I am no big fan of George W. Bush, but you know, I try to be fair to the man. This is why I'm going to defend him from a proposition forwarded by columnist Richard Reeves in his Dec. 2 piece, "Is George Bush the Worst President—Ever?"

James Buchanan, the 15th president, is generally considered the worst president in history. … He was a confused, indecisive president, who may have made the Civil War inevitable by trying to appease or negotiate with the South. His most recent biographer, Jean Clark, writing for the prestigious American Presidents Series, concluded this year that his actions probably constituted treason. …

You know what, that's just a slander on poor Dubya. Yes, he is an awful, awful president: an incompetent of the highest rank, a man of profoundly limited intellectual curiosity who is to the modern American conservative movement what Charles II of Spain was to the Hapsburgs. It's always amusing to read conservative apologists for Bush, who wish to imbue the man with a sort of mystical deep thinking, such as when they suggested that when Islamicist insurgents started flooding into Iraq that it was some rope-a-dope flypaper "master plan" rather than a consequence of the Bush administration having no strategy in Iraq, or even an interest in a strategy, once Saddam was hauled out of his rat hole. It ain't happening, people. Bush has all the vision of an Amish buggy horse: If it ain't directly in front of him, he's not seeing it.

For all that, he's no Buchanan. Perhaps the Civil War was inevitable—maybe even necessary—but in both cases it was not, had there been a chief executive of the United States elected in 1856 whose entire plan for dealing with the sectarian issues rending the South from the rest of the nation had not been, "Well, let's just try to ride this out and let it be the next guy's problem." When he finally did become engaged on the issue, it was far too little, far too late, and far too incompetently. Let's just say a president whose initial response on South Carolina seceding was to say, "They can't do it, but I can't stop them" is not a man who deserves the comfort of letting another of his executive brethren front the "worst president" line in his stead.

Say what you will about Dubya, but the republic will not fall and shatter between now and 2008. There have been other presidents whose administrations have been bad, incompetent, malingering or some unholy combination of all three. But only one president is unforgivable, and that's Buchanan. They knew it at the time; during the Civil War they had to take down Buchanan's picture in the Capitol because they were afraid someone would deface it. The deaths of 600,000 soldiers, Union and Confederate, accrue to his account. Dubya's got a while before he gets there.

Again, this is not to minimize the badness of Dubya; he's a bad president, all right, and if one wishes to front the proposition that he's the least competent president since Buchanan, that's a legitimate argument. It indeed takes some doing to cut in the line in front of Grant, Harding, Hoover and Carter, but Bush has got the goods, such as they are. (Nixon was competent, he was just paranoid to the point of endangering the office of the presidency; he's bad, in a scary category all his own.) But let's keep things in perspective: When it comes to worst presidents, Buchanan's the top. He's earned the title in perpetuity, or at least until a president comes along who actually and irreversibly destroys the United States of America.

Bush isn't that president, and no one derives benefit in suggesting he is. I mean, honestly, people. Being the worst president since Buchanan is bad enough.

John Scalzi is the author of the novel Old Man's War and the nonfiction book The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies. Visit him online at www.scalzi.com/whatever. If you would like to respond to this Slant or submit one of your own (750 words), e-mail duane@citypaper.net.