6 Great US Presidents and Their Crimes Against Humanity

Why He's Awesome:

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a lot like Professor X: sure he was in a wheelchair, but his brain could beat up your brain without breaking a sweat. He lost his legs as a young man, but didn't let that stop him from becoming the only president to ever serve more than two terms (he served four, thus making him twice as good as any other president).

As president, FDR had to deal with a double-threat unlike any other: he had to punch Hitler in the face with one hand and strangle the Great Depression with the other. Somehow, he did both, and made it look goddamned classy. Yessir, nothing was impossible for FDR, expect for averting the slaughter of thousands of Polish citizens.

"Wah! I'm surrounded by bats!" (FDR looks like The Penguin.)

Wait, What the Fuck?

Roosevelt formed powerful strategic alliances with various world leaders, including Churchill, Kai-Shek, and a mustachioed cossack named Stalin. And just to clarify, yes, that is the same Stalin who ended up killing more people than Hitler.

When it became clear that the Allied Forces were going to defeat Nazi Germany, these world leaders started talking about their post-war plans for Europe. Stalin's plans apparently included becoming the Magneto to FDR's Professor X, and he demanded that the borders of Poland be redrawn in such a way that he ended up controlling a good portion of it. Roosevelt smiled politely and shrugged.

It wasn't long before FDR totally lost control of the negotiations, and Stalin ended up sitting on much of Eastern Europe. Roosevelt hoped that more negotiations could salvage the situation, which is about as advisable as trying to gamble your way out of gambling debt. He must have had a funny idea of salvaging the situation, because out of his desperation to maintain a good relationship with a mass murderer, he did two very stupid things.

First, he refused Winston Churchill's suggestion that they aid Polish troops in their fight against the Soviet puppet government. Second, he actually suppressed a report that blamed the Katyn massacre (in which 22,000 Poles were murdered) on the Soviets.

"Dear Poland...Go fuck yourself. Love, America.

But on the plus side, FDR's show of good will towards the Soviet Union assured several decades of completely peaceful, tension-free friendship between the nations. Other than all the times we almost went to war and obliterated the planet.

Why He's Awesome:

Truman has been graced with a recent revival in popularity similar to Journey's. He's the guy who desegregated the armed forces, ended World War II, and waged an unpopular Korean War. Besides that, he's best known for being the most unpopular president (up until our current one). Of course unpopularity gives you street cred when you turn out to be right about the stuff they hate you for. Today, historians rank Truman as one of the top 10 presidents of all-time.

He might have ranked higher, if he hadn't tried to bust up a strike by drafting union members in the military.

Wait, What the Fuck?

In 1946, a massive railway strike basically crippled the country's railroads, in an era when trains were crucial for shipping goods and providing settings for murder and sexy espionage.

Pushed to the edge, Truman did what any reasonable person would: he told the strikers that if they didn't accept a settlement, he was going to fit them for some camo pants and ship them off to boot camp.

And in case they thought he was bluffing, he actually delivered a speech to Congress requesting the authority to do so (he probably should have checked to see if he had the authority before he started making threats in the first place).

In a cagey move of tactical negotiations, the workers decided they'd rather go back to work than get shot at in a foreign country, and relented mid-speech. Thus Truman ended what could be the most lopsided game of chicken in our nation's long history of accomplished bullying.

Why He's Awesome:

Beloved by average Americans and conspiracy theorists alike, JFK was charismatic, intelligent, and in televised debates made Richard Nixon look like Quasimodo. In his finest hour, he managed to talk the Soviet Union down from a full-scale nuclear war. And, in case this ever comes up in a game of Trivial Pursuit, he is also the only American President to ever win a Pulitzer Prize.

Hell, the man even banged Marilyn Monroe.

On the scale of presidential infidelities, that's worth like 500 Lewinskies. Then, when he was tragically gunned down in Texas in 1963, his fate was forever sealed as an American legend. Unfortunately, not everything in the legacy was positive. Some of it was actually kind of, well, negative. Like for instance the part of it named Saddam Hussein.

Wait, What the Fuck?

In 1963, Kennedy and his administration decided that a fun way to spend the afternoon would be to support a coup against the Iraqi government. The country's pro-Western monarchy had been overthrown several years earlier, and after some intense debate and a couple quickies with Marilyn Monroe, Kennedy decided to back a coup by Abdul Salam Arif.

He seemed like a good candidate, considering that he hated Communists and loved America. So, under Kennedy's instruction, the CIA sent thousands of weapons to Arif, as well as providing him with lists of suspected Communists. Then everyone feigned surprise when Arif and his cronies used their newfound firepower to slaughter thousands of these so-called Communists.

You're probably wondering where Saddam Hussein fits into this. He was an enforcer for Arif's Ba'athist Party, and personally helped out with the slaughter. Later, he became the head of the party, and dictator of Iraq.

"That's one for Saddam. Count that shit.

But really, how could JFK have known? These things usually work out so well!

In honor of this article on presidents, allow us to be total hypocrites and explain why some of these six are The 5 Most Badass Presidents of All-Time. Or, if you'd prefer we douse you with more hater-ade, check out Gladstone's 5 Movie Martial Artists That Lost a Deathmatch to Dignity.