Who is the most overrated President since 1900?

[Maxwell]

I'll buck the trend here and go with Calvin Coolidge.

On the internet maybe. Among historians, he's rated usually as middling or below average.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

I'll buck the trend here and go with Calvin Coolidge.

Another good choice. C squared's positive rep comes from Libertarian hacks.

I miss the days when you were a libertarian.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Kennedy, with Clinton and Johnson in a close second and third.

I would actually say Coolidge is one of our most underrated presidents.  I don't think he was as great as a lot of libertarian types think he was, but I don't think he was that bad either.  His policies didn't cause the Depression; it was a natural consequence of long, unsustainable growth.  It's just one of those things that happens once in a while (similar to the crisis in 2008.)

[Mordecai]

Kennedy, with Reagan for a close second and then Clinton.

[Horus]

JFK and Wilson. Especially Wilson. I'm no fan of Reagan but I wouldn't exactly call him overrated if that makes any sense.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

JFK

[Antonio the Sixth]

Obviously Reagan.

The Coolidge fandom is even sillier, but it seems to be limited to small circles of libertarian wackos.

[TNF]

Ronald Reagan

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Reagan and Clinton.

[Franzl]

Reagan is the only reasonable answer.

[Sol]

Wilson, JFK, Reagan, Clinton.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Reagan is the only reasonable answer.

But people make judgements based on his 8 years in office.  For JFK it's what people think the balance of his term(s) would have been like.

[Franzl]

Reagan is the only reasonable answer.

But people make judgements based on his 8 years in office.  For JFK it's what people think the balance of his term(s) would have been like.

Well, for me, JFK couldn't do a lot of harm either....whereas Reagan, well, did.

They're both worshiped by their fan groups, it's just that Reagan's is larger and louder.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Reagan is the only reasonable answer.

But people make judgements based on his 8 years in office.  For JFK it's what people think the balance of his term(s) would have been like.

Well, for me, JFK couldn't do a lot of harm either....whereas Reagan, well, did.

They're both worshiped by their fan groups, it's just that Reagan's is larger and louder.

One wonders if the issues Johnson faced Kennedy would have fared as well.  It just sucks to be President. 

[windjammer]

Reagan

[Gass3268]

Voted for JFK before thinking of Reagan. Vote would have gone to Reagan.

[TNF]

Actually, come to think of it, maybe Ronald Reagan isn't as overrated as one might think. He certainly predicated a massive shift in American political attitudes and in policy outcomes in forcing the liquidation of the New Deal coalition and rolling back a lot of the existing welfare state, a task largely completed by Bill Clinton with "Welfare Reform" in 1996.

Theodore Roosevelt was nowhere near as "progressive" as his latter day supporters seem to contend. A lot of people forget Theodore Roosevelt the xenophobic nationalist and imperialist who literally thought sending American boys to die in the trenches of Europe was a great idea the minute after the war began. People also neglect the fact that the "reforms" Roosevelt pioneered were meant to satisfy only the demand from the left for reform, not to actually do anything. In fact, things that Roosevelt passed often made it easier for big business to monopolize markets and control them, rather than weaken their power substantially. Oh, and there's the fact that by 1914 he had made up with the robber barons and basically repudiated the "lunatic fringe" (as he called it) of Bob La Follette et al.

Woodrow Wilson is woefully underrated. Prior to deciding that jumping into the meat-grinder of Europe was a good idea, Wilson actually enacted a wide-range of legislation unlike any President before him and really, unlike any after him excepting Roosevelt and Johnson. Wilson should get a lot more credit than he does for enacting the first income tax, slashing tariffs (a big deal in the early 20th Century), and figuring out a way to ban child labor (although it was quickly overturned by the reactionary Supreme Court). None of this excuses his terrible record on foreign policy or civil liberties, but it does give a bit more perspective on Wilson than you might otherwise get from the libertarian choir about how awful a President he was.

[MATTROSE94]

1. Clinton
2. JFK
3. Reagan
4. Coolidge (overrated by Libertarians mostly)
5. Wilson

[courts]

Actually, come to think of it, maybe Ronald Reagan isn't as overrated as one might think. He certainly predicated a massive shift in American political attitudes and in policy outcomes in forcing the liquidation of the New Deal coalition and rolling back a lot of the existing welfare state, a task largely completed by Bill Clinton with "Welfare Reform" in 1996.

in terms of political impact he's certainly not overrated. on the other hand republicans literally just make things up about him. not to mention the nonsense of 'reagan won the cold war...'

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i'd dispute he tr was nationalist. he was certainly imperialistic and a eugenicist. but he didn't really have a notion of an american race, despite his fear of miscegenation like most whites. nor of any sort of folkish spirit as far as i can tell or notion of a unique american culture. if anything he was an anglophile and aped europe in part because he styled himself a progressive. nationalists, even if they embrace imperialism, tend to have a distinct isolationist strain to their ideology with little pretense of saving anyone except their own people: fortress america, socialism in one (russian) nation, the 3rd reich (in theory after it killed off the slavs and had enough lebensraum & resources anyway), '30s japan, etc. the 'end game' of nationalist ideologies is typically having enough to basically ignore the rest of the world and avoid 'contaminating' influences. by contrast someone like roosevelt or wilson really do seem to be delusional enough to think they were spreading enlightened, cosmopolitan european values across the world and civilizing savages.

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it's not just europe though. he completely failed in eurasia with his bungling attempts at crushing the soviet uprising. not to mention mexico and a string of other failed interventions in latin america, which basically set the stage for the last century or so. even from a totally cynical 'what's good for business is good for america' mindset he was bad.

[Dancing with Myself]

When it comes to getting things done it's JFK, but to be fair he was in the middle of his first term when he got the ax. He made good out of many errors and had some plans he didn't get to do.

For a full two termer I say Wilson. While he did some good things he got us in WW 1 (which depends on your POV if that was a good move or not,) and was not kind to the races. He also became silly near the end when he refused to give the Presidency up after the stroke.

Johnson kind of was due to mainly getting us into Vietnam but he had an excellent domestic policy so it balances, plus props on growing his hair out near the end.

Reagan is far from overrated, besides I-C he was a great foreign policy president when he mattered. Not the best economic guy but the country did improve under him so it's a good thing I guess. I do think the Republicans overpraise him a little, need to praise the other Presidents too if they need praising.

[morgieb]

I'd say JFK. Reagan actually got a lot done (even if much of it was stuff I didn't like) and Wilson seems to get a sh**tload of hate on the internet so I dunno if he's one I can vote for. Clinton may be another answer.

[Oakvale]

Lyndon Johnson (on this forum).

TNF is absolutely correct that Wilson is bizarrely underrated on the internet in general.

[H. Ross Peron]

Besides the ones I listed earlier, I'd add Eisenhower and Bill Clinton both of whom advanced forward very little in the way of new policy but presided over booming economies.

[Pessimistic Antineutrino]

Looking at this forum one would think that Reagan is underrated.

[Redalgo]

Everyone on the list aside from LBJ and Coolidge is overrated by the public in general, I suspect. The most overrated among them are JFK, FDR, and Reagan but I haven't decided in which order.