Gallup Poll: Honest Abe, JFK Among Greatest U.S. Presidents

Gallup News Service ^ | 5/16/03 | Joseph Carroll

[ReleaseTheHounds]

MarkDel: Good list... but remove FDR (replace with Polk). Elevate W (so far) to just below Reagan. Remove Nixon -- besides his lying and criminal coverup [I've been apologizing for him for 30 years], his price controls and other big government activities merely propogated LBJ's awful War On Poverty.

I like your WORST list... Giving Jimmy Carter the top 5 spots is appropriate: Bill Clinton and LBJ should say a prayer to JC every night, thanking him for his service. And put Harding above Herbert Hoover -- Harding and Clinton are soul-mates and should be linked throughout history on a list like yours.

[WarrenC]

In a recent Ben Stein's Diary in The American Spectator, Stein includes the following parenthetical phrase in a reference to JFK's first inaugural address: (and only inaugural owing to Kruschev and Castro's cruel decision to assassinate him--see Edward Jay Epstein's astounding book, Legend) Are you familiar wtih this book? I hadn't heard of it.

[PISANO]

The only reason that George Washington scores so low is that HISTORY is no longer taught in public schools. He was the first and the best IMHO. He could have been KING or stayed in office until he died. He had a monumental task and like our PRESIDENT of today was more than up to the challange.

[Savage Beast]

I agree with the top and bottom 10, Mark, though I might place them in slightly different orders, with one exception--I'd scratch Franklin Roosevelt. Great minds think alike!

[Tall_Texan]

see Edward Jay Epstein's astounding book, Legend) Are you familiar wtih this book? I hadn't heard of it.

I'm familiar with Epstein, not with this book. Epstein is another one of a handful of authors that has made a livelihood off JFK and his death.

What makes the JFK Murder Mystery so appealing is that there are so many high profile suspects with plausible motives to kill Kennedy and plausible ties to Lee Harvey Oswald (even though some seek to exonerate Oswald altogether as just the wrong man at the wrong place - a view I find unsupportable by the facts).

Key suspects and their plausible connections (in no particular order):

* LBJ(hatred for JFK, ambition) Killing done in Texas, his Limo not shot at.
* Mafia(crackdown on mob,Joe Kennedy's election help)LHO has very vague mob ties but Ruby had very definite mob ties
* Russia(cold war,missile crisis)LHO had spent time in Russia as an alleged defector.
* Cuba(cold war,Bay of Pigs)LHO attempted to defect to Cuba after returning from Russia.
* Pentagon(Vietnam)LHO was a Marine, trained as a marksman.
* CIA(Vietnam,other world conflicts)Many believe LHO's defection was actually CIA-orchestrated spying.
* FBI(partner/rival of CIA)LHO had several contacts with FBI leading up to assassination.
* Castro's enemies in U.S.(Bay of Pigs)LHO spent time with paramilitary groups dreaming of overthrowing Castro. Many of these saw JFK as traitor for failing to provide military cover for Bay of Pigs invasion which failed.
* "Right Wing"(JFK's liberalism)Connection to LHO quite unclear but Dallas was a hotbed of conservative groups hostile to JFK.
* "Big Oil"(JFK's liberalism)Often blamed in the same breath as "right wing".
* Richard Nixon(revenge for 1960)Just happened to be in Dallas that weekend.

Then, of course, you get to those who believe LHO dreamed this all up and carried it out himself for the personal notoriety and as revenge against a society that he had great disdain for and was, in his mind, shunned by.

Hollywood could never concoct such a character as Lee Harvey Oswald. We'll probably never know with certainty who carried this out which is why the JFK Assassination is always going to have a disproportionate attention placed on it throughout history. It's a drama that has something for everyone (murder, sinister characters, martyrs, sex, innocent or not-so-innocent bystanders - all set on the world's biggest stage). It was also the central moment that awoke America from the post-WWII slumber of absolute trust in government. From the JFK Assassination to Vietnam to Watergate in ten years America (and the media) changed from a trusting people to a distrusting people.

[mass55th]

I'd like to know just what JFK did to warrant being rated one of the greatest Presidents by the Demoncrats. I wonder if they know that Abe was a Republican. Probably not, since 66% of them can't identify any of the present Demoncratic Presidential contenders.

[codercpc]

I'd like to know just what JFK did to warrant being rated one of the greatest Presidents by the Demoncrats

Simple, he got shot. America tends to make martyrs out of everyday people. I truly believe that had he not been shot, he and the rest of the "Kennedy Dynasty" would be in the dust bin of history. Had Teddy not been a Kennedy, and had his brothers (plural) not been shot, he would probably be in jail.

