothing about any of that sounds the least bit like fascism to me.

And let us remember the peculiar conception of states' rights the Calhounites had, by which the North had no right to even discuss slavery, it being none of their business, but the South had the right to compel the North to enforce slave-catching laws, in effect making every state a slaveholding state. (If I can carry a slave through Massachusetts and he remains a slave, why can't I stop there for a week and keep him as my slave? And if a week, why not a month, a year, the rest of his life?) Yes, they were certainly dedicated to high principle.

While it's easy to argue with individual elements on your list, I generally like it. For number 20, I'd add Rush Limbaugh. Rush has led the move to debase the quality of political debate in the country. He has consistently added more heat than light to our National conversation.

Oh get over yourself Ted. Like nobody ever spoke in harsh terms before Rush came around... and again for the 3rd post, it is foolish to liken an ideologue to a killer.

Well, being from Louisiana, I'd add Huey Long, who could have very easily become an American Mussolini, but remained a third world dictator of Louisiana.

I despise David Duke, but he neevr really proved a threat, excpet he gave us four more years of Edwin Edwards by being in the runoff with him. Nowadays, he's out to make money and if you ask him for inromation, he'll ask for money regardless of race or religion. A friend of mine who is black is on his mailing list somehow and gets money requests, which amuse him to no end.

On the other hand, some good leaders did some awful things, like Thomas Jefferson's Embargo Act or FDR's court plan or his Fairness Doctrine, but regardless of what one can critciize FDR for, he was a leader who genuinely cared for and loved America and when the world was hit with men like Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Peron, Dalaldier, Franco, Mao, and Tojo, we were very lucky to have FDR, especially when Huey Long could have been President if the good Doctor Weiss didn't give him much deserved justice.

Let's see here:

Henry Kississinger - for the obvious reasons

Alfred Sloan - Chairman of GM during the 1930's who dismantled the public transportation systems in US cities.

Dick Cheney - For doing business with oppressive regimes such as: Iraq, Iran, N. Korea, Burma, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia. I'm sure there's others.

Jimmy Carter - Boy, does this guy have a lot of blood on his hands? Selling arms to Suharto who then committed genocide in East Timor. Well, that's just one example.

Oliver North & Co - selling arms to Iraq AND Iran.

Anybody making a seven figure salary by exploiting 3rd world workers. If you're gonna make your fortune by exploitation of workers, atleast do it in the country that is allowing you to make your fortune!