Who is America's Worst President?

Lives of Presidents. I know it's always been one of our favorites to turn to when reading about the presidents, But here's how he puts it. Stories of Jackson's hooliganism abound. When asked to organize the local dancing school's Christmas ball, he secretly invited two of the town's most experienced prostitutes,

causing a scandal. On another occasion, he and his fellow miscreants demolished a local tavern, beginning with the glassware, advancing to the furniture, and concluding their sware by setting the buildings ablaze. Bloys will be boys, as Cormack so he then continues jack and was also known to complete many of his wild nights with a practical joke or two. His favorite moving out houses, the places they couldn't be found. I mean those are a mix of really awful things

and like kind of funny thing. They are kind of funny, Yeah, I mean burning and building down isn't that funny? Right? It is kind of weird that that's who ended up on our twenty dollar bill, right it is. I mean, you know, we tend to respect and revere our American presidents, and when people talk about Andrew Jackson, we talked about how he was a man of the people, or I don't know how devoted he was to his wife, or you know, maybe counter the trail of tears stuff with

how he adopted a Native American son. But it did make us wonder in some of these conversations, like who are some of America's worst presidents? Who are the politicians who really squandered their opportunities in the Oval office? And why aren't they getting any elementary schools named after them? I think that's the goal, after all. So that's what today's episode is all about. Let's dive in, y Hey,

their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend man Guesshot Ticketer and sitting on the other side of the soundproof glass pasting tiny portraits, these tiny little portraits. I had to go over and look to see who it was. It's President Taft Mango and he's putting them onto all of these pennies. That's our friend and producer

Tristan McNeil. Now, of course, this is all part of Tristan's bigger effort, this ongoing effort to win a little bit more praise for Taft. I don't know exactly why he wants to do this or why he's using pennies as kind of a mystery at this point. Yeah. I mean he explained, if anything, to me earlier, and apparently he just always thought it was unfair that Lincoln gets the penny and the five dollar bill and while you know, Taft seems sort of mediocre to me, and he just

has that story about the bathtub. Tristan is really in awe of him. It is the best presidential bathtub story. All right. Well, so today's show is all about trying to figure out who was America's worst president. And even though the presidency requires all kinds of different skills and abilities that are difficult to rank across the board, it's easy to spot the ones who led us into like

economic disaster or maybe fan the flames of civil war. So, in honor of President taffs aggressively mediocre legacy, what do you say we sling some mud on his behalf and and then let's actually talk about some of the real worst presidents in American history. Well, I do think we should mention at the outset that we're sticking to the past year for today's show and focusing only on historical presidents. So this is more of a ridiculous armchair exercise rather

than anything super political. Nobody recently, nobody. We didn't want to get any who has been president in the past thirty years. We have no idea, so we're only talking about the past. Of course, we will be using some surveys conducted by his story ends and other presidential authorities to guide this, and one we did look at was the two thousand eighteen Presidents and Executive Politics Presidential Greatness Survey.

It was conducted by the American Political Science Association and It compiles the rankings of a hundred seventy different social science experts and presidential politics. You know, the thing I like about these surveys is just how consistent the results tend to be, you know, over over previous years when you look at them, like if you look at the one from I guess it was four years ago. Those bottom ten presidents, I mean, they're pretty much the same names.

They tend to move around a little bit, you know, So we can't claim to know the definitive ranking of all US presidents. We we can say with at least some level of certainty that none of these guys are going to be appearing on new currency anytime soon. Yeah, and like you said earlier, they're not gonna get elementary schools or airports. Are probably not too many bubbleheads, uh, you know in honor of the mind that you could

find a tap bobble out there. I mean I did find William Henry Harrison trucker hat that everyone I know now is actually gonna get for Christmas. Pretty awesome. It's weird that you don't see William Henry Harrison's face on more like dorm room posters. That seems like something like we we might try to change that. We'll see, But I guess he does belong on this list since he died a pneumonia like thirty days after his inauguration. So of course he wasn't a great president at the very last. Yeah,

