Well, here is my 10 Worst Americans in History, in no particular order. To make this list, I used 3 criteria.

1. The person must have been personally influential and powerful, not merely notorious. Thus the various Mansons, Oswalds, and Jim Jones’ of history are disqualified.

2. His/her actions should have had a decisive and long-term effect on the nation, not merely be the reflection or embodiment of the times. Thus the Jane Fondas and John Kerrys are eliminated.

3. In the absence of item #2, a certain level of evil or wrongness qualifies, but it has to have a reach beyond the merely personal.

Without further ado, the list:
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10. William Randolph Hearst.: To bring the New York Times to victory in a circulation war, he wagged the dog, almost single-handedly persuading his nation to go to war with sensationalistic reporting — most of which was lies; he did this conciously and with malice aforethought. He honed the Fourth Estate into a ruthless, hypocritical entity interested in its own profits and privilges above all. The “intrepid reporter” of legend is just a myth, and this bastard is the reason why.

9. Jesse Jackson Jr.: Betraying the legacy of his mentor, he has been the most visible leader keeping blacks dependant on government largesse, and has built a family empire and multi-million dollar business around blackmailing major corporations with the threat of being stigmatized as “racist.”

8. Aldrich Ames: I picked him instead of Hiss or the Rosenbergs because IMHO, all they did was accelerate Stalin’s gain of the bomb by about 10 years. It was going to happen anyway. Ames, at a time when we were on the verge of winning the Cold War, sold out his country, crippling our espionage and spy structure in the Soviet Union. He was in charge of all human assets in the USSR (including double agents); the damage he did is something we haven’t recovered from yet. Then he escaped to live a life of ease in Moscow.

7. Jimmy Carter: Arguably, he ought to be the head of the list. He offered himself to a weary electorate as a Washtington outsider and the “honest alternative” following the scandals of Watergate He published a memoir titled “Why Not the Best?” Instead, he delivered the worst; not only was he not committed to using American power (soft or otherwise) to defend American interests, he thought we should not do so. Epitomizing the navel-gazing guilt of the liberal elite, he emascuated the military and dragged the country’s soul further into the gutter. He embarassed the nation utterly through a stupid tiff with the Russians over a combat brigade in Cuba, and then completely abdicated his responsibility to defend the nation in the Iranian Hostage Crisis. The consequences of his poor decisions are on our doorstep today with the War on Terror and a hardline Iranian President who was one of the primary student leaders of that crisis.

6. Bendict Arnold: A brilliant general, I almost left him off the list (as I did with McCarthy) because he did a lot of good before he turned coat, and in the end, his betryal had little long-term effect. The reason I included him was not the fact of the betryal, but his reasons for it: Pride and spite. He was the victim of political forces, but instead of continuing to serve bravely and with honor, he sold out, not even for money, but for the pride of a large field command–one the British never gave him either. He deserves his reputation.

5. Arron Burr: enough has been said about him by many others. I have to admit I’d have overlooked him if it hadn’t been for their comments, though

4. General George Custer: The poster child for getting soldiers killed due to vanity. He had earned his reputation for rashness long before the 7th Calvary died to a man at Little Big Horn, but it’s that action that puts him on the list. He saw the Indian Wars as being his springboard to fame and a political career. He got the fame, just not what he imagined.

3. J. Edgar Hoover. I almost missed him until I saw that Captain Ed had posted his list. A damn good pick, for the exact reasons he gave, and some others besides. I’m old enough to remember this sonuvabitch, and he REALLY needs to be prominently displayed in history books.

2. The entire Kennedy clan, plus Jackie: Senior made his fortune running rum during prohibition, and raised 3 kids who did irreparable harm to the nation. JFK was a jock who won the grand prize and didn’t know what to do with it; assassination saved him from going down in history as a president just as bad as Jimmy Carter. “Bay of Pigs” anyone? Appointing his own brother to be the Attorney General? Worse, he picked Johnson as his VP, leading to full involvement in Vietnam and the “Great Society,” which was neither great, nor a society. RFK gets (mostly) a pass, since he died before he could do much harm. And Ted is just an unconvicted manslaughter suspect that gets to be called “Senator.” Jackie, though not a Kennedy by birth, gets included for being a cold-blooded (successful) social climber and coming up with “Camelot” as the description of the Kennedy White House.

