The 10 Worst Americans

The dis-oriented author is a student of history. Therefore it should be no surprise that after a month long hiatus from blogging, I would come back to answer the All Things Beautiful Blog's challenge to name the 10 worst Americans of all time.

I was surprised at how difficult it was to compile this list. I tried to include Americans whose negative impact on our nation have been lasting. Of necessity this limits the number of contemporary Americans because there has not been sufficient time to judge the lasting impact of their actions.

My list includes:

• 7 men and 3 women
• 2 soldiers, 4 politicians and 2 actors
• 8 dead and 2 living
• 1 US President, 1 Vice President and 1 presidential candidate

On to the list:

The dis-oriented list of the 10 worst Americans (in chronological order):

1.	Benedict Arnold (1741-1801)	Army Colonel, Revolutionary War traitor
2.	Aaron Burr (1756-1836)	Vice-President, killed Alexander Hamilton tried to form own nation
3.	John Wilkes Booth (1838-1865)	Assassinated Abraham Lincoln
4.	Jeanette Rankin (1880-1973)	First woman in Congress. Voted against Declaration of War both WWI & WWII
5.	Madalyn Murray O'Hara (1919-1995)	Atheist, litigated to remove prayer from schools
6.	George Wallace (1919-1998)	Alabama Governor who said, "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever"
7.	Jane Fonda (1937-)	Actress, "Hanoi Jane" went to Hanoi and did propaganda for North Vietnam during the war
8.	Richard Nixon (1913-1994)	President, resigned in wake of Watergate scandal, severely damaged the office of the presidency
9.	Tim McVeigh (1968-2001)	Domestic Terrorist, killed 167 Americans in bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City
10.	Aldrich Ames (1941-)	CIA officer, sold operational secrets to Soviets

I will follow up with posts about each of these individuals and why I thought they deserved the honor of inclusion on this list.