he didn't get a chance. But I do want to disagree with you on not one, but two of the points you just say. So for starters, we are sure it was pneumonia that did in the ninth president. So, I mean, the story does kind of fit. As we've talked before. You know, Harrison insisted on giving this ninety minute undred word inauguration speech on what was this very cold, very wet winter day. He didn't wear a hat, so I mean it tracts that he caught a cold and

and it eventually worsened into pneumonia. But you know, actually this is the side. But the doctor treated him for pneumonia, and the treatment at the time was around the clock enemas and doses of opium. Oh good god, so awful. Sounds horrible. But so if it wasn't pneumonia, what what

what killed? Yeah? So some modern scholars actually think that the real culprit was this deadly bacteria strain, which, uh, which probably came from all the night soil that had been dumped just a few blocks away from the White House. Did you say night soil? Yeah? So, remember we were talking about the eighteen forties here, so Washington d C. Didn't have a sewer system yet, and instead the city's daily dose of experment was hauled the way to this

nearby marsh every single evening, hence the term night soil. Ah, so you're saying this marsh was just down the street

from the White House. So so maybe it was this bacteria from what like all the fecal matter that was in the water supply exactly, And the kind of gastro intestinal sickness that Harrison went through is commonly linked at least two different bacteria that would have been found there, And the theory really starts to look convincing once you consider that both James Polke and Zachary Taylor also dealt with gastro and tritus while living in the White House,

with Taylor even dying in off as just like Harrison did. All right, so I'll stand corrected on that, or at least potentially corrected, But I'm curious that what didn't you say there was one more thing you to correct me on. Yeah, I mean the other thing is that Harrison didn't influence politics because he died so soon after taking office. Because when you think about it, he actually did some lasting

damage to American politics. And what makes you say that? So, William Henry Harrison's campaign was really the first to use food as a way to appeal to social and class differences in America. So for background, Harrison tried to portray himself as this like frontiersman who was tough as nails. And this was despite the fact that he was well educated, came from this wealthy, distinguished Virginia family. But you know, his campaign took out ads smartly that showed him in

front of a log cabin. I mean it was supposedly his log cabin, and uh he also had this big barrel of hard cider right out front. And the plan was to convince voters that Harrison was this man of the people. You know, he was trying to separate himself from the fat catalytist that Martin Van Buren could be seen as or Vanny Bee is. So his campaign took to calling him the log cabin and hard cider candidate, and he was this man who lived and drank just

like I guess the real Pete. Well, the plan worked, I guess right, I mean he got elected. Yeah, it wasn't much of a contest. Presidential candidates didn't even campaign for themselves prior to Harrison, and Van Buren was no exception, so you couldn't really push back on these elitist rumors. But Harrison did an incredible job. Like he held these massive rallies town after town. Sometimes they had sixty people out on them, and he was just like a ridiculous party.

His supporters were rolling logs all over the place and handing out hard cider, and he even had these custom log cabin shaped bottles made for the events. Like it really marked the first time that a politician used food as a shorthand for social class. Well, it makes me think about that phrase that sometimes people use that we often shut her at when somebody just talks about how they would vote based on who they'd rather have a beer with. Ins Yeah, exactly, And I guess you can

blame William Henry Harrison for that. We think about it, so yes, I will give him a mark against them for that and all let's stick to the time like for a minute and talk about Harrison's success or, who is, of course John Tiler and another less than stellar president. And Tyler is an interesting case because he was actually the first person to ascend to the presidency from the

vice presidency. Yeah, and there weren't even rules in place for that kind of succession, right, Like the whole vice president rule wasn't in place until the nineteen sixties when we added the twenty fifth Amendment. Yeah, that's right. So

