Posted on 07/02/2010 5:12:56 AM PDT by mattstat
The Siena Research Institute asked 238 presidential scholars to rank each president from 1 (best) to worst (43) in nineteen different categories, plus one overall ranking. A complete list of the rankings is here.
Before peering inside the numbers, let us remind ourselves that the presidential “scholars” Siena polled are academic, intellectual scholars, which are, of course, the best kind of scholars to have. So, with this in mind, who do you think came in worst? No, it wasn’t George W Bush—he was fifth from the bottom—it was Democrat Andrew Johnson, a man who, it must be admitted, would make a strong run for the bottom of many lists.
To the numbers! Here are the median ranks for each presidential character (all Whigs and Federalists and George Washington were classified as Republicans; so was Teddy Roosevelt, who called himself one; Democratic-Republican Jeffersonians were classified as Democrats). Remember: lower is better.
Trait Democrat Republican Party Leadership 12.5 27 Executive Appointments 13.0 28 Domestic Accomplishments 13.0 26 Communication 13.5 28 Imagination 13.5 28 Executive Ability 13.5 27 Overall.Rank 13.5 27 Ability Compromise 14.0 25 Willing.Take.Risks 14.0 27 Court Appointments 14.5 28 Leadership.Ability 14.5 26 Present Overall View 14.5 27 Overall.Ability 15.0 27 Relationship Congress 15.5 27 Handling US Economy 15.5 25 Intelligence 16.0 28 Luck 16.5 24 Background 18.0 25 Avoid Crucial Mistakes 18.5 23 Foreign Policy Accomplishments 19.5 26 Integrity 21.0 22
By some miracle, the Democrats score better rankings for every single trait. Stalwart and trustworthy Democrats even bested Republicans for Integrity: we will call this result Kennedy’s Revenge. Democrats...
(Excerpt) Read more at wmbriggs.com ...
If you add up the score ranges and assign the associated letter from the alphabet to each digit of this total, it comes out “J - O - K - E”.
Biased, no just too stupid for words!
Rankings like this is inherently bias. The ranks often tell more about the bias of the persons who create the list than the persons who make it onto the list.
This is tripe to the first degree.
When I saw Ronald W. Reagan given lower numbers in the “Integrity” catagorie than the current Chicago street punk, thug, communist, Muslim, America hating, evil bastard _resident who infests the White House, I knew it was horse _hit.
Those “scholors” actually ranked FRD as the best “Overall” president we’ve ever had.
That’s all I need to know in order to decide NOT take them seriously.
“Are They Biased?”
####
The inclusion of the RaceCommunist at #15 before he has even served a year and a half renders the question ridiculous.
“Are they biased?”
Wrong word order and a waste of a perfectly good question mark.
A simple correction:
They are biased.
Oh maybe just a gargantuan teentsy weentsy little bit.
There is no shame amongst this crowd.
Rankings like this is inherently bias. The ranks often tell more about the bias of the persons who create the list than the persons who make it onto the list.
You nailed it. There is no honor among theives.
BTW, George Washington is the greatest president.
The ranking of Obama, Reagan and FDR are absurd.
But the ranking of Andrew Johnson is almost as bad. The complaint was that “he didn’t do anything.” His term after the big war was an excellent time to check the excesses of a lopsided legislature. Sometimes doing nothing is a reasonable choice.
Is a bear Catholic?
One interesting correlation not mentioned: What about times when the White House and Congress were controlled by different parties? For example, L. Johnson gets top marks for working with Congress. But wasn’t the Congress (where Johnson had been Senate Leader) under Democrat control? The same with F. Roosevelt during the WWII era. In contrast, R. Reagan handled the Democrat controlled Congress during the PATCO strike (and subsequent firings; further R. Reagan also got the T. O’Neill controlled Congress to reduce overall taxes creating the single greatest economic growth period in American History.
Need more research.
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