Posted on 06/10/2004 8:55:07 AM PDT by Cableguy
More than 3 years old, but still valid. Clinton should go down next time, given his failures on Al Qaeda and North Korea. Reagan will probably move up.
------------------ The Wall Street Journal Survey on Presidents
RANK NAME MEAN GREAT 1 George Washington 4.92 2 Abraham Lincoln 4.87 3 Franklin Roosevelt 4.67 NEAR GREAT 4 Thomas Jefferson 4.25 5 Theodore Roosevelt 4.22 6 Andrew Jackson 3.99 7 Harry Truman 3.95 8 Ronald Reagan 3.81 9 Dwight Eisenhower 3.71 10 James Polk 3.70 11 Woodrow Wilson 3.68 ABOVE AVERAGE 12 Grover Cleveland 3.36 13 John Adams 3.36 14 William McKinley 3.33 15 James Madison 3.29 16 James Monroe 3.27 17 Lyndon Johnson 3.21 18 John Kennedy 3.17 AVERAGE 19 William Taft 3.00 20 John Quincy Adams 2.93 21 George Bush 2.92 22 Rutherford Hayes 2.79 23 Martin Van Buren 2.77 24 William Clinton 2.77 25 Calvin Coolidge 2.71 26 Chester Arthur 2.71 BELOW AVERAGE 27 Benjamin Harrison 2.62 28 Gerald Ford 2.59 29 Herbert Hoover 2.53 30 Jimmy Carter 2.47 31 Zachary Taylor 2.40 32 Ulysses Grant 2.28 33 Richard Nixon 2.22 34 John Tyler 2.03 35 Millard Fillmore 1.91 FAILURE 36 Andrew Johnson 1.65 37 Franklin Pierce 1.58 38 Warren Harding 1.58 39 James Buchanan 1.33
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
"And what the hell is Woodrow Wilson doing so high?"
Years ago either the American Specator or National Review had their own ranking of the Presidents. They had Wilson as a failure.
What exactly makes Jackson so great? Why do liberals like him?
Why is LBJ ranked so high? He needs to be dropped lower because despite the civil rights legislation he signed, he screwed the country up in everything else he did.
Why is Cal Coolidge ranked so low? By all accounts he had a quiet, but successful presidency.
Jimmy Carter needs to be ranked at the bottom.
Nixon, above average.
Clinton Failure.
These historian guys and girls are qualified by their own acclamation. We should make our own list up and get it published.
They should put him above FDR .... he defeated the Soviets who actually had a MUCH better chance of destroying this country than the Nazis
With liberal historians intentions are what counts.
Clinton and Carter need to be bumped off.............Off the list of Presidents I mean..off the list of Presidents.
We need a special list for them:
Presidential wannabe's who were elected to the office, sit in the Oval office for one or two terms and left office
still just Presidential wannabes.
And put Woodrow lower. I feel the pain of all rational Wilson's to wonder what got into him for the League of Nations. Perhaps the wife wrote that one while he was incapacitated.
FDR great? Not in my book. His socialist policies really did little to end the Great Depression and WWII was won on the strength of great commanders, fighting men, industry and grit, not the briliance of FDR. All he accomplished was to set this country on a path to Johnson's Great Society.
Who/how do we FReep? How about a boycott?
They are wrong about Harding. But, time runs out too soon for some.
One can always quibble about rankings but this is actually an intelligent list. I was going to make some remark about there being some hope for the historians, but then I noticed the Federalist Society put the panel together.
Frankly, I wouldn't rate Washington as a great President for precisely the same reason.
Kennedy is too high.
Wilson is too high.
Teddy Roosevelt? Johnson?
John Adams is a bit low, IMHO. Nixon, despite Watergate, has a more positive legacy that he should receive more credit for. Hey, he met Elvis.
Clinton's where he belongs...in the forgotten middle.
Carter is WAY high. Buchanan still probably did more positive things while in office than he did.
Theodore Roosevelt gave us our Panama Canal, a tremendous building feat and coup at that time in history, which brain dead Carter gave away. I would rank this president much higher and Carter much, much lower, not only because of the Panama Canal but because of everything else he mucked up. I would rank Carter and Clinton at the same level of zero.
I think Truman belongs in the 2nd tier. Anyone with enough guts to use the a-bomb to save American lives deserve great respect. He was also tough against the Soviets. Truman is respected by most politicans, and even Bush quotes him sometimes.
Actually they both should have another category: DISMAL FAILURE
It's far too soon to give an objective answer on Clinton: in essence, the historians are having to predict into the future in order to assess his actions. My sense is that his ratings will go way down after there's been some time for the hype to shake out, and the true consequences of his presidency to become clear.
I think in terms of 9-11, and foreign matters in general, Clinton's legacy is already becoming clear, and he's headed to the failure column. In terms of domestic policy he was at best "average," and (because he was largely ineffective) probably closer to failure.
It's even somewhat early to judge Bush 41, but he will probably remain basically where he is.
I think Nixon is way underrated. If the the truth be known, there probably would be a lot of watergate type scandals. Nixon's record places him above average.
Truman and Wilson sucked, big time.
"How did Klintoon stay out of the FAILURE column?"
It was already filled up before he got there.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.