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.
Roosevelt's cozying up to Stalin seriously undermines his reputation for fighting WW2, IMO. The war began to save eastern Europe from the yoke of nazism, and ended with eastern Europe under the yoke of communism.
Roosevelt beat Hitler, but lost to Stalin. The real winner of WW2 was Stalin because he defeated both the nazis and his allies. Roosevelt's failure to see Stalin for what he was (and having commie advisors in his administration did not help) reminds me of the whole GWB "religion of peace" debacle.
Coolidge had this to say after Hoover was nominated:
"Well, they're going to elect that superman Hoover, and he's going to have some trouble. He's going to have to spend money. But he won't spend enough. Then the Democrats will come in and spend money like water. But they won't know anything about money. Then they will want me to come back and save money for them. But I won't do it."
MGY
See "Downfall" by Richard B. Frank. He uses Japanese archival material to show that the invasion of JUST the southern island would have been far bloodier than we predicted because they had moved two additional divisions that we didn't know about there. Overall, calculations I've seen were 1 million U.S. dead, minimum, to take Japan. Frank also shows there was NO---zip, zero, nada---consideration whatsoever of surrender by the Japanese prior to Aug. 6.
Agree. Also remember that Reagan in this stupid polls was always rated low, but now he is up at the top.
Regards, Ivan
In that case, you still have to go with Lincoln, who was bi-polar.
Hillary would certainly be terrible, but she still couldn't do worse than Jimmy Carter. It is a testament to how effective Reagan really was that the nation managed to recover so quickly from the disaster that was the Carter presidency.
The idea that Truman had any alternative to dropping the atomic bombs is a revisionist myth. Casualties were higher in several conventional bombings throughout the war, and one only needs to review the horrific casualties at places like Iwo Jima to realize how catastrophic a full-scale invasion would have been for both sides. Hiroshima and Nagasaki probably ended up SAVING millions of lives.
I might agree on Hiroshima, but I think the Nagasaki bomb was just over kill.
He was also unbelievably corrupt and surrounded himself with an incredibly verminous, greedy clique
I agree with many of this person's assessments and theories. The idea that someone should be rated higher because they "did something" is nonsense.
Now, there are cases where the "active" pres should get much credit. No doubt. And probably "inactive" pres who shouldn't get much credit. All depends exactly what happened to them and how they handled it.
Noone's character can be rated above Washington. No way.
Clay a leftist? More so a Big Gov't Republican today.
Big proponent against the Turks and wanted the Independence for the Latin American Countries as well.
Here is the bottom line to historians and journalists ranking presidents. If you have an (R) next to your name you were an awful president, if you have a (D) next to your name, you were a great president. Its all liberal bias and faux academics.
The most horrible things were said about President Lincoln in his time.
Bush did what had to be done, what others had not the nerve to do. He understands the great threat of islamo facisism to the free world. How important it is that we stopped granting them a free pass over and over again.
If people are shocked at the events in Iraq, then they should be shocked at how horrible and determined islamo facists are, not that we must oppose them.
Regards, Ivan
The Japanese were ready for the invasion and the result would have been similar or worse than that in Okinawa--a complete fight to the death. Both the military and civilians were being prepared for the final battles and it would have been devastating for all. The bombs were needed and ended the war. That's the only thing Truman did to get my vote. His handling of the Korean war, however, was awful. It was the first of the RAT start-but-never-win wars. Now the MSM and the RATs are determined for us to lose yet another war. It's so depressing.
My father attended a dinner with a distant, present relation of his. Given my interest in American history, he thought it was great to say, "I had dinner with a descendant of Henry Clay".
I replied, "How unfortunate for you."
Regards, Ivan
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.