Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

The words do not have to be perfect.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

This blog will pay for itself.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

Battle won, war still ongoing.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Bark louder, little dog.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

T R E 4 5 O N

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Reader Interactions

148Comments

  1. 1.

    MikeJ

    Do they dislike McVeigh for making conservatives look bad or are they still trying to sell the McVeigh == Iraqi intelligence story?

  2. 2.

    August J. Pollak

    Haha I remember a few years back when that site was still trying to get me to help them with their stupid surveys. The shorter name for all of them is “right-wing bloggers want pageviews.”

  4. 4.

    Greenhouse Guy

    Over at the comment section on the link… parody or not? People defending Joe McCarthy? um, wow?

  5. 5.

    SenyorDave

    Surprised that Obama came in second, I guess Ben Quayle didn’t get a vote.

    It’s also shocking that MLK didn’t make the list.

  6. 6.

    beltane

    This is too funny to be sad. How the hell did Jimmy Carter manage to outdo Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Al Gore in the pure diabolical evil category?

  11. 11.

    Erik Vanderhoff

    These people are stupid and insane. They’re not even consistent: No Earl Warren or Thurgood Marshall?

    Hell, they throw in John Wilkes Booth and give Nathan Bedford Forrest a pass? Idiots.

    EDIT: Oh my spaghetti monster, the defenses of Joe McCarthy in the comments are fucking hilarious.

  12. 12.

    trollhattan

    I’m still waiting for the Coulter book, “Timothy McVeigh–misunderstood Patriot hero and thorn in the Liberals’ side”

    I ain’t clicking the link to see the other 23.

  13. 13.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @Greenhouse Guy: Nope, there are always defenders of McCarthy. He might have gone a little too far, but his _____ was in the right place.

    @MikeJ: This makes the list look “balanced.”

  14. 14.

    ...now I try to be amused

    It’s also shocking that MLK didn’t make the list.

    The right-wingers are trying to appropriate his memory now.

    Richard Nixon is on the list. Lemme guess, too liberal? Or he got caught?

  19. 19.

    Shawn in ShowMe

    I thought the wingnut mind considered Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers tied for first on the evil-meter. They must feel slighted.

  21. 21.

    freelancer

    This would be funny if it weren’t so sad.

    I’m laughing. I mean if a furriner like Obama can get on the list, where’s OBL?!

    Also, Jane Fonda? What, Russian Spy/FBI Agent Robert Hanssen one of those acceptable treason counts because he was Opus Dei?

  22. 22.

    Villago Delenda Est

    It’s good to see that FDR, the guy who saved the parasite overclass from well deserved tumbrel rides, and they’ve hated him ever since, at #3.

  23. 23.

    That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal

    I can’t believe that anyone thinks Saul Alinsky was important enough to make a worst anything list. And, honestly, no Eleanor Roosevelt? No Clarence Darrow?

    WHERE IS EUGENE DEBS!?!

  24. 24.

    Cacti

    Just checked.

    Not a single major Confederate figure on the list.

    In other words, Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton are worse than people who caused the deaths of more than 600,000 Americans.

  26. 26.

    Pangloss

    Woodrow Wilson, one of the top 5 monsters in American History…. the words just roll off the tongue.

    But where’s Jesse Jackson? Cesar Chavez? Thurgood Marshall?

  27. 27.

    TuiMel

    @beltane:
    Sadly, it is not just the professional right. I have relatives who think the historical narrative on McCarthy is the single biggest piece of evidence of that the MSM is lib, lib, liberal.

  28. 28.

    Pangloss

    How many have died because Jimmy Carter built all those houses out of flammable materials like wood?

  30. 30.

    Uloborus

    I’m going to assume for the moment that these people didn’t answer in snark.

    What I find interesting is the tunnel vision involved here. These are pretty much all political figures from the last century. They’ve completely closed their thoughts to anything but a tiny section of the world that directly corresponds to their interests. History only exists in terms of the political points they feel like making right now.

    I mean, it’s typical of their thought processes, but it’s so curious to see how broadly it shapes them.

  33. 33.

    J sub D

    Margaret Sanger? Is birth control that offensive? Jimmy Carter? WTF? Was the Panama Canal treaty really that big a goddam deal?

