In an editorial, the founder of USA Today offers a mea culpa. Where last year he criticized those who called the Bush presidency the worst ever, this year he confesses that his opinion has changed. From the editorial:

I remember every president since Herbert Hoover, when I was a grade school kid. He was one of the worst. I’ve personally met every president since Dwight Eisenhower. He was one of the best.

A year ago I criticized Hillary Clinton for saying “this (Bush) administration will go down in history as one of the worst.”

“She’s wrong,” I wrote. Then I rated these five presidents, in this order, as the worst: Andrew Jackson, James Buchanan, Ulysses Grant, Hoover and Richard Nixon. “It’s very unlikely Bush can crack that list,” I added.

I was wrong. This is my mea culpa. Not only has Bush cracked that list, but he is planted firmly at the top.

I believe there is an objective case that he is the worst ever (previous posts here and here). Even the presidents on Neuharth’s list accomplished things in their presidencies. Bush has zero major accomplishments under his belt. Every major initiative (Social Security, Mars mission, Iraq, Medicare, NCLB) has either failed, never materialized, or gone horribly wrong. How could anyone be worse than 0?