In no way is JFK even close to the top ten. Anti-imperialist Cleveland looks strange sandwiched between expansionists like Roosevelt, Polk, Jackson and Jefferson. Something doesn't look too objective there. Cleveland also convinced very few that free trade was the right policy. It would be later Democrats, more committed to big government, who did that. And if we blame other Presidents for not coping with depressions and recessions, Cleveland's desire to let the economy fix itself, an admirable decision in itself, lowers him rating. Grover Cleveland may have been an admirable man, but clearly he doesn't belong with the others.
Buchanan has to be the worst, but Pierce was a worse President than Coolidge. And worse than Grant, Harding, Carter, Ford, Bush or either of the Johnsons, too. Zachary Taylor, like Jerry Ford, falls in a category close to that of Garfield and the first Harrison: those who weren't in office long enough to do much good or evil. Taylor might have been a very good President had he lived. And Ford did much to pick up the pieces after Nixon.
Ford may have been the most mediocre of mediocrities, but he was not a failure in the same sense as the others. In fantasy, he might have done any number of things. In reality his options were limited, and he did leave the country better than Nixon left it to him.
Probably the George Bush rating is the most controversial. I don't want to believe it, but GHWB did blow a lot of splendid opportunities.
"Ma, Ma, where's Pa?"
...you have to have, state and defend objective criteria, not just one's own subjective preferences. But that is very hard to do.Absolutely, and that is why these lists are generally meaningless. That said, here's my bit for this discussion:
Great is the President who was larger than his times. Above all, greatness is for our Founders and those who preserve and protect their work. Washington and Lincoln are the archetypes. Reagan I'd add to it, certainly above the other Top Tens.
I'm uncomfortable putting FDR up there, although we must recognize his great leadership in the (gasp) Depression and the War.
Others were great leaders, but I don't see them anywhere near a Reagan or a Lincoln. Truman and Theodore Roosevelt, for example, were products of their times. Their times defined them more than they defined their times. As did Truman, T Roosevelt inherited most of his doings, Panama Canal, trusts, conservationism. He was was a doer, but he was not an innovator.* The greatness in them both was that they pulled the trigger, Truman literally, Roosevelt loudly.
Presidents who are good leaders is an entirely different category. I think Cleveland deserves credit for his leadership, especially Cleveland II. LBJ was a singularly successful manager of legislation. Polk was a great leader, too.
Our author included accomplishment in the mix, although he rejected negative accomplishment, ie. stopping something from happening. The early Presidents all deserve the shrine of greatness for making the expiriment happen. So many bad things could have happened that did not. I credit Taft the same way, for he kept some really bad ideas from becoming events.
Btw, thanks for your notes on the TR show. They ran a full page ad in today's (com)Post. Big bucks behind that production.
* On the down side for Roosevelt, where he did stir the people it was into dangerous enthusiasms. He was, as La Follette said, "Roosevelt is the keenest and ablest living interpreter of what I would call the superficial public sentiment of a given time and he is spontaneous in his response to it; but he does not distinguish between that which is a mere surface indication of a sentiment and the building up by a long process of education of a public opinion which is as deep-rooted as life."
I do so enjoy turning the progressives on each other.
This is just my personal opinion of course, but for many years I believed that tabbing Bush Sr. as V.P. was one of the Gipper's biggest mistakes. Senior may be a basically decent guy, but the truth of the matter is that he never really believed in the core conservative philosophy the way Reagan did, not even close.
Of course without Bush Sr. we probably wouldn't have Bush Jr., who may turn out to be a truly great President. So perhaps even out of the bad can come good.