August 11, 2003
Final Poll Results
John Hawkins at Right-Wing News polled a list of left-wing bloggers, including myself, and asked us who we thought were the 20 worst figures in American history.
I posted my list over the weekend.
Now John has posted the tallied results on his page.
13 from my list of 19 are there. I guess I'm not as out of step with the rest of the left as I thought. (Though I don't want to think we're only united by who and what we don't like.)
I'm sorry to see that Reagan and Bush made the list. I didn't include them, though of course I knew others would. Even so, less than half of us picked either one of them.
Posted by Michael J. Totten at August 11, 2003 11:27 PMI was pretty amazed to see that George Wallace made it so high up the 20 worst Americans list. Maybe because I grew up in Alabama during his many terms as Gov.
Posted by: Ron at August 12, 2003 05:42 AMThe overlap between the left wing and right wing bloggers' lists is interesting.
Posted by: Gideon Strauss at August 12, 2003 06:50 AMRant. Bitch. Moan. Complain.
In order to get on the list, you have to have achieved prominence of some sort. The tendency of prominent people to be put on such a list should not be a big surprise then, either.
In 1996, I lost two friends in two seperate murders to two people who were each much worse Americans than George Wallace. But they were in no way as prominent.
Oh yes, have you noticed that Harry S Truman isn't on anybody's list? Don't get me wrong, I think he is one of the great men of American history, I wrote my thesis on his pre-presidential character. But twenty years ago, he was much vilified by the no-nuke (spelling intended) crowd. Now his "villany" is entirely forgotten. These lists are all pointless exercises in revisionist history and bile spewing. If you want to study character, study character. If you want quantified lists, seek quantifiable subjects.
Rant. Bitch. Moan. Complain.
Posted by: Patrick Lasswell at August 12, 2003 10:41 AMI should think Several serial murderers (Zodiac, Bundy, Hillside Strangler, Unabomber), some Mafia mobsters (Capone?), Jim Jones, modern-day racists, like the guys in Texas who dragged Byrd to death, and others would be on such lists. I mean Jimmy Carter at #4?
Things like that tell me there's lotsa 13 yr old boys blogging, or major history flunkers.
Posted by: Cowboy Kahlil at August 16, 2003 09:28 PM