    How about Captain Henry Wirz? Or Andrew Jackson? A few on the list deserve to be remembered as evil, but Harry Reid?

    I would never find anything like this on the tubez without someone linking it. I try to avoid the patently insane parts of the blogosphere.

    Getting together with some intelligent folks to gin up a list like that would be fun. Getting together with some far right/left idiots would tempt me to commit murder and/or suicide.

  34. 34.

    Lev

    Wingnuts are silly creatures.

    I wouldn’t want to do 25, but I think my list of the 5 worst people in American history would go something like this:

    5. Nathan Bedford Forrest
    4. Franklin Pierce/James Buchanan
    3. Joe McCarthy
    2. Benedict Arnold
    1. Richard M. Nixon

  36. 36.

    That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal

    @TuiMel: The professional left is whiny and ungrateful. The professional right is just fucking unhinged.

  37. 37.

    Remember November

    wait, where’s Jeffrey Dahmer? Joel Rifkin? Albert Fish, Ted Bundy? Oh wait those guys are heroes to RightWingNaziNews.

  38. 38.

    kwAwk

    Well you know. Jimmy Carter gave away the Panama Canal and shortly after that the USSR invaded the United States on the east coast and we couldn’t get all of our ships from the west coast over to help. Wait. I’m sorry. That never happened.

    You’d think that they’d realize that lists like this only make conservative bloggers look stupid to anybody who isn’t a conservative blogger.

  40. 40.

    Zifnab

    @Cacti:

    So, how many treasonous Confederate generals are on the list?

    Treasonous Confederate general? Wouldn’t that be a confederate that defected to the Union?

    Also, Margaret Sanger? Are you fucking kidding me? The inventor of the birth control PILL? My mind <== BLOWN!

    It's like a who's who of cryptic Republican nonsense paranoia. I mean, Woodrow Wilson is on the list two down from FDR and Theo is no where to be found. And what magic fairy dust excepted JFK when every other Democratic President since the turn of the century was on there?

    And holy crap? Jane Fonda? REALLY?! RIGHT AFTER NIXON?! OMG, this list is so full of fail, I am wracked with physical pain.

  41. 41.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Lev: Benedict Arnold was a huge war hero and one of the Revolution’s best generals before you know.

  42. 42.

    Hillary Rettig

    here’s another good one: “The Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries” per the great minds at Human Events:

    1. Communist Manifesto
    2. Mein Kampf
    3. Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book
    4. The Kinsey Report

    Because, for these people, sex = totalitarianism.

    The rest of the list is a hoot, too.

  43. 43.

    Lev

    @J sub D: Where would you put him? Ahead of the guy who founded the KKK? The two guys who basically (though perhaps inadvertently) caused the Civil War? Burr is just a strange, minor figure in American history.

    @Remember November: Do famous criminals count as historical figures?

  44. 44.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    Here’s the list. Apparently people like John Wayne Gacy are less repulsive than Saul Alinsky to the fReichtards.

    23) Saul Alinsky (7)
    23) Bill Clinton (7)
    23) Hillary Clinton (7)
    19) Michael Moore (7)
    19) George Soros (8)
    19) Alger Hiss (8)
    19) Al Sharpton (8)
    13) Al Gore (9)
    13) Noam Chomsky (9)
    13) Richard Nixon (9)
    13) Jane Fonda (9)
    13) Harry Reid (9)
    13) Nancy Pelosi (9)
    11) John Wilkes Booth (10)
    11) Margaret Sanger (10)
    9) Aldrich Ames (11)
    9) Timothy McVeigh (11)
    7) Ted Kennedy (14)
    7) Lyndon Johnson (14)
    5) Benedict Arnold (17)
    5) Woodrow Wilson (17)
    4) The Rosenbergs (19)
    3) Franklin Delano Roosevelt (21)
    2) Barack Obama (23)
    1) Jimmy Carter (25)

  45. 45.

    jl

    Where is Tinky Winky, the gay Teletubby?

    I guess the social conservatives were left out of this effort.

  48. 48.

    Lev

    @Omnes Omnibus: Of course I know. But that chapter is kind of important in the story, you know. If you ignore appeasement, Neville Chamberlain has an exemplary record as Prime Minister and as a statesman. Before and after appeasement, for that matter.

