Among Recent Presidents, Clinton is Tops With Historians

Yahoo! News ^ | March 09, 2007 | Tim Blessing and Anne Skleder

[mcvey]

In a recent poll, more than 250 college and university history professors placed former President Bill Clinton as the best president of the last quarter entury, Ronald Reagan as the second best, followed by Jimmy Carter and then the first President Bush. (The current president was excluded since his term of office had not yet ended.) The survey also asked the historians to rank the recent Secretaries of State and Supreme Court justices as well as the relative threat to constitutional liberties posed by presidential actions.

Dr. Tim H. Blessing, Professor of History and Political Science at Alvernia College, Reading, Pa., has conducted presidential polls for many years as part of the Presidential Performance Study. Since 2001, he has been joined in ranking presidents by Dr. Anne Skleder, Associate Professor of Psychology. They asked historians, all with doctoral degrees and all teaching full-time at a college or university, to rank these four presidents as "great," "near great," "above average," "average," "below average," or "failing." Using this system, Clinton received the highest average score, though no historian ranked him as one of the "Greats." Reagan garnered a number of "great" marks, but also received numerous "below average" marks, dragging down his score and indicating that he is still a polarizing figure.

[mcvey]

I know Blessing some and Skleder a little. I did fill out their survey; it was lengthy and the PR folks apparently edited down the results to this. I would like to see the rest of the results, but have no idea if they could release it.

Blessing mentioned to me that he and Skleder would be giving their results last fall at a history conference and that they would be reporting on systematic biases they had found in the survey.

I know nothing about what happened but there have been no hints within the profession as to what he and Skleder said.

I just now went and looked up when they were assigned times to present the results of the survey at the Social Science History Conference. They were assigned early Sunday morning--that is called "burying a report."

[bannie]

Clinton...BBBBBWWWWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA!!!!

[big'ol_freeper]

As big a laugh as that is.....CARTER!!!!!!!!! OMG!!!

[mkjessup]

In the words of the late Jerry Clower, 'them professors are clearly educated way beyond their intelligence'.

Emperor Billigula #1?

Only in immorality, depravity, corruption and treason.

And Jimmah STP Carter runs neck and neck with him.

Ronald Reagan's honorable name shouldn't even be in the same article with those two scumbags.

[COEXERJ145]

This just goes to show what I've always known. The vast majority of historians are full of sh*t.

[sageb1]

If this is coming from university professors, then it explains the dumbed-down younger voter population.

[Amerigomag]

They asked historical revisionists, all with doctoral degrees and all teaching full-time at a college or university,

[yldstrk]

There is so much material to scandalize about .

[Wuli]

Read David Horowitz books. He shows how much the American Society of Historians is dominated by Marxists.

[microgood]

We are going to have to wait until the 60s generation dies off, then we can start rewriting all the history they wrote.

[mcvey]

Microgood<

I agree with you. My generation truly screwed things up.

McVey

[ditto h]

Ya know I really miss that 17% mortgage I had when Carter was prez.

[montag813]

Who rates Presidents over a mere 25 year period? Silly.

[Pravious]

And Clinton did... um, WHAT in office (besides satisfying himself sexually), EXACTLY...???

We've come to a turning point in our culture that we don't really want to face -- the liberal half of the country is literally, certifiably, insane. Detached from reality kind of insane. The kind of insane that would claim the word "marriage" is "hate speech" and rally for their own country to LOSE a war.

I guess we're at the point where if you REALLY want to educate your kids, you'll make sure they stay as far away from school as possible.

[Pravious]

And Clinton did... um, WHAT in office (besides satisfying himself sexually), EXACTLY...???

We've come to a turning point in our culture that we don't really want to face -- the liberal half of the country is literally, certifiably, insane. Detached from reality kind of insane. The kind of insane that would claim the word "marriage" is "hate speech" and rally for their own country to LOSE a war.

I guess we're at the point where if you REALLY want to educate your kids, you'll make sure they stay as far away from school as possible.

[CWOJackson]

"Who rates Presidents over a mere 25 year period?"

The pin head liberals to whom he was a cultural icon. Of course history will have it's own opinion of them.

[Pravious]

[Huh? What? I did not post that twice... honestly!]

[reagan_fanatic]

In a recent poll, more than 250 college and university history professors...

I stopped right there. You'd be hard-pressed to find a more solidly left-wing group than this. That they stupidly chose Clinton reveals much about their political bias, and as such, renders the poll absolutely meaningless.

[fortcollins]

A lot of knowledge is apparently more dangerous than a little knowledge. Clinton and Carter are without doubt among the worst Presidents in our history

[Clara Lou]

GoodNESS!! Carter?????????????????????? Who are the brain dead who make these choices?
They asked historians, all with doctoral degrees and all teaching full-time at a college or university, to rank these ...."
Oh...I see.