Tyler was really in unchartered territory. And this is where his questionable legacy starts to crop up, because rather than continuing to act as vice president until Congress and the Supreme Court could figure out a solution, Tyler said went out and quickly found a district judge, just some district judge to swear him in. So effectively, John Tyler made

himself president. Though I mean, I guess you could argue that the twenty five Amendment would later vindicate his actions, even if that was what a hundred and twenty years after the but you know, think about this, putting him aside for just a second. I try not to speak ill of any first lady, just on principle. But I've got to say that Julia Tyler really didn't do her

husband any favors. Apparently she would hold these receptions at the White House where she would sit on a dais with a wreath of flowers on her head, and she would ask everyone in attendance to call her Mrs presidentists. I mean, I don't know anything about being a first lady, but if the president's legitimacy is in question, maybe don't

you that? You know, even Tyler's own party didn't give him a pass on all his succession stuff Like I remember reading how they started calling Tyler his accidency and apparently every member of the Harrison appointed cabinet resigned in protest. That's impressive. Well, and Tyler really threw the Whig Party

under the bus when he became president. In fact, he pretty much took the opposing position on every issue the party had been backing, including the need for a national bank and whether or not state should be allowed to seceed on account of slavery. Tyler did manage to fight off early attempts to impeach him and made it through his single term, but by the time he died less than two decades later, he was considered a trader by

most people in Washington. And you know, at that point it wasn't even an exaggeration, Like he had helped advocate for Virginia's secession and he was all set to join the Confederate House of Representatives before his death kind of mixed those plans. I mean, you don't want to heat more dirt on this guy's legacy. But I was reading about Tyler in the Secret Lives of the U S Presidents, which you know, I've got to say, I love Cormack O'Brien.

He was on the show Nicest Guy, and this book is so great, but he makes it sound like Tyler was kind of cowardly as well on top of everything else. Like just listen to this quote. Tyler's estrangement from the Whig Party was no joke. Angry mobs made a habit of showing up at the White House. Some even burned him in effigy. There were also plenty of bomb threats. Once, when an unmarked package arrived at the White House, a staff member was called to look at it, but Tyler

hid behind a marble column. The servant proceeded to hack the parcel to pieces with a meat cleaver, only to reveal a dilapidated toy. In a unique act of pity, Congress past Tyler's bill, which provided the first federally funded White House security. All right, well, let's leave Tyler over there, just kind of cowering behind his favorite marble column and and talk about another pair of bad presidents who also followed right on each other's heels, And that's Zachary Taylor

and Millard Fillmore. Absolutely, But before we dive in, let's take a quick break. You're listening to part time genius. So we're talking about the most terrible, horrible, no good, very bad presidents in US history, or at least the ones historians like the least I'm speaking of, which the next guy on our list is the country's twelfth president.

And then that was Zachary Taylor. And he's an interesting case because, unlike John Tyler and other presidents who were disliked both in their own time and today, Zachary Taylor was actually pretty popular in his day. Yeah, I mean, it kind of helps that he was only in office for what like a year, and people didn't have that much to form bad opinions about him. I guess it's true he died pretty quickly. But but you know, it wasn't just his brief time in office that gave people

this rosy view of him. I mean, before becoming president in eighteen forty nine, Taylor had already spent some forty odd years fighting no less than four different wars for the U. S. Army. I mean, the guy was a war hero, had this career that stretched from the War of eighteen twelve to the Mexican War, had that nickname all rough and ready tried to get people to call me that, but nobody's nobody's sticking to it, and it seems to have been one of those nicknames that was

actually pretty well earned in his case. So I'm guessing, then, like, how does he wind up on this worst President's list? It's partly because he spent such a brief time in office that he just didn't get much done, much like William Henry Harrison before him. But it really makes Taylor unpopular now. Is actually all the stuff that made him popular in his day. For instance, that that long military career of his, the one that helped him get elected,

it actually includes some really brutal campaigns. When you think about the seminoles and the Chippewa tribes effectively got were driven from their land. And you know, then there's Taylor's muddle stance on slavery. You know, on the one hand, Taylor opposed the creation of new slave states and fought hard for the western territories to only be admitted as

free states. But on the other hand, he was a slaveholder himself, had multiple plantations and over aden slave persons to his name, So I'm curious if you're a slave owner, like, why would you engage in all this like anti slavery rhetoric. Well, I mean, it turns out Taylor wasn't morally opposed to slavery, and I guess that's pretty obvious given his track record there. But he just recognized that there was growing opposition to