  49. 49.

    Pangloss

    What about some of their fleeting obsessions of the past? Angela Davis, Abbie Hoffman, Huey Newton, Paul Robeson, Jimmy Hoffa, The Dixie Chicks, Howard Dean, Daniel Ellsburg, George McGovern, etc.?

  52. 52.

    kwAwk

    Hmmmm….second pass at this. The Presidents who won the First and Second World Wars are represented at #5 and #3 respectively. Could one extrapolate out from that, that the wingnuts are still sore that we didn’t take Germany’s side in either war? Slightly preferring Hitler over the Kaiser?

  53. 53.

    MikeJ

    @MikeJ: And to argue with myself, I can’t understand why they Aldrich Ames on a list of political people, or McVeigh either for that matter (and a few others). Why clutter up the political with criminals?

  54. 54.

    jackmac

    Okay, I’ll play along.

    My 25 worst Americans of all-time for serious offenses and impact or general odious character:

    1. Sen. Joseph McCarthy
    2. John Wilkes Booth
    3. Lee Harvey Oswald
    4. Rush Limbaugh
    5. J. Edgar Hoover
    6. Timothy McVeigh
    7. Richard Nixon
    8. James Earl Ray
    9. Jerry Falwell
    10. Dick Cheney
    11. Roy Cohn
    12. George W. Bush
    13. Lee Atwater
    14. Ronald Reagan
    15. Aaron Burr
    16. Bernard Madoff
    17. Strom Thurmond
    18. Andrew Johnson
    19. William Calley Jr.
    20. Pat Robertson
    21. Benedict Arnold
    22. Henry Kissinger
    23. Oliver North
    24. Father Charles Coughlin
    25. Ann Coulter

  55. 55.

    MikeJ

    @Lev: Appeasement? The delay that kept Britain alive for several years so they could rearm? Had they fought Germany at the time of Munich the Battle of Britain would have been over in one afternoon.

  56. 56.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Lev: Burr, despite his many faults, was an early abolitionist and was pro-woman’s rights (given his time, that is).

  60. 60.

    Cacti

    I also couldn’t help but notice the Segregationists are conspicuosly absent from this list too.

    Then again, the wingnuts probably think George Wallace and Bull Connor deserve posthumous Presidential Medals of Freedom.

  61. 61.

    David Hunt

    @…now I try to be amused:

    Richard Nixon is on the list. Lemme guess, too liberal? Or he got caught?

    No. It’s that he backed down and let the Liberals win. The fact that he was caught and obviously guilty doesn’t enter into it. Or to put it more briefly: “Pussy.”

  62. 62.

    Chad N Freude

    Some of the comments are grounded in reality and critical of the List, and others make entertaining reading if you like hysterical ranting. But the best ones that I looked at are:

    John Wilkes Booth as one of the worst Americans? His only mistake was that he was 4 years late.
    . . .
    Abe was less faithful to the constitution than any other president in American history. He is responsible for the deaths of a few hundred thousand human beings because he wanted to collect tariffs from southern ports, not to free the slaves. Lincoln was a tyrant that has been deified by revisionist historians.

    I can’t believe that you added J. Edgar hoover to that [commenter-suggested alternative] list either. The guy created the modern FBI and revolutionized law enforcement. your typical leftist anti-LEO bias is showing.
    . . .
    The good that JEH [Hoover] did outweighs the lapses in the civil right era. The same could not be said for Lincoln who provoked a war that killed 600,00 Americans, had civil rights violations that made the leftist hype about Bush look childish by comparison, and left a resentment and rancor that persists to this day. (with no Civil War there would have been no reconstruction and thus no Jim Crow in response to that. Likewise had slavery died a natural death I feel that blacks would have been more gently and fully intigrated into US society)

    There’s more, e.g., “Watergate itself was nothing but a petty B&E.”

    It’s a lot like the Daily Show.

  63. 63.

    PanAmerican

    @Zifnab:

    Longstreet. They fucking hated Longstreet for flipping after the war. So much so that the Lost Causers tried to pin Gettysburg on him.

  64. 64.

    jl

    Soros is only number 19?

    Evil secretive Cosmopolitan Jewish international financiers, drug dealing destroyers of youth, humanity hating collectivists, and subversive funders of The Professional Left have no cred these days?