1. (Tie): Souter, Ginsburg, Stevens, Breyer, and Kennedy. The “New London Five” Need I say more?

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Dishonorable Mentions that didn’t make the list:

Rutherford Hayes: Of the presidents I considered for this list, some would say he he was the lowest. Frankly, I’ve always thought Grant was a worse president, and after re-reading the events of Hayes’ presidency, That is reinforced. Hayes gets slammed for the events of the nightmare election of 1876. (You only thought 2000 was bad.) However, I can find no historian that can substantiate personal blame for those events. During his time in office he fought for merit appointments and reformed the civil service, founding the modern system. He also negotiated a settlement to a war in South America. I ended up with more respect for him than I had before, after reviewing him for this list.

Richard Nixon: He was a bad president, bad vice-president, and mediocre everything else, but doesn’t make the list. Essentially, he was the Republican LBJ in a day when the press was becoming politically polarized. His mistake was trying to cover up a third rate theft, an effort that consumed his presidency like B’rer Rabbit and the Tar Baby. The Watergate burglaries were not planned or condoned by him in advance, but loyalty to his people and not cutting his losses early on were strategic blunders from which a hostile press corps never let him recover. Had he sacrificed Libby and the others early on he’d not have dragged the nation through four years of scandal, and Carter would never have been heard of. I can’t include him without including Woodward, Bernstien, Dan Rather, Deep Throat, and the entire Washington Press Corps. (Who, arguably, almost make the list on their own.)

Bill Clinton: I was strongly tempted, for his fecklessness, use of Chinese money, using the military to distract from the Lewinsky mess, overall near-dismemberment of the army, allowing nuclear secrets to pass to the ChiComs, who then passed it on to Pakistan, being asleep at the switch while 9/11 was planned, Waco, Elian Gonzales, Ruby Ridge; I could go on and on. But in the end, I think it’s still too soon after his presidency; I almost didn’t include Carter for that reason, but in his case the consequences of his incompetence are just too stark and obvious.

Huey P. Long: Maybe the most corrupt and ruthless governor in history; he used the Louisiana State Police as his own personal Praetorian Guard, and dragged his state into a black hole of misery that it has never recovered from. During the Depression, he moved his demogoguery into the U.S. Senate and gained a national following. Prior to his assassination, Long became one of the greatest threats to FDR. Many New Deal programs imitated Long’s efforts against the Depression in Louisiana, and were adopted in response to challenges by Long and Father Coolighan of Chicago. Huey’s assasination ended the political threat before his rot could be spread nationwide, and thus he doesn’t make the list.

Various Civil War Generals: Lee, Grant, Sherman, etc. All wars are hell, but civil wars are like the raw sewage of a thousand hells. It may be a weakness in my historical knowledge, but I can’t damn any of them to membership in this list, with the possible exception of Sherman. The level of destruction he accomplished did much to ensure the hatred the South continued to have to the North for another century. The reason I don’t list him is that it may have been necessary. The South had to be defeated so utterly and decisively that it could never again contemplate rebellion again. Sherman did more than anyone else to grind into the collective psyche of the separatist states just what the penalty for rebellion was. In doing so, he acted to reforge a nation into something that was now indivisible, and thus laid the foundation for the civil rights movement of the next century.

Joe McCarthy: another demogogue and over the top, but in the end, it looks like he was right. Plus I give him bonus points for his war record; he volunteered to fight in the RAF before America joined the war. In a daring bomber raid chronicled in the movie “The Dam Busters,” he realized that the planned approach to his target wouldn’t work because of changes in the German defenses. At great risk to himself and his crew, he discarded an approach that they’d practiced for months and came up with a new attack plan on the spot. His bombadier hit the dam, though the bomb did not destroy it.

Norm Chomsky: a sick blight on American academia, his communist political theories are only challenged for stupidity by his distortions and ill effects on the study of language and the brain. It will take decades to repair the damage he is doing to the understanding of both. In the end, I bumped him off in favor of J. Edgar Hoover.