I would argue that the recipient for 'worst president ever' would he Abe Lincoln.

Bush wasn't instrumental in the death of over 600,000 Americans. That's just for starters.

No disagreement on your point. We have a daughter left in the house that I'm not sure where she's going and what's best for her. But, despite big efforts from the entirety of the family, **poof**, we got one more year to pick a path.

I'm talking about dysfunctional “dysfunctional”. I mean statistics that support case worker visits every six months for a couple of years for new-birth single moms getting a taxpayer check, & capping biological parent reunification attempts with the child at 18 months, or 3 problem DCS visits- whichever comes first.

Young children can't be bondoed over like a car at the body shop. You know from your service to the community they only take so much before they're irreparably damaged. There are plenty of single mom & formerly dysfunctional parent(s) success stories. There are a disproportionate number of failures as well. When failure happens, we're talking statistics related to obeisity, graduation, drugs, incarceration, repetition of the whole cycle again, the loss of a productive taxpayer, blah, blah, blah….

I don't think this genuinely dysfunctional parenting is some moral high ground to defend- morally, statistically, or fiscally. When it descends to the level I'm speaking of, I believe it's reprehensible regardless of race, income, religion, or sex.

The cost to us all is enormous by whatever measure you apply- when we can least afford it by ANY measure.

Anent social promotion and other lies of the schools the absolute worst was when a parent you knew came up and wondered why his kid, who had been straight A all thru elementary schooling was unable to pass ISTEP. ISTEP exit exam is a dumbed down 9th grade level test. It is not a 12th grade level test BECAUSE if it were, then 90% of Indiana high school graduates would not graduate. Your 150 idiots at work.

My extremist views on government schools were not considered extreme by voters. Twice.

Thanks Sean

My phone used to ring off the wall about Oct.1, right after the first middle school report card. Good parents find out Johnny can't read past the 3rd grade, and he needs months of remediation to get grade-specific. Inevitably, Johnny struggles all through 6th grade, because he cannot keep up with the middle-school multiple-teacher format until and unless he can read and comprehend well.

Why in the hell the parents didn't know his reading level before then is a good question. But they went to all the conferences. They were in the PTO, bought the God-damned gift wrap and candy, drank the kool aid.

But they were involved. And loving. Just not the RIGHT kind of loving. If the school system had half a brian, they'd hold Johnny in 6th grade for four years if they had to.

How many times did those Johnnys get retained in 6th? Almost never.

For that and other reasons, after awhile, I gave up.

There are lousy parents, like you suggest. Too many of them. But a lot of “good” parents got caught in this trap, too. And by the time they figure it out, and wipe the sleep outta their eyes, **poof** Johnny is 12. In 6th grade. It's fixable at that point, but boy is is expensive, time-consuming and way more effort than it would've been in, oh, say…THIRD GRADE. It usually gets a C-plus fix, which frankly prepares Johnny for, oh, a mediocre high school education. Doomed.

I'm talking about a four-star school here. In a great school system. I shudder at how it's done in less-stellar school systems.

Damn I dredged up all that old crap. Now I'm depressed.

What? Maybe you ought to look up John Maynard Keynes. Reagan wasn't that old.

In one manner we disagree, in difficult times give me a person of action, not a thinker. Decisiveness is much better than temporizing any day of the week. Surely, a President has spent years honing skills designed to make decisions. Then make them.

A good question for some Presidential historian, are we in an “ascending” or “good” phase with Presidents, or have we suffered from a string of “bad” ones? And what of the short term future? Continuity or “hopey-changey” of a different sort? E-yew.

My favorite President? Harry Truman. He was handed a dog's dinner without the slightest bit of preperation in 1944, and didn't let it all go to the dogs. The 1948 Presidential election result was just a bonus.