    Maybe he gets credit for anticommunist civic education efforts during the 1990s? Or maybe not.

    Probably just difficult to outevil the monstrously vile Pelosis. Reids, and Jimmy Carters of this world.

    BTW, what is Cole doing with all his Soros money? I had expected some big Balloon Juice Soros orgies, er, I mean, parties by now. That is why I comment here, you know.

    Tunch ate it all, probably. I honestly believe that is what happened.

  66. 66.

    J sub D

    @Lev:
    I haven’t ginned up my list, but Aaron Burr probably makes the top 25. I certainly wouldn’t call him a minor figure in US history.

    Along with Jackson and Wirz, Henry Anslinger makes my list.

    Did anyone else notice that not a single mobster made the list?

  67. 67.

    xochi

    What’s interesting is that the other presidential assassins aren’t on the list. No Oswald, no Squeaky Fromme or Charles Guiteau. And nobody except Booth & Benedict Arnold from before the 20th Century. That explains things pretty clearly.

  68. 68.

    demo woman

    @jackmac: Great list but I would have added Boortz. Years ago he spoke about wanting someone to kill Tom Daschle. Not sure who I would replace though.

    Still can’t believe Margaret Sanger is on the list and Timothy McVeigh is 9th. That only proves that they care more about the unborn rather than the born. Just sickos

  69. 69.

    Aet

    What’s most telling of all to me, as an amateur historian, is how few of these names are Confederate.

  71. 71.

    That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal

    @Omnes Omnibus: Yeah. How one can include Benedict Arnold without even mentioning Horatio Gates eludes me. Arnold:

    1) Was a competent commander in the early stages of the war;
    2) Along with Daniel Morgan, won the pivotal battle of the whole war;
    3) After being treated like shit in the wake of said battle, tried unsuccessfully to give away West Point.

    Gates:

    1) Sat in his tent while Morgan and Arnold won said battle;
    2) Used that time to generously take the credit for their work and win himself a promotion to a theater command;
    3) Upon taking said command, promptly led his entire army into captivity through sheer incompetence.

    Thank god for Nathaniel Greene.

  72. 72.

    FlipYrWhig

    @jl:

    Where is Tinky Winky, the gay Teletubby?

    Probably on a list of British historical villains, behind Neville Chamberlain and ahead of David Beckham.

  74. 74.

    Sheila

    Perhaps there were a lot of rightwing zionists voting in the poll, which would explain why Carter was #1. My rightwing zionist friend expressed this sentiment to me in 2004, when he saw my Howard Dean sign in the front yard. He said, “Dean is bad enough, but Jimmy Carter, he’s just plain evil.” I presume he felt this way because of the peace accords?

  77. 77.

    Nimm

    Interesting that for a group of people who constantly rail against black-robed tyrants, that there isn’t a single judge on the list. All the politicians on the list are the elected flavor.

    Hmm.

  78. 78.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Sheila: I thought the thing with Carter is that, as my one wingnut friend growing up expressed it, he was such a wuss that foreign countries walked all over America. But Reagan, by being a bad-ass who struck fear into the world’s hearts, fixed all that.

  80. 80.

    Cacti

    Okay, my own top 10…

    1. Nathan Bedford Forrest
    2. Robert E. Lee
    3. Jefferson Davis
    4. James Buchanan
    5. Roger B. Taney
    6. Andrew Johnson
    7. Joseph R. McCarthy
    8. Richard M. Nixon
    9. Melville W. Fuller
    10. Rutherford B. Hayes

  81. 81.

    Lev

    @ericvsthem: Davis was so inept a leader that he basically ensured that the North would win. Poor leadership skills that led him to bench his best generals in favor of lackluster ones in the West, plus economic management that would make even the Weimar Republic look good by comparison. Bad guy, but there’s ample reason to believe that American history would have been worse without him–he might have been replaced with someone more competent! That’s my standard–irreplaceable paragons of evil.

    @MikeJ: I’ve heard that theory before. The thing is that Germany in 1936 was a lot weaker than Germany in 1939. Chamberlain really believed he could keep Hitler contained, and he was more than a little scared of Hitler, so he was really disinclined to get confrontational. Hitler knew it and walked all over him. Neither he nor Daladier, his French equivalent, showed any backbone at any point in the proceedings, so they were not taken seriously when they offered Poland a unilateral guarantee of aid when they were invaded.

