Posted on 12/06/2006 6:46:51 AM PST by presidio9
In Sunday's Washington Post, a group of historians tried to predict what history will ultimately say about George W. Bush's presidency. One said that he is the worst president, ever; a second agreed that he was pretty bad, but still might redeem himself in his last two years; and another said that only time will tell, noting that our views of presidents often change with the perspective of time.
Historians have been playing this game for many years. It makes them feel relevant. However, the methodology of such efforts never gets above that of a simple popularity poll. A historian will survey a group of his friends, and they are asked to rank the presidents on whether they are great, near-great, average, below average or failures.
President Bush, left, speaks during a joint press conference as Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono looks on in Bogor Palace, outside of Jakarta, Indonesia, Monday, Nov. 20, 2006. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak) Obviously, this method is fraught with problems. For one thing, the historians chosen to participate are not picked randomly and therefore are not necessarily representative of all historians. Also, they have different specialties and may know a lot about some presidents but very little about others. The historians are overwhelmingly based at elite universities and thus tend to be much more liberal politically than the average American. And of course, they are well aware of previous rankings and seldom deviate from them except marginally.
The biggest problem I have always had with these presidential rankings, however, is that no one ever appears to use objective, measurable criteria for placing a president high or low on the list. The main criterion seems to be activity -- doing a lot while in office. This creates a strong bias in favor of presidents who served during times of crisis and against those who served during times of peace and prosperity.
To my mind, this sometimes gets the whole ranking system upside down. This is especially so when one considers that occasionally the crises that presidents have had to deal with were in fact their own fault. In effect, those who did their jobs well and avoided unnecessary wars, recessions or other avoidable woes get punished, while the screw-ups are sometimes rewarded for fixing their own mistakes.
Thus Calvin Coolidge almost always ranks low in the presidential popularity polls because he didn't do much of anything in office. But there wasn't much that needed doing. He kept the nation out of war, maintained prosperity and was not tempted to undertake a lot of unneeded "reforms" just to keep busy and raise his popularity rating among future historians. For my money, this makes Coolidge among our best presidents, not one of the worst.
At the other end of the scale, Franklin Roosevelt nearly always ranks high on the list because he did a lot of stuff and coped with major crises. But he caused some of the problems he is credited with fixing. In the view of economists, as opposed to historians, Roosevelt's economic policies mostly deepened and prolonged the Great Depression. Yet he gets credit for ending it simply because he stayed in office long enough for the depression to end on its own. If Roosevelt had left office after two terms, like every other president, perhaps Wendell Wilkie would instead be considered among our great presidents.
In other cases, presidents seem to benefit mainly from things they did outside of office. For example, Thomas Jefferson always ranks high on the list. But he really wasn't an outstanding president. His greatest accomplishment, writing the Declaration of Independence, took place a quarter of a century before he became president. Tellingly, Jefferson himself did not list his presidency as among his three greatest accomplishments.
I have always suspected that Woodrow Wilson benefits undeservedly from having been a professor of history at Princeton before becoming president. Historians are naturally biased in favor of one of their own. John F. Kennedy gets a similar boost from having employed one of the nation's best-known historians, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., as a close adviser.
I suggest that an objective criterion for future presidential rankings ought to be how many people their policies killed unnecessarily. On this basis, Wilson would be among the worst because, in my opinion, America had no vital interests at stake in World War I and never should have become involved in it. And Harry Truman probably didn't need to drop atomic bombs on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
To those who think this is a better way of ranking our presidents, one place to start is by going to this Webpage: www.opencrs.com/document/RL32492. There, you can download a document produced by the Congressional Research Service titled, "American War and Military Operations Casualties: Lists and Statistics." It reports the number of American military casualties from every war in history except the current one, which changes daily. Depending on how legitimate you believe a war was, you can do your own rankings of the presidents.
Agreed.
The whole "Hiroshima" thing brings me back to my basic premise that I think should apply in all wars or actions when the decision is hard:
Who is better?
That is the critical question.
You can talk about "million American SOLDIERS" lost for a Japan invasion, or a million Japanese CIVILIANS (mostly) lost for "the bomb", but who is really better worth keeping?
We are. We were better than the Japs (sorry, no PC here) and are better than the Muzzies (always were and will be). So if it has to come to the dreadful decision, I pick US to save.
And Harry's one of the few Democrat presidents I respect and admire.
I guess many people do too. An aircraft carrier is named after him. I don't know much about him, but considering there are only 12 carriers to have one named after you means something.
