POLL: Who is the most ignoble scoundrel in U.S. history?

[saltpoint]

Who do you think qualifies as the most ignoble scoundrel in U.S. history?

This poll asks for the person or persons you feel represent low character or scurrilous doings across the American landscape and across any walk of life.

I've listed nine just to get started plus an 'Other' slot for the person or persons you wish to nominate instead.

[Seabiscuit]

1. Condasleeza

[saltpoint]

6. She's definitely a contender. Can't stand her myself.

[Bok_Tukalo]

2. Andrew Jackson

Hands down.

[Zen Democrat]

4. For what he did to Native Americans, I'm with you on Jackson.

[saltpoint]

7. I second what Zen Democrat posted.

In my high school history textbook, Jackson was "Old Hickory," but the Native American tribes in the south called him "Sharp Knife."

The word 'scoundrel' kind of fits him like a glove, doesn't it?

(Jackson was on my original list, but I ran out of slots on the poll.)

[Celeborn Skywalker]

3. What did Joseph Smith do other than form Mormonism?

I'll admit that I'm a bit ignorant in this subject.

[saltpoint]

8. Scholars have found his claims to be those of a --

-- charlatan.

I include him in the poll as one of several who made fraudulent religious claims.

[leftofthedial]

5. It is hard to top the collective sleaze of the bushgang

but they're a cabal, not an individual.

almost any one of the robber barons would probably qualify

[saltpoint]

9. Yes, they are a cabal -- that's the word --

-- and you're right about their qualificationss for this poll, too.

Bingo and right on, leftofthedial.

[leftofthedial]

39. cheers

:toast:

[kittycat1164]

10. What? No Rove????

He's up there in my list.

[Seabiscuit]

11. Mine too. Even worse than 'Sleeza.

[saltpoint]

12. Mine, too. He surely qualifies for 'scoundrel' and --

-- is well on the way to 'nihilist asshole.'

[Seabiscuit]

13. Supreme Court Justice Antonin "Scaliwag" Scalia

[saltpoint]

14. A more-than-worthy nominee, Seabiscuit.

If anything, he's overqualified!

[MrScorpio]

15. I picked Ollie North

He violated the spirit of his oath as an officer in order to suck Ronnie's shriveled cock.

[saltpoint]

16. He did exactly that. There's this spirit of high betrayal --

-- that goes along with Oliver North, beginning with the deliberate and cynical lying to the elected representatives of the people.

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

17. General Philip Sheridan

After the Civil War he went West and led his men in killing buffalo to deprive the Native Americans of their primary food and clothing source. For this despicable action, I nominate General Philip Sheridan.

[saltpoint]

18. Hi again, DTBK. Yes. Sheridan should be on any list of --

-- scoundrels, especially for the work out west. Well said and right-on, as usual.

[saltpoint]

19. Has anybody read Don DeLillo's LIBRA?

His passages on Jack Ruby are out of this world.

What a glimpse into Ruby's after-hours sleaze kingdom.

[Melynn]

21. I voted for Ruby

I would have to like to seen Oswald get a trial. Apparently someone didn't want to see Oswald get a fair trial.

I have to read "Libra". Thanks.

[msanthrope]

20. Ken Starr n/t

[saltpoint]

24. Hi, pacoyogi. Kenneth Starr. Absolutely, he belongs on --

-- any list of scoundrels. What a fidgety little chipmunk demon he was during the Whitewater/Lewinsky period.

Excellent nomination.

[CanuckAmok]

22. I think J. Edgar Hoover

McCarthy had his :15 minutes, but Hoover's decades-long reign destroyed the lives of thousands of people, and helped set-up the borderline police state we have today.

[saltpoint]

26. CanuckAmok, yes. Hoover. I can't imagine what it --

-- must have been like to be John or Robert Kennedy, for example, with someone like J. Edgar Hoover in charge of the FBI. He surely made it impossible to resolve problems.

Something about that hateful, pugnacious attitude he has brings things to their lowest level.

A STRONG contender for a list of scoundrels.

[Adelante]

23. Voted McCarthy

But it was a squeaker with Oliver North.

[saltpoint]

27. 'Wouldn't surprise me if they were cousins or something...

: )

[terrya]

25. McCarthy AND Roy Cohn.

You have to include Cohn with McCarthy. Both were absolute slime as human beings. Careers were destroyed...as well as lives...during that dark, dark period in American history.

T

[saltpoint]

28. Agreed, terrya. I hope we are not in the midst of --

-- another era just like it -- or worse.

The Patriot Act is mighty close in tone and intent to what your two nominees were up to.

Thanks for the post & thoughts.

[Osamasux]

29. Nixon.

Total scumbag. Got what he deserved. I'm just pissed that the Repubs managed to polish up his image a bit before he died.

[saltpoint]

30. Yeah. Nixon seemed to be running on the basest of --

-- motives toward the end of his first term, and he wasn't exactly high-minded and lofty to start with.

The fragments that have trickled out about his psychological collapse (I'm guessing here...) are probably only the tip of the iceberg.

[Spider Jerusalem]

31. Other: Colonel Edmund Scarburgh (rather obscure, this one).

He's one of the first notable scoundrels in the history of what would become the United States (and, in an historical footnote, his brother was one of the incompetent physicians who killed Charles II of England).

He was an early settler of Virginia, who used his position as a leader of the militia and Surveyor General of the Virginia Colony to engage in raids upon settlements of Quakers and Dissenters in Maryland, attempting to confiscate their property and redraw the boundaries of Virginia to incorporate part of Maryland's Eastern Shore.

Scarburgh ALSO led his troops in raids on Native American settlements and perpetrated some of the earliest massacres of native populations in American history, in an early and shameful occurrence of something that became all too common as the United States was populated by Europeans.

All in all, not what you could call a very nice guy.

[saltpoint]

32. Embarrassed to say I had not heard of Scarburgh.

His name 'Scarburgh' seems to match his public record somehow.

Seems as if he would have qualified for a scoundrels nomination with just half of what he perpretrated, let alone all of it.

I will hunt down this guy and read more about him, Spider Jerusalem & have you to thank for the eye-opener.

[Spider Jerusalem]

33. As I said, he's quite obscure...

I came across him whilst researching my family history, otherwise I'd not have heard of him either.

[saltpoint]

34. Some other considerations might include --

Benedict Arnold
Bebe Rebozo
Howard Hughes
Harmon Blennerhassett
Rev. Jim Baker
Phyllis Schlafly
General Westmoreland
Oral Roberts
John Ashcroft
Ty Cobb
(Whoever paid the shadowy figure on the grassy knoll in Dallas)

[jdonaldball]

35. Henry Ford

[saltpoint]

36. A lot of peole would include Ford on the list, yes.

Are there any good, critical biographies of Ford and his (alleged?) contributions to the Third Reich? If you know of any, please point me to them.

Thank you for your post.

[SOteric]

37. Cornelius Vanderbilt, JP Morgan, Andrew Carnegie...

[saltpoint]

38. Nominees with some clout, too.

Thanks, SOteric. All three are pretty persuasive nominees.