    The thing is that Chamberlain redeemed himself greatly once war started by stepping down and supporting Churchill completely afterward. I usually wind up defending Chamberlain, but he really did fail as a leader (though, ultimately, not as a man).

  83. 83.

    That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal

    @MikeJ: Let’s wander off-topic. This isn’t true. At the time of Munich, the British and French were already ahead of Germany in the rearmament race. In addition, they would have fought on thr same side as the Czechoslovaks, who had a small but high quality army, the best tanks in the world (which the Germans got their hands on in the aftermath) and a very strong line of fortifications.

    Yes, the British and French were rearming faster than the Germans, but at any time after the beginning of 1938, the Germans would have needed a large slice of luck to win a continental war.

    Of course, in the end, they caught some huge breaks in May 1940 and did just that.

  84. 84.

    Toast

    This list made me fucking sick. Gods, I despise right-wing scum. Just filthy, stupid, morally-depraved, intellectually bankrupt human garbage.

  85. 85.

    duck-billed placelot

    @jackmac: You’re missing Jackson; the Trail of Tears has gotta be up there in the crappiest crap we’ve done. Certainly worse, IMO, than Rush Limbaugh.

    I’d like to see our FP’s make their own lists, for the fun of it. They can split it up according to interests, maybe – it’ll be like a primer course on American Villains. Dennis G. takes the Confederates, of course. E.D. can put together a Fair and Balanced Mix that’s mostly good with one or two ridiculous right wing canards (I’m guessing one media figure and one politician. Fonda and Sen. Byrd, maybe?). John can take Liberals Who Annoy Him The Most, if only as a cathartic exercise.

  86. 86.

    Zifnab

    @jackmac: You can’t put both Cheney AND Bush on the same list. Just mark down “Bush Administration” and leave it at that. Bush was just yapping to Cheney’s tune anyway.

  87. 87.

    Lev

    @That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal: Exactly. The reason Churchill and Daladier didn’t fight was because they didn’t want to fight. They lived through WWI and remembered the horrors well. Basically, if Churchill and Paul Reynaud had been leaders in 1936, things would have been much better.

    @duck-billed placelot: Jackson was awful for so many reasons. Appointing Roger Taney to SCOTUS, the spoils system, the beginning of braindead populism, and a Ron Paulian economic policy that created a depression about as long-lived as Hoover’s. But he’s a Great President because he shot some dudes in duels. (Okay, he did solve the nullification crisis. I’ll give him that one point in his favor.)

  92. 92.

    Lev

    @Tonal Crow: Today’s wingnuts don’t actually like confederates. They have retconned history so that virtuous Republicans supported civil rights and evil racist Democrats opposed it.

  95. 95.

    Tonal Crow

    @Lev: You mean that (some of) today’s wingnuts won’t *admit* that they like confederates. But lots of them do. Try backwoods, er, backdirt, Texas. It’s simply stiff with confederate-fantasists of the worst description.

  96. 96.

    duck-billed placelot

    @Lev: He was Stonewall Jackson!! He ate standing up. Toughest man to ever commit a genocide! Yeah, he was awful all over the place. Glad he’s in a place of pride on our money. (Although you know any campaign to replace him would wind up with a Reagan $20, I’d still prefer it.)

  99. 99.

    Bubblegum Tate

    @J sub D:

    Margaret Sanger? Is birth control that offensive?

    According to the Official Wingnut Narrative, Margaret Sanger wanted birth control/abortion to be tools for eugenics.

  100. 100.

    jl

    The right wing list should consist of exactly two words

    Tench effing Coxe

    (OK, three words).

    Coxe was Alexander Hamilton’s statistician when Hamilton was Secty of the Treasury. Coxe wrote the first draft of Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures.

    According to Dick Armey, Coxe debauched Alexander Hamilton, and thus indirectly George Washington, into believing in managed capitalism!

    If it weren’t for Coxe, sneaking socialism into the Report on Manufactures, there would be no evil spawn like FDR and LBJ.

    I thought Armey would have some say on a list like this.