[Shooter 2.5]

My favorite quote, which I'm probably going to butcher, was by someone who said, "If all the people who hated the Kennedys was at Dealy Plaza that day, It would have sounded like Omaha Beach on D-Day".

[MississippiMan]

We live in a country where opinion is dictated by what is essentially brainwashing. It begins in kindergarten through the education system and continues to the grave through the mainstream media. There is no other explanation for results like this. People have been told for decades how great Kennedy was. Therefore he is. Sickening, eh?

MM

[mass55th]

I agree with you totally.

[Stefan Stackhouse]

Of course I'm sure the results leave out the third or so of Americans who were unable to name ANY president.

What would have been really fun would have been to include some non-Presidential "ringers" in the list and see how the ratings ended up. For example, would "Joshua Bartlett" have done better than Clinton, I wonder?

[Verginius Rufus]

Actually, we have had a President King Jr.--Leslie King, Jr., better known by his name after he was adopted by his stepfather, Gerald R. Ford. Somehow he was overlooked in this polling.

[Stefan Stackhouse]

Well, my list would be slightly different:

The Best 10 Presidents
1. Abraham Lincoln
2. Theodore Roosevelt
3. George Washington
4. Ronald Reagan
5. Franklin Roosevelt
6. Dwight D. Eisenhower
7. Andrew Jackson
8. James K Polk
9. Thomas Jefferson
10. Calvin Coolidge

WORST 10 Presidents
1. Bill Clinton
2. Jimmy Carter
3. Lyndon Johnson
4. Richard Nixon (started out great but ended badly)
5. Herbert Hoover
6. Warren Harding
7. James Buchanan
8. William Taft
9. Franklin Pierce
10. Martin Van Buren

[Verginius Rufus]

I think you are being unfair to Harding to liken him to Clinton. Harding was in over his head and made some bad appointments, men who betrayed his trust in them...but he does not seem to have been personally crooked and he seems to have lacked Clinton's relentless dishonesty, viciousness and meanspiritedness. If he had lived longer, I really doubt Harding would have engaged in perjury, intimidation of witnesses, and the rest of the Clintonesque repertoire in order to thwart the investigation of the Teapot Dome scandal.

[Stefan Stackhouse]

If it had just been LHO, I would be quite prepared to dismiss all the various conspiracy theories as nonsense. The moment Jack Ruby came into the picture and killed LHO, all of that changed irrevocably.

My favorite hypothesis remains that the Ruskies are somehow involved, and there was (inconclusive) evidence known to the Warren Commission, but it was decided that to make this publicly known would have probably ended with WWIII. It is not inconceivable that Nikta Khruschev's ouster was one consequence, as a secret ultimatum might have been delivered to the USSR demanding this as one of several conditions for our keeping this thing secret.

[Stefan Stackhouse]

Simple, he got shot. America tends to make martyrs out of everyday people.

Then maybe by that logic James Garfield should be our greatest president, as he got shot before he had a chance to screw up anything at all!

[x]

I'd like to know just what JFK did to warrant being rated one of the greatest Presidents by the Demoncrats.

It's the movie star angle -- young and good looking and famous for being famous. What did his son do to become so famous in his own day? It's the same created aura that makes people care about Jennifer Anniston or Julia Roberts or Russell Crowe or someone called "Colin Farrell." Kennedy's popularity is an example of the hidden monarchism that lurks beneath the surface of mass society.

Plus, Kennedy's a figure on whom people can pin the leftist hopes of their youth. In Europe, it's the radicalism of 1968 that performs the same function. Democrats who "believe in government" need to have someone in government to believe in and attach their hopes to. So a mystique grows up. Curiously, even some people who were old -- or not yet born -- during Kennedy's lifetime do this.

[Paulus Invictus]

A much more believable poll, but JFK does not belong anywhere but near the bottom with the Felon. When was the CSPAN poll done? If it was after the Iraq war, I would imagine GWB would rank much higher. CSPAN, By the way, tends to be far more liberal than conservative, in my view, so this poll is interesting.

[Billy_bob_bob]

Just goes to show how out of step I am with the rest of country. My favorite presidents? First, George Washington. Second, James K. Polk. Third? Grover Cleveland. Yes, Grover Cleveland.

[baseballfanjm]

K0 how smart the American public is. I bet a lot of people don't even know who Washington and Jefferson are. They'd be my choices. This is a pointless poll, but they do it every year. People go with who they know. I mean, it seems that people choose Lincoln and Kennedy as kneejerk choices, since they don't know anyone else and those two are popular and were assassinated.