Political insults go back to the beginning of our republic. Candidates and even actual presidents have trash-talked each other -- including members of their own party. Here are some of the best put-downs of our country's leaders by our country's leaders.

Ulysses S. Grant on his successor, James Garfield:

"Garfield has shown that he is not possessed of the backbone of an angleworm."

Lyndon Johnson on Gerald Ford:

"Ford’s economics are the worst thing that’s happened to this country since pantyhose ruined finger-fucking."

Calvin Coolidge on Herbert Hoover:

"That man has offered me unsolicited advice for six years, all of it bad."

Bob Dole on Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, and Richard Nixon:

"See No Evil, Hear No Evil, and Evil."

Teddy Roosevelt on William McKinley, before joining McKinley's ticket:

"No more backbone than a chocolate éclair."

Pat Buchanan on Bill Clinton:

"Bill Clinton's foreign policy experience is pretty much confined to having had breakfast once at the International House of Pancakes."

Andrew Jackson on Speaker of the House Henry Clay and his own Vice President John C. Calhoun:

"I have only two regrets: I didn't shoot Henry Clay and I didn't hang John C. Calhoun."

Adlai Stevenson on Richard Nixon:

"The kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree and then mount the stump to make a speech for conservation."

Jack Kemp, before becoming Bob Dole's running mate:

"In a recent fire, Bob Dole's library burned down. Both books were lost. And he hadn't even finished coloring one of them."

Gerald Ford on Ronald Reagan:

"Ronald Reagan doesn't dye his own hair. He's just prematurely orange."

Woodrow Wilson on Chester A. Arthur:

"A non-entity with side-whiskers."

John Adams on Benjamin Franklin:

"His whole life has been one continued insult to good manners and to decency."

Harry Truman on Dwight Eisenhower:

"Why, this fellow don't know any more about politics than a pig knows about Sunday."

Al Gore on George H. W. Bush:

"George Bush taking credit for the Berlin Wall coming down is like the rooster taking credit for the sunrise."

John Adams on Thomas Jefferson:

"A mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father."

Thomas Jefferson on John Adams:

"A blind, bald, crippled, toothless man who is a hideous hermaphroditic character with neither the force and fitness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman."

Jason Ginsburg works in television and lives in New York City.

Jason Ginsburg

The Best Presidential Insults of All Time