  103. 103.

    HumboldtBlue

    Wait the fuck a minute … ummm … Churchill didn’t want to fight? OK, hold the phone a sec here guys … Churchill was one of the earliest British leaders to recognize the threat Hitler posed. He was also a staunch opponent of the of de-funding the military believing that only a strong competent military was a guarantor of peace. He was the earliest British leader to recognize the viability of air power and for nearly a full decade from 1930 until 1940 derided the peace overtures of Chamberlain et al because for every deal made with Hitler was deal that was soon broken.

    Chamberlain and McDonald were men who would gladly put the fortunes of their own political careers and their party ahead of the interests of the country. Churchill, recognizing Germany’s re-armament (no one had better intelligence connex than Churchill due to his long career in journalism and the government) repeatedly warned the “Appeasers” that they were headed for fall after fall by continuing to make deals with Hitler when a strong show of force would have back that Austrian corporal up. I understand it’s a comments section, but sheesh, let us not do to history what the wingnuts have done with their wish lists, Churchill was an unapologetic warmonger if that was what was being called for.

  105. 105.

    Bubblegum Tate

    @Tonal Crow:

    No, no, eugenics is a bad thing to them because you know who was really into eugenics? Hitler. And remember that in their world, Hitler was a total leftist, so therefore Margaret Sanger = Hitler = liberals.

    Sadly, I’m not making any of that up; it’s what they seriously say.

  106. 106.

    Comrade Dread

    It is interesting how much of the list covers figures within the last 40 years of American history.

    It’s almost as if all these wankers care about is the modern conservative movement and its political talking points. Go figure.

  107. 107.

    Svensker

    @Bubblegum Tate:

    No, no, eugenics is a bad thing to them because you know who was really into eugenics? Hitler. And remember that in their world, Hitler was a total leftist, so therefore Margaret Sanger = Hitler = liberals.

    Some wingnut friends of friends, however, are totally on board with sterilizing anyone getting welfare. Heard that last night. Also, too, the government is too much into our bidness!

  109. 109.

    The Other Chuck

    @jl:

    Tench effing Coxe

    I just know I’m not the only one who read that first name as “Tunch”

  110. 110.

    Cermet

    @Lev: Number 1 is that bloody butcher and traitor ‘Bobby ass-licking’ Lee! Without him the South would have lost the war in under a year and a half and this would have saved 300 – 450K lives.

  111. 111.

    Bob L

    You got to wonder at their reasoning, It sounds like they want to shock people with their list but since it is so beyond parody it undermines their credibility. One of them was explaining FDR and Obama are on the list because they exceeded their constitutional powers, national crises are no excuse. So Abraham Lincoln and GW Bush aren’t? These people really are over the wingnut event horizon.

  112. 112.

    Bob L

    @duck-billed placelot: You got to admit for the number of people Jackson personally killed he has do go down as one of our most bad assed presidents. To be fair for all the gratuitous Indian murder the way he bitch slapped the Secessionists, triggered a recession just to screw the bankers and started populism makes Jackson more of a complex figure than pure evil.

  113. 113.

    duck-billed placelot

    @HumboldtBlue: Oops. Old Hickory, not Stonewall. Two Super-Macho American jerks: I always get their specifics confused. My bad.

    @Bob L: Well, I tend to fall on the side of gratuitous Indian murder = bad, not bad-assed. He did a lot of stuff besides genocide, sure, but genocide weighs pretty damn heavily in the “evil vs. not evil” scales for me. But I’d be down with adding “vindictive” to his description, since that seems to be one of his main motivators.

  114. 114.

    Bob L

    @duck-billed placelot: Never meant to suggest murdering Indians for sport and politics is anything but evil (and the way he grandstanded about adopting an Indian kid he knew it too) I was thinking in terms of his other great passion in life, besides taking revenge, dueling.

  116. 116.

    Jane2

    Hilarous list…I think all but one is from the 20th century, and at least two (Chomsky and Alinsky) have produced significant work that not a one of them has (or could, I suspect) read. Idiots.

  117. 117.

    Woodrow L. Goode, IV

    What an spectacularly ignorant list. I’m a progressive, and I could do a better job of being a right-wing butthole than the people who voted.

