[Bonaventure]

This seems about right. Reagan may belong above Truman.

[nuffsenuff]

Reagan needs to be in the Great category at Number 3.

Clinton and Carter need to be bumped down.

[Servant of the 9]

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
The number listed above is the mean score of all the scholars' rating of each president. On this scale, five is the highest possible score.

[2banana]

William Clinton = average? The average president gets impeached?

[bigeasy_70118]

The fact that there isn't a separate category called Abject Failure and Total Disgrace with the name of William Jefferson Clinton means this list is without merit.

Reagan should be in the top three, IMHO.

And what the hell is Woodrow Wilson doing so high?

[sawmill trash]

How did klintoon stay out of the FAILURE column ?

[Maceman]

I think Silent Cal Coolidge deserves to be ranked as near great. If he were running today, I think most Freepers would wildly support him.

[Slipperduke]

Now, I'm just being objective here so don't flame me, but the full article cites Clinton's 'wearing of short shorts' as one of his major failings.

By that rationale, Bush Jnr's Sedgeway/Mountian Bike/ Pretzel Choking/Dropping the Dog on his head antics could put him in the bottom 3.

Wouldn't this be a better survey if they ignored trivia and just concentrated on the policy?

Very interesting table though, thanks for this. Guided me nicely to the end of another working day!

[goodnesswins]

OKAY...Let's RE-TITLE This LIST.....

Intellectual SNOBS opine about how THEY THINK President's rank.....

[AmishDude]

Thanks. I would take Truman out of the top 8, but the remaining 7 are the top 7 (without regard to order) in my book. The greatness of a president can often be measured about the era (good or bad) that he ushered in -- how he influenced presidencies to come. On that scale, Washington is always #1, FDR should rank high as well as Jackson, Reagan and TR. Lincoln and Jefferson were influential but they didn't have their own "era". Washington was the model until Jackson, Jackson was the model until the Civil War, it was really a mish-mash (there wasn't a Lincolnite president after Lincoln) until TR, who influenced until FDR, who reigned until Reagan, who changed the world.

And it should be noted that FDR's, Lincoln's and Truman's presidencies were driven by war. Reagan could have very easily passed the buck on the USSR to the next generation, but he was proactive. That's key and what makes him comparable to Jefferson and TR only. And he comes out much better compared to them.

[Recovering_Democrat]

James Polk was a good president.

And Chester Alan Arthur ought to be ranked higher than "average". At least higher than Clinton. Arthur came in on a fluke: Garfield's assassination. Everyone thought he was going to be a corrupt administrator, and he wasn't. He rose to the occasion.

Impeached42, otoh, came in promising, "the most ethical administration ever", and he was rotten to the core.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Only a lefty would think of FDR as "near great". He'll come down dramatically as time goes by.

[mak5]

I would drop Truman, Kennedy and Johnson and raise Polk, Reagan and Ford, who did the best with what he had at the time. We can see now that Carter was worse than below average.

[Centurion2000]

They should put him above FDR .... he defeated the Soviets who actually had a MUCH better chance of destroying this country than the Nazis

[RogueIsland]

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.

[familyofman]

Who/how do we FReep? How about a boycott?

[RightWhale]

They are wrong about Harding. But, time runs out too soon for some.

[sphinx]

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.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

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.

[ampat]

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.