Biggest Fool in American History?

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Windy City Ag
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Got into a discussion the other day on the constitutional violations of the Lincoln administration. My buddy went on and on about one of Lincoln's biggest critics in congress being deported illegally. So I read up on this guy. Clement Vallandingham sounded like a major boob.

As the leader of the Copperhead faction of the democrats, he was vehement in opposing abolition and raged against Lincoln for years. He lost his seat in 1862 but kept on agitating. General Burnside got sick of it and locked him up under General Order 38. Rather than make him a martyr, Lincoln had him dumped across enemy lines in the south, where Jefferson Davis promptly locked him up as potential spy. He ended up taking a boat to Canada.

From Canada, he tried to drum up support for a covert uprising with a group called the Sons of Liberty. They were going to foment rebellion in Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio and, when those states threw off the yokes of Northern oppression, form a new state called the "Northwestern Confederacy." He tried to kick it all off by sneaking back to Ohio and giving rabble rousing speeches. Everyone just ignored him including Lincoln. So he stuck around.

He spent the remaining years of his life failing to win office in Ohio and protesting the equality of black men. He died by accidentally shooting himself in the stomach. He was trying to demonstrate in a legal proceeding how his client could not be guilty of a bar room brawl murder because the victim likely shot himself. In demonstrating the process, he ended up shooting himself.

Not the greatest bio but certainly not the biggest boob in U.S. History. Who would qualify for that title?

Someone mentioned Wayne Wheeler with prohibition.

Bob Packwood got a mention as well.
Belton Ag
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James Wilkinson was another. I'm not sure I'd call him a fool, though. Definitely a boob, and probably gets the Jim Schlossnagle Lifetime Achievement Award for being a first class snake.
Rabid Cougar
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Joe Biden.. his entire career.
Windy City Ag
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Quote:

James Wilkinson was another. I'm not sure I'd call him a fool, though. Definitely a boob, and probably gets the Jim Schlossnagle Lifetime Achievement Award for being a first class snake.

Just read this line on Wiki. Does sound terrible.

Quote:

When Gates sent him to Congress with official dispatches about the victory at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777, Wilkinson kept the Continental Congress waiting while he attended to personal affairs. When he finally showed up, he embellished his own role in the victory, and was brevetted as a brigadier general (despite being only 20 years old at the time) on November 6, 1777, and appointed to the newly created Board of War. The promotion over more senior colonels caused an uproar among Continental officers, especially because Wilkinson's gossiping seemed to indicate he was a participant in the Conway Cabal, a conspiracy to replace George Washington with Horatio Gates as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. Gates soon had enough of Wilkinson, and the young officer was compelled to resign in March 1778. On July 29, 1779, Congress appointed him clothier-general of the Army, but he resigned on March 27, 1781, due to his "lack of aptitude for the job".[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Wilkinson#cite_note-Linklater-2][2][/url]: 68
Ghost of Andrew Eaton
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Belton Ag said:

James Wilkinson was another. I'm not sure I'd call him a fool, though. Definitely a boob, and probably gets the Jim Schlossnagle Lifetime Achievement Award for being a first class snake.


And apparently it was well-known that he was a first class snake at the time. I had always thought he was better at hiding it.
If you say you hate the state of politics in this nation and you don't get involved in it, you obviously don't hate the state of politics in this nation.
one safe place
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Rabid Cougar said:

Joe Biden.. his entire career.
AggieZUUL
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Windy City Ag said:

Got into a discussion the other day on the constitutional violations of the Lincoln administration. My buddy went on and on about one of Lincoln's biggest critics in congress being deported illegally. So I read up on this guy. Clement Vallandingham sounded like a major boob.

As the leader of the Copperhead faction of the democrats, he was vehement in opposing abolition and raged against Lincoln for years. He lost his seat in 1862 but kept on agitating. General Burnside got sick of it and locked him up under General Order 38. Rather than make him a martyr, Lincoln had him dumped across enemy lines in the south, where Jefferson Davis promptly locked him up as potential spy. He ended up taking a boat to Canada.

From Canada, he tried to drum up support for a covert uprising with a group called the Sons of Liberty. They were going to foment rebellion in Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio and, when those states threw off the yokes of Northern oppression, form a new state called the "Northwestern Confederacy." He tried to kick it all off by sneaking back to Ohio and giving rabble rousing speeches. Everyone just ignored him including Lincoln. So he stuck around.

He spent the remaining years of his life failing to win office in Ohio and protesting the equality of black men. He died by accidentally shooting himself in the stomach. He was trying to demonstrate in a legal proceeding how his client could not be guilty of a bar room brawl murder because the victim likely shot himself. In demonstrating the process, he ended up shooting himself.

Not the greatest bio but certainly not the biggest boob in U.S. History. Who would qualify for that title?

Someone mentioned Wayne Wheeler with prohibition.

Bob Packwood got a mention as well.

hmm... i'll just have to Google "biggest boob in U.S. history" and check out the results for myself.
BQ78
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Maybe more of a scoundrel than a fool but Dr. J. R. Brinkley, the Goat Gland Doctor and founder of border radio and the X. I say fool because I think he thought his goat gland surgeries were legit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_R._Brinkley
Windy City Ag
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Funny reading about this guy. It reminds just how much you could get away with before the era of electronic financial records and modern telecommunications.