    1. You want to put a labor agitator on there, you don’t pick Saul Alinsky over Eugene Debs, John L. Lewis, Cesar Chavez or Jimmy Hoffa.

    2. You want someone who riled up the Negroes? And you pick Al Sharpton over Malcolm X, Martin Luther King or , Jesse Jackson?

    3. Noam Chomsky– who has had absolutely zero impact on public policy– over George Kennan, who is known is “the father of containment”?

    Michael Moore over Upton Sinclair or Lincoln Steffens? Jane Fonda over Paul Robeson? Not one member of the Warren Court? No Theodore Roosevelt? Where’s Daniel Ellsberg or Seymour Hirsch– or Julian Assange?

    It’s staggering that they have so little knowledge that they can’t identify the people who did the most damage to their belief system. It would be as if progressives compiled a list of the most vile and bigoted conservatives in history and voted in Wally George, John Schmitz, Ann Althouse and Orly Taitz.

  118. 118.

    Bernard

    the focus is very strange. but their hatred is obvious. stupid is as stupid does, comes to mind. i am surprised how completely “bought” Obama is as a “product”. how that sale was made to the White Folks. the subtlety of the scripts is awesome. these are some meticulous planners.

    fascinating to see Ted and LBJ together.

    always good to see the “focus” of the “enemy”. shame they are our brothers and sisters. that damn war of Northern Aggression!!!

  121. 121.

    ChrisB

    I’ll cast another vote for Andrew Jackson. HIs sins are ably listed above but I’ll stress what an economic disaster he was for the country.

    William Quantrill and Bloody Bill Anderson also deserve serious consideration.

  122. 122.

    Bruce (formerly Steve S.)

    Jimmy Carter was #1.

    Like many of you I play the little game of trying to think in the terms of the people doing this and maybe understand their thinking, even if I don’t agree with it. But I just can’t do it when it comes to Carter. I can understand thinking he was a bad President for various reasons, but the worst American ever? Can anybody explain the reasoning here?

    I understand Obama being high on the list because he is Flavor of the Month. I understand Roosevelt being high on the list because he saved conservatives from themselves and they have a hard time dealing with that. But Carter?

  123. 123.

    Asshole

    Elam Lynds, the father of the wondrous joy that is the American penal system. He belongs on that list somewhere.

    I have other candidates, but except for him and Thaddeus Bilbo (and maybe Roy DeMeo, if I HAD to mention a mobster), I think they’ve all been mentioned.

  126. 126.

    Uloborus

    @Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
    Because he’s fun for them to make fun of. It’s a bully mentality. Think like that. He’s the guy they’re all SURE is uncool and point and laugh at. They have no idea no one else thinks it’s justified.

  127. 127.

    Michael Finn

    I thought Carter was history’s greatest monster, according to the Simpson’s writers in the third season.

  128. 128.

    Bernard

    yes it is fascinating to have Carter named the “best”. the opposite of that is their “hero.” lol now that opens the door to a list of wonderful nominees.

    who is their number one “Hero.” exemplifies the Right Way.
    Archie Bunker? Curley, Larry or Moe, or Shep.

    the more i learn about Jackson the more evil he appears.
    i would nominate Henry Clay and John C Calhoun. frankly, all these “heroes” i grew up as a white man seem mighty human as i learn more about them. all those “history” lessons were for reminding us Southerners who the real “enemies in America” are.

    we obviously have the “same” enemies now. or like the blacks said in the Civil Rights struggle, “We Shall Overcome.”

  130. 130.

    Menzies

    @Nimm:

    These people can barely remember 18th or 19th-century American history, or they’d come up with tons of other names to add to the list. You really think they’re going to remember any judges?

    Let me put it this way: I’m sure the majority of current teabaggers can tell you that the judge who overturned Prop 8 is openly gay, but I doubt any of them know his actual name.

  131. 131.

    TTT

    Holy shit, with the exception of Booth and Arnold every single one of those candidates is 20th century, and all of them are political figures and recent regular Fox / Beck / teatard fodder. There’s not a shred of creativity or honest reflection in any of these goddamn lemmings.

    They never heard of Albert Fish or John Wayne Gacy or Ottis Toole or George Rockwell. History is just what they heard of in the last 6 months.

