Dubya is ranked 19th, a hair's breath below LBJ. But he ranks above Clinton at 23, who ranks below Bush Sr. at 21.
Jimmy Carter (who is still trying to salvage his legacy ) is in the bottom 10.
Buchanan is ranked the worst of all time.
TO SEE THE RANKINGS, CLICK HERE :
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007243
Pat finally got to be President?
I know it was James Buchanan.
Got any rankings from the time during Reagan's second term?
He still is a mess on immigration and outsourcing policies, but he is better than LBJ.
Bush will be top 10 material in years to come.
As President, Jefferson's greatest accomplishments were: the Louisiana Purchase, reducing the debt (even while borrowing money for the Louisiana Purchase) and beginning a 24-year reign (being succeeded by Madison and Monroe) of Democratic-Republican rule which, combined with John Marshall's Federalist rulings, formed much of the meaning of the American Constitution.
As President, Teddy Roosevelt's greatest accomplishments were: the transition of the U.S. to world power status, interventions into Latin America, ending the development/privatization of the west, and attacking big business (not part of the Morgan/Rockefeller consortium).
I would put Ronald Reagan behind Jefferson and ahead of Teddy Rossevelt. In the fullness of time, I would hope that we come to see the so-called Progressive Era as a prelude to the New Deal, and as a departure from the true course of liberal, democratic capitalism.
I am happy to see Woodrow Wilson slipping further and further down in these surveys of historians. Presidents that get us into unnecessary and meaningless wars are the worst, just as those who see us through the necessary and ultimately meaningful wars are the best.
Maybe in the big scheme of things, it is best for us for a president to be near great, because of the avoidance of war and the pursuit of freedom. In my book, Thomas Jefferson and Ronald Reagan are the greatest of the "near great" presidents.
To quote Gen. Honore; "That's BS!"
Ahead of RR -
Now I can see, though not agree with, Washington, maybe Jefferson. No excuse, logic, or sense in placing the others over RR.
And Cal Coolidge is #23 for heaven's sake! Behind Clinton!
The Federalist and WSJ need to acquire a better, and more accurate, understanding of the phrase "ideologically balanced".
Is there anyone else they've EVER done that to?
I would have thought that Franklin Pierce was the worst. He did virtually nothing - although he was a handsome guy.
I'd be interested in your opinion of this.
I would place the current Bush as in the average range also - but above LBJ who was noted in Texas, like Bill, where political adversaries commited odd types of suicide.
Everyone has an opinion -- The current President Bush I do rate higher than Daddy Bush though.
If George W. Bush is doing this well, at the "low point" of his Presidency, consider how well subsequent history, fifty years or more from now, shall have further elevated him.
So far, Dubya has overcome what appeared to be an overwhelming economic disaster, a bloody attack on American soil, carried the comflict to the enemy's doorstep and has mostly driven them down to relatively ineffectual and limited scope in their ability to wage armed combat. There have been several natural disasters, all of which but for one in a relatively limited area, which have been addressed and mitigated with astonishing speed. The one failure on response to a natural disaster had other causes than lack of effort on the part of the Bush Administration. The combat in Iraq and Afghanistan has been prosecuted with what is, in any objective sense, a singularly effective expenditure of manpower and a very low relative number of casualties. And the overall effect has been nothing less than a dramatic shift in the thinking in the Middle East. The chess game there is not yet over, by any means. But it is proceeding well.
When I was in a bookstore recently I saw a book on Presidential ratings and this sounds like it is the same study. The "average" rating for GWB (just a couple of places higher than Clinton) hides the very sharp divergence in how he is rated--number 6 (IIRC) out of all the Presidents in the view of the Republicans answering the survey, and something like 35th in the view of the Democrats.
Both Buchanan and Harding should be ranked above Carter; arguably the worst President ever. Its hard to completely muck up to almost catastrophic levels both domestic and foreign policy simultaneously, but he accomplished it (during a time of "peace", no less (!)).
I remember a book that came out some years ago about the nations' ten worst presidents. (Bush 41 and Clinton were excluded from consideration, as the then-sitting president and his immediate successor.) The list was pretty much what you'd expect.
An added chapter at the end was pretty interesting - our two most overrated presidents. He named Kennedy, and also Jefferson (his logic being that Jefferson is most remembered for his contributions other than during his presidency.) Don't know that I agree on Jefferson, but Kennedy's assassination and the "mystique" built up around him made objective analysis very hard to come by until fairly recently.
Apart from sticking out his lower lip and hugging people, what did Clinton do that suggests leadership abilities?
I remember how the libs bashed Ronald Reagan every day of his eight years in office. I remember how the liberal idiots in Hollyweird, including such shining intellects as Sean Penn, made fun of him when he had Alzheimer's. And I remember how, when President Reagan died, all the liberals tried to hijack his memory.
President Bush will weather all the garbage thrown at him by the stupid moonbats. For his leadership during a very adverse time for our country he deserves to be right up there with President Reagan.
I'd take LBJ, JFK, Ike, Wilson, Clinton, and Madison down a bit, and put Harding up a little. It may not have been his fault, but Hoover probably did more damage to the country than Nixon. I suppose it depends on whether scandal is worse than being unable to cope.
The Presidents at the bottom are those without any constituency today, though. Except for Harding, they're Whigs or pro-slavery, anti-Black Democrats from the Civil War era, and nobody has any trouble with where they end up. More recent controversial figures -- Hoover, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Clinton -- are saved from the cellar by their supporters. Nobody's going to go out on a limb for Buchanan or Pierce, Tyler or Fillmore.