Posted on 12/02/2006 9:40:43 AM PST by WinOne4TheGipper
Ever since 1948, when Harvard professor Arthur Schlesinger Sr. asked 55 historians to rank U.S. presidents on a scale from "great" to "failure," such polls have been a favorite pastime for those of us who study the American past.
Changes in presidential rankings reflect shifts in how we view history. When the first poll was taken, the Reconstruction era that followed the Civil War was regarded as a time of corruption and misgovernment caused by granting black men the right to vote. As a result, President Andrew Johnson, a fervent white supremacist who opposed efforts to extend basic rights to former slaves, was rated "near great." Today, by contrast, scholars consider Reconstruction a flawed but noble attempt to build an interracial democracy from the ashes of slavery -- and Johnson a flat failure.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
President Bush actually doesn't come out all that badly, at least among presidents in my lifetime - from best to worse, we have:
Reagan, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Bush II, Ford, Bush I, Nixon, Clinton, Johnson, Carter
You are right concerning Coolidge. I remember reading "objective" rankings when I was in high school forty years ago. Coolidge was always ranked low. I wasn't until I much older and realized that most people doing these rankings were libs that I learned to ignore them. They rank high any president who is a semi-socialist. Woodrow Wilson was given a high ranking simply for proposing the League Of Nations (which the U.S. didn't even join) and just about nothing else.
Pubic radio is going full blast anti Bush today I noticed.
Gary "know nothing" Wills bashing the prez today and falsifying history on the new Bob Edwards welfare stint
http://www.pri.org/bobedw.html
ON a local Pubic radio show hosted by bozo Kurt Smith we had the full rap of anti Bush propaganda this morning:
http://www.wxxi.org/perspectives/
Frank Shuffleton, a Thomas Jefferson "scholar".
William Leuchtenburg, History prof blabbered about what Franklin Roosevelt would say about Bush at home and abroad.
David Greenberg, Rutgers University cacademic and author of the book "Nixon's Shadow," chatters about how Richard Nixon would deem Bush.
I remember him saying Bush was "rudderless". He was wrong then and he is wrong now.
Foner makes Howard Dean look conservative, so this is not exactly an unbiased critique. Eric Foner is a babbling far-left moron who is not fit to judge any president, of whatever background or ideology. The fact that people like Foner can become tenured and so-called "distinguished" professors in academe (of history, no less!!) shows that the state of our universities is dire indeed.
....and really nice to Stalin; giving away half of Europe.
Harry Reid's illegitimate son?
The worst?
Hands down: Jimmy Carter. In my view he's pretty close to the worst President ever.
L
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