    Sort of like the winger geniuses who created the “Jokerbama” poster, which warns about how Obama is a big-government socialist by making him look like a lawless anarchist. They are absolute blank-slate historical and political illiterates, who can only base their opinions around the most recent thing they’ve seen.

  134. 134.

    erlking

    @Asshole: This. Also, shouldn’t Judge Hathorne be present on the list somewhere–witch trials– as well as Col. John Chivington–massacre at Sand Creek– and what about Nathan Fucking Bedford Forrest?

    And these are only the marquee names.

    The list, she goes on forever.

  135. 135.

    Honus

    yep, FDR and Woodrow Wilson among the top five worst guys in history. Those patriots are sure demonstrating great intelligence, and acumen.

  137. 137.

    Honus

    @duck-billed placelot: He wasn’t Stonewall Jackson, you mook, Stonewall was Thomas Jonathan jackson from Clarksburg West Virginia, famous psychopathic confederate general, much beloved by the confederate wingnutz

  138. 138.

    Hawes

    Top ten worst Americans?

    1) Joseph McCarthy-Forget the actual damage he did to people’s lives. Look at the damage he did to both American law and the over-reactions he engendered in American policy.

    2) Stephen Field-More or less the architect from the Supreme Court of the perversion of the 14th Amendment to protect corporations but not black people.

    3) Richard Nixon-See rationale for McCarthy

    4) Roger B. Taney-Dred Scott motherfuckers!

    5) George Wallace-A pitbull sans lipstick.

    6) John Wilkes Booth – Not that Lincoln could have done anything with Reconstruction had he lived.

    7) Edmund Ruffin-The tireless advocate for southern secession

    8) Andrew Jackson-As a symbol of the common man: fine. As an actual chief executive: evil, racist and capricious.

    9) Jerry Falwell-Managed to turn Christianity into a lucrative business for bigotry

    10) James Earl Ray-What might King have done with another decade?

    I left out Cheney and Bush, because I think we need some more historical perspective. (But Cheney should probably be about 3 or 4)

  140. 140.

    mac

    In no particular order:
    Joe McCarthy
    Herman Kahn
    Robert Macnamara
    Donald Rumsfield (Original architect of stagflation and chaos in Iraq! A twofer!)
    Aaron Burr
    John C Calhoun
    Any one or more of: Samuel Chase, Pierce Butler, Thomas Lynch
    William McKinley

    Conflicted about: Woodrow Wilson

    (Benedict Arnold doesn’t count, since he came pre-independence.)

  143. 143.

    Auguste

    Actually, the way he compiled the list almost guaranteed Carter would win.

    All bloggers were allowed to make anywhere from 1-20 selections. Rank was determined simply by the number of votes received.

    There isn’t a conservative alive who doesn’t love to beat up on Carter. He’s perceived as weak and an easy target, although of course he is nothing of the sort, and they love nothing more than an opportunity to bully someone. I’m surprised he was only on 25 lists.

    McVeigh, on the other hand, requires facing some uncomfortable truths AND remembering that terrorism existed prior to 9/11. A tall order for most wingnut bloggers.

  144. 144.

    Cacti

    @Honus:

    He wasn’t Stonewall Jackson, you mook, Stonewall was Thomas Jonathan jackson from Clarksburg West Virginia, famous psychopathic confederate general, much beloved by the confederate wingnutz

    And proving that sometimes there is justice in the universe…

    Jackson died of complications from a friendly-fire wound.

  145. 145.

    rapier

    Nixon? I’d love to hear the commentary on why he makes the list. Is it because he lost the war in Vietnam? Making nice with Mao? Starting the EPA? I an quite stumped. There is no way they hate him for Watergate. Most like him for Watergate. More than a few modern wingnuts said they didn’t like him until Watergete. No matter how you add it up how did Nixon make the list?

  146. 146.

    Dream On

    Gotta love this line:

    “Also, it’s worth keeping in mind that this is a fairly conservative group of bloggers and their selections reflected that. ”

    Fairly conservative?

    No David Koresh?

    Where are Daniel Ellsberg, Bill Moyers, Studs Terkel, Tom Hadyn (sic), Malcolm X, Paul Wellstone, Walter Mondale, Barbara Streisand and the Dixie Chicks?

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