the practice. And you know, they used people needed to be catered to in order to avoid civil war, and Taylor was determined to preserve the Union and this was by force if necessary. Like there was one time in eighteen fifty when a few Southern leaders started threatening secession and Taylor was so angry about this he swore he would personally lead the army against them if they went

through it. Again, this was probably more out of his, you know, four decades of military service and wanting to be involved in those sorts of conflicts than it was any sort of personal conviction against slavery. So I mean, I guess he wound up doing the right thing, but maybe for the wrong reasons, or at least not for all the right reasons. And it's easy to see how that kind of a moral thinking would diminish his standing in hindsight. Plus, you know, he didn't have a very

dignified death. All right, Well, we've kind of beaten around the bush on this one, so I feel like you should go ahead and tell the story. Yeah, I think we've probably talked about it a little before, but I love the details of this. So it was July four and Taylor has been in office for a little over a year now, and he's due to appear at this big Independence Day party at the side of the future Washington Monument. And the problem is DC's in the middle

of this blistering heat wave. And if that wasn't bad enough, there's also a bad outbreak of cholera, and nobody's supposed to drink water or eat rough rout without knowing exactly where it came from. But you know, this is old rough and Ready we're talking about, and he's still going to go to the event. So he sits through the speeches, he makes one of his own, and meanwhile, the whole time,

he and everyone else are just getting baked in the sun. Right, And so once it's over, he stumbles back to the White House, and he is thirsty. He immediately drinks all the water in sight. Then he proceeds to drink all the iced milk on hand, and then he wolves down a whole bowl of cherries that someone left on the kitchen. So you know, he is not afraid of anything, and

this does the trick. He feels satisfied, except that, you know, the next day he's doubled over with the stomach cramps and then he starts displaying these symptoms of gastro and tritus, and four unpleasant days later, Taylor becomes the second president to die in office. I mean, it does make you feel for the guy a little bit to think about the fact that he lived through four separate wars only to be taken out by what you said, ice milk

and a bowl of cherries. Yeah, I mean I honestly think about this every summer when I'm looking at like a big bowl of cherries in the kitchen, and I'm always like, you know, a president died for him drinking ice milk and too many cherries. And of course I just scarf from down anyway, because Jerry's are so delicious, such a risk taker. I mean, it does feel like a cruel twist to fight even for this irredeemable racist. But because nobody is all bad, I do want to

mention that President Taylor had a beloved pet. It was this old white horse named Old Whitey, creative name, and he kept Old Whitey on the White House lawn. And when Taylor died, the horse was actually part of the funeral procession, marching right there behind his master's coffin. I like that. The nicest thing you can say is that he had a horse that participated in his future, right

right willingly. So you know, it's still probably more than you could say for his successor, Millard Fillmore, who took over after Taylor died, and he became another president who no one really wanted. You know, Fillmore did have one thing going for him over his predecessor. While Taylor had the looks you'd expect from someone who had spent forty years in combat. Fillmore was actually the super sharp dressor. He was good looking. In fact, Queen Victoria thought so.

After meeting him at court. She supposedly called him the handsomest man she'd ever met. So it sounds like he was sort of the opposite of Taylor, at least in terms of looks. But but what about his policy where the opposites in that regard to Yeah, they kind of were. So remember how Taylor had been politically opposed to slavery but personally for it. Well, Fillmore was the reverse of that.

He claimed to be personally against the practice. And this actually might have come because his family was so poor when he was growing up that he was sold into indentured servitude as a kid. I think he learned to read by stealing books, and uh, eventually he did buy

his way out. But it's strange because the main highlight of his whole tenure is getting the Compromise of eighteen fifty past, and this was something Taylor had opposed because he thought it was too big a win for southern slavers alright, So so why did fill More than support

the bills. Well, Taylor had prevented secession during his brief term, but the South wasn't happy about his plan to admit only free states from then on, and this growing anger made feel more nervous that Southerners might move forward with secession or even the outright war might break out, so filmore back the compromise out fear more than anything else.