I saw that his mansion in Del Rio is still standing. What a bizarre, fraudulent life that guy led.
CanyonAg77
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Seems to be a wide variation in the definition of "boob" here, and none of the good ones. Most of the examples have been crooks more than idiots.

IMO the nominees here need to have success and fame or at at least the potential for them. Then they need to have done something to ruin that success. A few nominees below.
CanyonAg77
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How about Richard Nixon? Landslide presidential victory, opened China to trade, one of the most amazing second chapters in American politics.

Could have thrown his aides under the bus for Watergate, but it took down his presidency
Ghost of Andrew Eaton
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CanyonAg77 said:

How about Richard Nixon? Landslide presidential victory, opened China to trade, one of the most amazing second chapters in American politics.

Could have thrown his aides under the bus for Watergate, but it took down his presidency



I can see both sides because Nixon is so complicated. Johnson might be the closest to a boob.
If you say you hate the state of politics in this nation and you don't get involved in it, you obviously don't hate the state of politics in this nation.
CanyonAg77
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LBJ was a crook. Period.
CanyonAg77
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Samuel Langley? Used $70k government grants ($2.5 million in 2024) to fail at flying. In the meantime, the Wright brothers used their bicycle shop profits to succeed.

Years later, the Smithsonian, of which he had been secretary, displayed his aerodrome, labeled as the worlds first flying machine

This lead to a decades long feud between the Wrights and the Smithsonian, and lead to the Wright Flyer not being in the Smithsonian until 1948
jwoodmd
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CanyonAg77 said:

How about Richard Nixon? Landslide presidential victory, opened China to trade, one of the most amazing second chapters in American politics.

Could have thrown his aides under the bus for Watergate, but it took down his presidency

He didn't need to even do anything remotely related to Watergate. His paranoia got him. He was headed for the landslide already - no need for the attempted clandestine information retrieval.
CanyonAg77
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Charles Lindbergh

Had the admiration of the world. Probably could have been President had he wanted. I will agree that the death of his infant son soured him on fame.

And his isolationism and America First views were common between the wars. But he went off the deep end in admiration for the Nazis. Heck, he even fathered two or three German families post WWII.

Antisemitism was common then, as was eugenics. He went all in on those views, pissed off FDR, and refused to condemn or fight Germany. He did fly a few missions in the Pacific, apparently killing Japanese was okay in his book.

At the end of his life, he was pretty much a hermit.

Few people have had so much popularity and threw it away.

Oh, and he nearly killed himself and others taking off from Colorado Springs, while scouting locations for an Air Force Academy
BQ_90
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This would.be my vote
Aggie_Journalist
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If the definition is going from incredible heights to terrible lows due to unforced errors… Nixon is a pretty dang good one. He won one of the most lopsided reelection victories in American history only to be forced out of office a couple years later, and he largely did it to himself.

Douglas MacArthur might be another. He was flying high after being a hero of WWII and salvaging Korea with his landing at Inchon, but then he ignored warnings and got too close to China, provoked them into the war, got his butt whipped back down the peninsula, and went off the reservation challenging Truman, calling for nukes, and lying about the joint chiefs. A total career and reputation implosion.
Thanks and gig'em
Jaydoug
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Me, for ever thinking giving money to a politician could ever amount to anything worth a damn
Belton Ag
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Rabid Cougar said:

Joe Biden.. his entire career.
At the risk of turning this thread into an F16 fest, if Biden gets swept aside by the party against his wishes, then he'll definitely get a hard look at the top spot. This will be a historic moment.
CanyonAg77
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Biden has gone incredibly far on subpar intelligence, racism, plagiarism, and pedophilia.

"Joe Biden has been wrong on every foreign policy opinion of the last 50 years."

-Robert Gates


"Never underestimate Joe's ability to f*** things up."

-Barak Obama



No, Biden's not the fool. His voters are.
Ghost of Andrew Eaton
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Bud Holland should be in the running. It didn't have a major impact on a lot of people but wtf?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Fairchild_Air_Force_Base_B-52_crash
If you say you hate the state of politics in this nation and you don't get involved in it, you obviously don't hate the state of politics in this nation.
Oyster DuPree
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Butt Holland
USAFAg
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CanyonAg77 said:

Biden has gone incredibly far on subpar intelligence, racism, plagiarism, and pedophilia.

"Joe Biden has been wrong on every foreign policy opinion of the last 50 years."

-Robert Gates


"Never underestimate Joe's ability to f*** things up."

-Barak Obama



No, Biden's not the fool. His voters are.
Really, I'd go with the average American voter. I don't think I've seen a more ignorant group, who have had more information available to them, make the worst choices in history for leaders.

12thFan/Websider Since 2003
malenurse
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NM. I can't read
The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But, it's still on the list.
Roadking45
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Seems to be a wide variation in the definition of "boob" here, and none of the good ones. Most of the examples have been crooks more than idiots.

