Worst. President. Ever.

Last week, while driving to Brooklyn, I passed this sign on the BQE. My first thoughts mostly revolved around how it could only be New Yorkers who could express themselves so simply yet eloquently. On the other hand, it may well be a transplanted New Yorker who placed this sign, as a native would have likely used the phrase "Worst F#$%ing President Ever." Still, I can't complain.

Apparently, though, neither myself, the sign-maker, nor my driving companion are the only ones who feel this way. None other than former Democratic Vice Presidential candidate, John Edwards, said so much this morning on "This Week with George Stephanopolous." President Bush's problems, foibles, and malaprops have been chronicled elsewhere and probably don't need to be repeated here (I wouldn't want to antagonize my wide Republican readership!), but if you google search "George W Bush is an idiot," you will have more reading material than you can possibly endure.

What this brought to mind for me, though, was a conversation that we had in my 9th grade social studies class. Mr. Henson was the history teacher students loved and hated. He was passtionate about history -- maybe a little too passionate. I learned a lot in that class -- some of which sticks with me today. I am not sure why, but I remember a discussion about which presidents Mr. Henson liked and disliked. This was at the time of the Reagan presidency, and he was no fan. Someone asked if Reagan was the worst president of all-time, and he replied emphatically that the worst president of all-time was Ulysses S. Grant. He went on a ten-minute tirade about Grant -- how he was always surrounded by scandal, he was a racist (well, anti-semetic, but I remember him calling him racist), and just an all-around dim bulb. He did say that he was a great military leader, but he surrounded himself with corrupt cronies in his time in the White House -- such that perhaps he was not corrupt, but by surrounding himself with so many others who WERE corrupt, it was tough to escape their shadow.

Something tells me that Mr. Henson would be no fan of W, and my gut says that history will look upon him much the same way as US Grant, without the niceties of military service to blunt the blow.