And while the bills did do some good for the nation, like adding California to the Union as this free state and banged the slave trade in d C, the negative outcomes sort of outweighed that. And this was partially through the addition of the Fugitive Slave Act, which obligated the federal government to return fugitive slaves to their masters. This was regardless of whether the states they were found and

were free or not. And this was a massive, massive setback for abolitionists and it actually further the political divide that was growing in the country. So it sounds like he basically sold out his principles to try and keep

the peace, which I mean that's a hard line to keep. Yeah, he's another president whose reputation is only worse than as the years go by, and the cost of his decisions, you know, they start to look more and more unconscionable with time, and that shifting view on Filmore is actually something that started as early as two decades after the compromise. So in eighteen seventy, in an addition to the New York Times, the paper wrote, quote, it was Fillmore's misfortune

to see in slavery a political and not a moral question. Well, there's one part of Filmore's hanted legacy that I do find pretty funny with all of the kind of more sad stuff that you just mentioned, and that's the tongue in cheek club that was set to lampoon his ineffectiveness as president. You may have heard of this before, but it's called the Millard Fillmore Society, and it actually wasn't formed until nineteen eighty. This, of course, is over a

century after Fillmore died. So I'm curious what kind of stuff did the society to do, I mean, really important stuff. But probably what they were most known for was the annual award they would give out called the Medal of Mediocrity, and it was ended out each January around the time of Fillmore's birthday, and it was as a way of honoring quote mediocrity to combat the rising tide of overachievers. I was laughing at the list of of winners here.

So notable winners include Ed McMahon, Prince Charles, Princess Diana, and boy George. For some reason, Uh, boy George is a strange choice. It actually does remind me of that time one of our friends brought a boy George c d into our room in college and just started lasting it and I felt like he's sang it, danced through like Karma Chamillion, I'll Tumble for You, and then some other song, and eventually he had to tap out because he had to technology he couldn't keep up the enthusiasm

for boyd George song. Do I need to acknowledge that that friend was me? I wasn't gonna say it, but I did have. But you know, in this meirit of that club, I want to dominate another president for the Medal of Mediocrity, and that's our fifteenth president, Mr James Buchanan. And believe me, this one's a long time coming. Oh yeah, that's definitely a good pick. I mean, he was notoriously awful. But before we get into the reasons why, let's take one more quick break. Okay, mago, So we have two

bad presidents left to talk about. We've got James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson. And oddly enough, these are two that came immediately before and after President Lincoln, who, by the way, consistently tops the list of presidential rankings, which is no surprise there. They essentially have the best president in US history book ended by two of the all time worth And you know, Buchanan in particular is widely considered the

worst of the worst. So in fact, according to the Constitution Center, Buchanan has been in the bottom three of every major poll ranking US presidents since impressive. I mean, he seems to be universally load, which is almost an achievement in itself, I guess feel like it. Yeah, I mean, not a very good one, but yeah, it's an achievement. And in some ways that level of hate is kind

of surprising. I mean, just looking at Buchanan's pre presidents he resume he was a successful lawyer, he served in both houses of Congress, he even served as Secretary of State for a time. And on the one hand, he had this reputation for being really exacting and a fuzzy kind of guy, and I might explain why he was also a lifelong bachelor and then the only one to serve as president. President pol once said Buchanan acted like quote, an old maid, and even his own campaign manager described

him as a sort of masculine miss fibble. And I don't really know exactly what that means, but it doesn't sound good. I don't think I have no idea what a missfibble is, but uh, I mean that there were rumors that he was gay, and I know he and his vice president share of the house, and people called them Aunt Nancy and Miss Fancy, so there might have been some prejudices there, especially during that time period. But it's also pretty clear how much of a pain he

could be. Like apparently, Buchanan once rejected a payment for more than fifteen thousand dollars because it was off by ten cents. And you know, if that wasn't annoying enough, he was also this giant snoop um. He made his niece act as his first lady and lived with him in the White House. But then he'd open all her mail and send it along to her, written like opened by mistake, just scrawled across the envelope, and I mean, maybe you buy that once or twice, but every single

letter is a lot. I'm guessing at some point his knees caught onto us. Yeah, she actually started hiding all her corresponding and Cindy's empty butter jugs that our friends would carry in and out of the White House kitchen, which just sounds so obvious, you know, But amazingly, Buchanan never caught onto the scheme because, I mean, he was too busy pulling off his own schemes. I mean, his