IMO the nominees here need to have success and fame or at at least the potential for them. Then they need to have done something to ruin that success. A few nominees below.
malenurse
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After reading your post I immediately thought of John Delorean
The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But, it's still on the list.
Windy City Ag
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Quote:

IMO the nominees here need to have success and fame or at at least the potential for them. Then they need to have done something to ruin that success.
Reading right now about Louis T. Wigfall, Texas Senator in the run up to the Civil War.

Born into a prominent and wealthy South Carolina family, he showed a great love for alcohol, gambling, and dueling through his time at the University of Virginia and then the University of South Carolina. He squandered his inheritance and ran up debts with friends and family. He bailed himself out through marriage to a wealthy second cousin.

Got into a very public spat with another leading South Carolinian James Hammond. Per Wiki, in 1840 alone "Wigfall got into fistfights, two duels, three near duels, and was charged but acquitted of murder." Concluded 1840 by charging fellow rich hothead Preston Brooks (who beat Charles Sumner with a cane on the house of reps floor) to a duel where was shot through both legs.

Left for Texas in 1848 to practice law with a cousin in Nacogdoches and settled in Marshall. Antagonized Sam Houston and in doing so was eventually sent to DC as Texas Senator. Acted as a spy for the secessionist states during his time, and was eventually expelled from the Senate.

During the seige of Ft. Sumter, he rowed out by himself without any authorization and struck terms with Major Robert Anderson. When the actual negotiating party lead by PGT Beauregard arrived, they were shocked to learn that Wigfall had agreed to terms the South Carolina government had rejected.

Appointed Brigadier General in the Texas Brigade in Northern Virginia. He was visibly drunk or AWOL at times and displayed extreme anxiety that resulted in him sounding alarms in the middle of the night suspecting imagined attacks. He eventually resigned his post.

Settled into the Confederate Congress where he got at odds with Jeff Davis.

Lied his way back to Texas after the end of the war with a forged parole letter where he then went on to England where he attempted to foment conflict between the two nations.

Eventually came home and died in Galveston.

It is amazing the number of chances this guy was given only to screw it all up.








Rabid Cougar
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Windy City Ag said:

Quote:

IMO the nominees here need to have success and fame or at at least the potential for them. Then they need to have done something to ruin that success.
Reading right now about Louis T. Wigfall, Texas Senator in the run up to the Civil War.

Born into a prominent and wealthy South Carolina family, he showed a great love for alcohol, gambling, and dueling through his time at the University of Virginia and then the University of South Carolina. He squandered his inheritance and ran up debts with friends and family. He bailed himself out through marriage to a wealthy second cousin.

Got into a very public spat with another leading South Carolinian James Hammond. Per Wiki, in 1840 alone "Wigfall got into fistfights, two duels, three near duels, and was charged but acquitted of murder." Concluded 1840 by charging fellow rich hothead Preston Brooks (who beat Charles Sumner with a cane on the house of reps floor) to a duel where was shot through both legs.

Left for Texas in 1848 to practice law with a cousin in Nacogdoches and settled in Marshall. Antagonized Sam Houston and in doing so was eventually sent to DC as Texas Senator. Acted as a spy for the secessionist states during his time, and was eventually expelled from the Senate.

During the seige of Ft. Sumter, he rowed out by himself without any authorization and struck terms with Major Robert Anderson. When the actual negotiating party lead by PGT Beauregard arrived, they were shocked to learn that Wigfall had agreed to terms the South Carolina government had rejected.

Appointed Brigadier General in the Texas Brigade in Northern Virginia. He was visibly drunk or AWOL at times and displayed extreme anxiety that resulted in him sounding alarms in the middle of the night suspecting imagined attacks. He eventually resigned his post.

Settled into the Confederate Congress where he got at odds with Jeff Davis.

Lied his way back to Texas after the end of the war with a forged parole letter where he then went on to England where he attempted to foment conflict between the two nations.

Eventually came home and died in Galveston.

It is amazing the number of chances this guy was given only to screw it all up.









At least his wife made a significant contribution...

Windy City Ag
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I think it was his daughter.

The 1st Texas got absolutely chewed up in Antietam with this flag flying. 4 out of every 5 were casualties.
BQ78
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Nope it was his wife's wedding dress
Windy City Ag
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Ahhh . . .just read up on it again. His daughter helped fashion it but that was the extent of involvement.

I just learned that it sat in in the national archives for 40+ years in a collection of captured flags until the War Department returned it to the State of Texas in 1905.
Rabid Cougar
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Windy City Ag said:

I think it was his daughter.

The 1st Texas got absolutely chewed up in Antietam with this flag flying. 4 out of every 5 were casualties.
Yes, It was captured at Antietam in the Corn Field.

NOTE: Will be walking in their footsteps in two weeks.
Windy City Ag
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Lucky.

I saw this pdf version of the restoration project for the flag in 1980.

States "captured by Private Samuel Johnson, 9th Penn Reserves." Johnson was given the Congressional Medal of Honor for enduring severe wounds ins capturing the flag.

https://www.tsl.texas.gov/sites/default/files/public/tslac/exhibits/flags/firsttexas4037php.pdf






Rabid Cougar
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NM
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