Neither. To give you a hint, at the end of your existence, your creator will also be your judge. You will notice, before sentencing the nails pounded through his wrists. There will be no "virgins" for you. And your life efforts and sayings as following, will seem very moot: "You will be judged for what you have don to people, cleansing time is coming."
Yeah, the Kennedy thing is way over rated. He faced down the Russians in the missile thing, and he got shot. That's it. He got almost nothing through congress, pretty much the exact opposite of Reagan. He also completely fucked up the Bay of Pigs fiasco. If he was not assassinated, people would think much less of the guy.
In many cases, when talking about great/terrible Presidents, there are going to be as many people who think a President was great, as ones who think the same President was terrible, and normally for the same reasons. IMO, what is a greater insult to a past President, is to be considered irrelevant.
I'm not saying that he was a great pres. I just don't think he can even be compared to the worst ones in history. People hate Bush because they disagree with him now, not because 100 years from now they will hate what he did. Consider Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, and 1963 Iraq coup compared to what Americans thinks about JFK now. Also consider the idea that if Bush had gotten assassinated in 2003, he might well be considered one of the greats. As it is, I think he will go largely forgotten 100 years from now.
I agree with much of what has just been said. It's the lasting effects of the presidency that make him great or not. I never voted for Bush, but I can certainly say that we can't yet judge how bad he is because the effects of the presidency have not yet come to pass. I also agree that it's better to be judged than to be completely forgotten!
Since September 11th is called Patriot Day, future generations wanting to know the reason of such a day will discover the incompetence of the Bush administration. Bin Laden? Still running around. WMD's? Didn't exist. (The BBC has documentary showing Rumsfeld back in the 70's as Sec of Defense saying the Russians had nukes all over pointed at the US- didn't exist either!) Enriching the oil and defense industry at the taxpayers expense? Mission Accomplished - although the fun part is emerging markets mature to industrialized nations and the US learns it can't borrow as cheaply as today to fund its deficits. Worst president ever. 2nd Nixon - the father of 70's inflation - The Fed and Politics .
If there had been Gallup polls in Jefferson's day, he probably would have score much lower than Nixon or W after he enacted his embargo. If someone had taken a poll of the rioters in NYC in 1863, Lincoln would have scored pretty low too. those things have long been flushed down the memory hole though. Lasting change that occured that we will all remember are FDR's and LBJ's taking our money away for social programs. Nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki established us as a superpower, but that only lasted a few years. When we couldn't beat North Korea, we started our superpower downward slide, and here we are now 60 years later and we can't even subdue a third world sinkhole like Iraq. Maybe Bush will be remembered as the worst. maybe he will cause us to get sick of losing wars all the time and we'll nuke the next country we decide to go after. Then we'll be a superpower again.
Didn't get Bin Laden, said wmd existed, enriched oil industry, gee, sounds like you're talking about..........BILL CLINTON.