administration was one of the most corrupt in history. Just as an example, Buchanan pushed hard for the adoption of Lacompton Constitution, which was a proposed constitution for Kansas that would have allowed only male citizens to vote, well at the same time forbidding free blacks from living in the state at all. And to try to get this pass, Buchanan and his supporters offered cash incentives to anyone willing

to vote their way. All told, the price of these payoffs has estimated it more than thirty thousand dollars, which is more like a million dollars when you adjust for inflation. That's crazy. And meanwhile, the country was falling apart around him while he and his buddies were cashing in the Southern threat of secession was growing, and rather than do anything to counter it, you can't, just stood by and watched. And not only was he ineffective, but he was also

two faced. Like before the election, he'd spoken out against slavery as this indefensible evil, but then in his inauguration speech he dismissed the practice as quote happily a matter of but little practical importance. And you know, once in office, he actually further the spread of slavery by allowing it in these western territories. He uh, he backed the dread Scott decision, that's the one that denied citizenship to black residents, and he practically paved the way for the Civil War. Yeah,

that's definitely true. And you know, it seems like most of the country recognized the damage that he was doing, because you know, you fast forward to the next election and it went to a starkly different candidate, and that, of course was Lincoln. But that transition wasn't a smooth one at all. You know, got Lincoln's victory and November of eighteen sixty that prompted seven southern states to secede from the Union and formed the Confederacy. And this all

happened on Buchanan's watch. Now, you can't claim there was nothing he could do to stop this. Here's how he puts it. He says, is beyond the power of any president, no matter what maybe his own political cool proclivities, to restore peace and harmony among the states. Wisely limited and restrained, as is his power under our constitution and laws, he alone can accomplish, but little for good or for evil on such a momentous question. I mean, that's really pathetic,

and it just sounds like such a cop out. I mean, if the Union was falling apart, the president should be doing something right. And and Zachary Taylor, if he was on the case, he would have hopped on his horse and fought off the Cecedars himselves, right, I mean, even

if you did own eighty something splace well. But Buchanan just set on his hands until leaving office the next year, and that left Lincoln to deal with the fallout of Buchan's in action, And of course, less than a month later, the Civil War had begun, which is you know clearly why historians don't like Buchanan. Well, in the wildest part is that Buchanan maintained until his dying day that he

was only performing his constitutional duty. He believed that history would ultimately remember him fondly for what he had done. But of course he was pretty wrong about that. Yeah, I'll say, and while Lincoln's turn provided this all too brief repre from week leadership, his assassination landed the country right back in the hands of the morally bankrupt. And I mean this is a bummer to say, because on paper, Andrew Johnson sounds pretty impressive, Like more than any other president.

Johnson really came from nothing. His family didn't know named land. His father died when he was only three. Most of his childhood was spent doing hard labor as a tailor's apprentice. In his teens, Johnson moved from North Carolina to Tennessee. He opened his own tailor shop. And you know this wasn't easy either, Apparently, um Johnson made the trip with his family and everything they owned. It was all stuffed into a two wheeled cart and was pulled through the

mountains by a blind pony. I mean, of course the pony had to be blind because you've got this impoverished family, two whield car like, none of that's enough in a blind pop. But I do know what you mean though about Johnson being a pretty endearing character at least prior to taking office, and he was the only Southern Senator to keep his seat in Congress after secession, and that loyalty to the Union is ultimately why Lincoln chose him

as his running mate when he was up for re election. Yeah, but sadly all that loyalty disappeared after Lincoln was shot and Johnson assumed the presidency. As soon as he took office, he gave amnesty to Confederates and allowed them to elect new government officials who quickly passed these Black codes. It was, you know, aimed at oppressing these newly freed slaves. He also vetoed bills that sought to protect black Americans, including

the Freedman's Bureau Bill. You know, much the nation was really shocked to see Johnson undermining and almost straight up on doing so much of what Lincoln had fought and died for. In fact, Johnson was often heckled at public appearances during his presidency. And he's just the type of guy who just could not resist. He just joined and shouting back and and this one time things got so heated that he actually claimed that God struck down Lincoln

on purpose so he could be president. I mean, that's insane. And of course that went over about as well as you'd imagine. All right, So let's see, just looking at his resume here, Johnson mocked his dead predecessor, rolled back racial progress in America, basically paved the way for a gem Crow laws. So it's not a surprise really that he was the first president to be impeached and nearly convicted to In the end, the proceedings failed by just one vote and Johnson was able to complete his term.