I meant from a scandal plagued failed expectations perspective.
Consider Nagasaki interest due for Pearl Harbor.
It depends on how you view it - if from the perspective of public scandals, yes Harding's administration wasn't good. If you mean in actually managing the country - better than he's given credit. He was certainly better than a lot of C- Presidents like Pierce, Buchanan, Fillmore, Taylor, Tyler.
Regards, Ivan
Please. Roosevelt was a commie who wouldn't mind having some of that Soviet-style statism for himself. Mr. benevolent dictator as it was.
Fortunately, it worked.
The man is a fool. Our casualties from an invasion of the Home Islands of Japans would have been horrific. However, the atomic bomb saved more Japanese lives than American. We had total domination of the sky. We would have bombed Japan for months. Every major city would have been fire bombed with casualties that would have made Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like an afternoon tea party. The Japanese fought on Okinawa to the last man. They would do the same on the home islands. They would give no quarter nor would we. It would be a battle of extermination. Japan should be grateful that we dropped the bomb on them and thus give them a "face saving" way to surrender.
You make some valid points about FDR, but Wilson deserves considerably harsher than Bartlett gives him. The notion that Wilson was "forced by the Germans into WWI" is simply laughable; also, he single-handedly reversed what could have been the beginnings a considerably less painful transition to racial equality that was beginning to develop during the Teddy Roosevelt years (for no other better reason than to satisfied his bigoted prickitude).
This idea being pushed by some people today that Japan had really given up before the bombs were dropped is nothing but revisionist history being pushed by people who seem to have an unnecessary guilt complex.
LOL!
I don't think that the Whig standard-bearer in 1844 was a man of the left. However I think in a race between the Democrat Polk and the Whig Clay, the leftist historian would be sympathetic towards Henry Clay and the Whigs. I cannot see a leftist historian happy about 54, 40, or fight, war with Mexico, support for Texas annexation (which potentially strengthened the slave states), acquisition of California and Oregon, reduction of tariffs, and anybody referred to as "Young Hickory," but as O'Reilly often opines, I could be wrong.
I wonder if "its" campaign bumperstickers will say Rodham, Rodham-Clinton, Clinton, or just Hillary! (again)
Really, I could use a few Wilsons, but I don't think there are any more of him out there.
TS
And, of course, Benjy wasn't a president, so he's not part of this discussion.
If a third-party anti-slavery candidate had not siphoned off some votes in New York state that otherwise would have gone to Clay in 1844, he would have defeated Polk, and we might not have had the war with Mexico in 1846. Whether we would have eventually acquired the Southwest is hard to say. Just as if Ralph Nader had not run in 2000, Gore might have won, and Afghanistan and Iraq would still be under anti-American dictatorships.
Sometimes you have to drive the point home.
"As a historical figure, I despise Henry Clay. He was arrogant, pompous and nearly always wrong."
I know how you like Quincy (JQA), but when it came to James Polk, John Quincy Adams was the very anti-thesis of a class act. It was said of him, that when discussing Polk, John Quincy Adams "elevated personal calumny to an art form." He said of Polk that he wasn't qualified to be "...an eminent County Court attorney." Adams disparaged Polk for having "no wit, no gracefulness of delivery, no point of argument, no elegance of language, no philosophy..."
I know this is politics, and a byproduct certainly of the famous, or infamous "corrupt bargain" between Adams and Clay, that effectively sealed Jackson's defeat in the 1824 election. Jackson, and to a lesser extent, his protege, James Polk, never forgave Adams or the machinations of Clay. The animosity was not a oneway street, for Adams and Clay bristled, as they were relegated to the sidelines during the Jacksonian era.
Stalin was fighting a force that was occupying his country. Do you suggest that Stalin might have backed out of the war if he did not get support from his allies? To suggest such is equally disengenuous. I may be wrong about my assessment of FDR and Stalin, but IMO, FDR was ingenuous in his dealings with "Uncle Joe"; trusting everything Stalin said. Stalin was disengenuous with FDR, giving the impression that conquest of eastern Europe was not formost in his mind.
IMO, FDR was "had" by Stalin.
Also, if defense of IWO JIMA was any indication of what the Japanese would do to defend their homeland, then Truman was right to drop the Atomic Bombs. Plus we had to make Japan think we had a whole arsenal of them. If they knew we only had two, they probably would not have surrendered.
Imagine fighting a battle like Iwo Jima today?
How could you not mention Carter and Clinton?
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