But you know, it was crystal clear by then that he wouldn't be getting a second term. And of course, the thing I always remember about Johnson was that he was so ostracized at the end of his term that he just sit in his bedroom where he'd befriended the mice there, like he'd feed them and watched them like they were, you know, his own reality TV program. But

I do think he was a little lonely. I mean, it is nice to see that most of these bad presidents we've talked about come from the first half of America's history. I mean, there are a few obvious exceptions from the last hundred years or so. Yeah, I mean, there's bound to be a few hiccups here and there, But examining the failings of past leaders should make us more adept at choosing new ones, or you know, at least that's the hope. Yeah, but I'm not ready to

let these guys off the hook just yet. So why don't we dedicate today's fact off to the blunders of a few more presidents from that worst of list? Yeah. So, one of the things on William Henry Harrison's platform was that if he was elected president, he'd only serve one term. And it's the only campaign promise he actually carried out.

That's pretty bad. One of Andrew Jackson's favorite ways to unwine was apparently dueling, which I guess makes sense for someone who enjoyed drinking and brawl as much as he did. He apparently fought in over one hundred duels in his life. I think that's over one more duels than you've competed.

That's absolutely true. So, you know, Warren Harding loved poker so much that he assembled a poker cabinet to drink whiskey and play with him, you know, which, of course is a little weird since he claimed to be tremendously in supportive prohibition on the campaign trail. But you know, he did have this cabinet, and and once he actually bet this entire box of priceless white House China in a poker game and he lost it. That's pretty rough.

And there are plenty of other reason to dislike Harding too. I mean, he was anti immigrant, anti working with other nations. And of course the knock on him was that his administration was so corrupt that while he was playing poker, all his friends were there plundering the U. S. Treasury. Yeah. I feel like it's one of those things where they couldn't trace it completely up to him, but they could trace it right around him, you know, a teapot dome

and all that. I mean. He was also a ridiculous and in blatant philanderer, So he had plenty of problems and and he eventually declared, quote, I'm not fit for this office and should never have been here. All right, Well here's one that you might like then. So Nixon was so enamored with making the White House this more grand place, and he actually commissioned these pompous uniforms for the White House Police force to wear. It was just to make it, I guess a little bit more like

bucking and Palace. And the uniform included gold embroidery and these ridiculously tall military caps. But it was so ridiculous that he just got made fun of in the press. What's funny about this is that instead of just like burning or throwing away the uniforms, he so them. And this was to a high school band in Iowa, so you know who seemed like terrible people to work for.

The Hoovers like Herbert and his wife devised the system so they never had to see the White House staff when they rang a bell three times and met the President or his wife were walking down the hall, and the staff was just required to jump into the nearest closet to be out of sight. And if the staff was outside, they were actually supposed to hide behind a shrub,

like behind the shrub. I like that they were given this instruct and I feel like my nix in fact, might have been funnier, but having to jump in a closet or over a hedge because your boss is coming and that sounds pretty terrible, so I feel like maybe you should win today's prize. That sounds great. All right, Well, this has been a fun one. Now. I'm sure that we forgot a lot of great facts and we always

love hearing facts from you. So if you have some fun facts about some of history's worst presidents, or maybe you need to even inform us who's been president in the past thirty years, because we have no idea so we've only been focusing on the past, but we love hearing those from you. You can always email as Part Time Genius at how stuff Works dot com or hit us up on Facebook or Twitter. But thanks so much

for listening. Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of How Stuff Works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do the important things we couldn't even begin to understand. CHRISTA McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme song and does the mixy MIXI sound thing. Jerry Rowland does the exact producer thing.

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