Who are the most overated/underated President in the history of the U.S?

[Robespierre's Jaw]

Who are the most overated/underated President in the history of the United States of America? Here's my thoughts:

OVERATED:

• John F. Kennedy
• Ronald Reagan
• Andrew Jackson

UNDERATED:

• Chester Arthur
• Gerald Ford
• Lyndon B. Johnson

[Witiko]

Overrated:
Harry Truman
John F. Kennedy
Ronald Reagan

Underrated:
William H. Taft: Only a passable progressive compared to the men surrounding him, but he still accomplished more than any of the Gilded Age presidents.
Jimmy Carter: A poor leader, but far from one of our worst presidents.

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Agreed. He gets no credit from conservatives for obvious reasons, but even some liberals refuse to look beyond Vietnam.

Of course, being a Democrat from Texas, I could be biased...

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Overrated:
George W Bush
Ronald Reagan

Underrated
Jimmy Carter

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Overrated:  The disparity between how mist people rate him and how I rate him leaves only one choice for most overrated, Woodrow Wilson.

Underrated:
Both Adams are underrated.  How they handled their defeats for a second term did more than anyone except Washington to ensure that we did not fall into despotism as most revolutions do.

Andrew Johnson is underrated, largely because discussion of his presidency centers on Reconstruction.  His foreign policy efforts were the best we had between John Quincy Adams and T. Roosevelt.  The only blunder he made there was his waffling on the Canada issue, as he managed to allow just enough Fenian provocation to cause Canada to unite without bringing any of it under the protective wing of the American eagle.

Taft is also underrated.  He was a poor politician as President, but his policies were basically sound and well executed.
 

[DownWithTheLeft]

Overrated:
FDR, Lincoln, Carter

Underrated:
Reagan, Kennedy

[CPT MikeyMike]

Overrated:
Bill Clinton, Woodrow Wilson,

Underrated:
Chester Arthur, George H.W. Bush

[SPC]

Overated
FDR
Wilson
Lincoln

Underated
Cleveland
Madison
Coolidge

[bbt]

My nominees are:

Overrated

Woodrow Wilson
Bill Clinton
Thomas Jefferson



Underrated
 
James Polk
Grover Cleveland
Gerald Ford

[CPT MikeyMike]

Taft is also underrated.  He was a poor politician as President, but his policies were basically sound and well executed.
 

Considering Taft didn't want the presidency and the fact that he hated every second of it, he actually was an effective president who was overshadowed by being between Roosevelt and Wilson.

[The Dowager Mod]

Overrated
Theodore Roosevelt
Abraham Lincoln
Ronald Reagan

Underrated
Gerald Ford
Millard Fillmore

[AkSaber]

Overrated:
Clinton
FDR

Underrated:
H.W. Bush
Ford
Madison

[AndrewTX]

Overrated:

Zachary Taylor

Underrated:

Al Gore

[DownWithTheLeft]

Overrated:
Zachary Taylor

Is he even rated at all?

[SPC]

Underrated:

Al Gore

What world are you living in? Even if you do believe that Gore was the rightful president, he never was.

[opebo]

OVERATED:

• Teddy Roosevelt
• Ronald Reagan
• Bush jr.

UNDERATED:

• Lyndon B. Johnson
• Jimmy Carter
• John F. Kennedy
[/quote]

[YRABNNRM]

Underrated:

Al Gore

What world are you living in? Even if you do believe that Gore was the rightful president, he never was.

no sh**t

[DanielX]

Overrated: Woodrow Wilson takes the cake. I'd say John F. Kennedy and Andrew Jackson are also overrated.
Underrated: Grover Cleveland, Chester Arthur, William H. Taft

[CARLHAYDEN]

Since we're apparently doing groups of three in each category:

Overrated:    John F. Kennedy
                     Abraham Lincoln
                     Woodrow Wilson

Underrated:  John Adams
                     Ronald Reagan
                     Grover Cleveland

[NDN]

Most Overrated: Ronald Reagan is the most overrated modern President by far. Between Iran Contra, massive deficits & debt accumulation, idiotic alliances with various untrustworthy repugnant regimes and movements (which came back to haunt us), "Star Wars", solidifying the Religious Right, etc. he was a terrible President. And at most, he just sped up the Soviet Union's implosion. He certainly didn't cause the Cold War to end either, Soviet Socialism was an unsustainable system that was brought down largely by it's own hand. America needed a good Conservative and/or Libertarian leader in the 1980's to reign in the excesses of the welfare state and restore confidence. Unfortunately, contrary to what so many claim, Reagan wasn't him.

Underrated: Tough call! At first I thought Polk was pretty underrated, but most historians already say he was a bad-ass. So I'm going to have to say Grover Cleveland. Okay, he failed to push quite a bit of his agenda and was an ultra-conservative sexist pig. But he also eliminated government waste, kept the railroads public and strong, modernized the Navy, and kept inflation under control. That's certainly better than many of his contemporaries.

[Friz]

George Washington is very overrated.  Noting but a bigoted slave-owner who wouldn't even let white males vote if they weren't in his social class.

[afleitch]

Richard Nixon will probably have the 'honour' of being the president who shifted from most underated a generation ago to most overated a generation from now!

[??????????]

Overrated:

T.R.
FDR
Lincoln

Underrated :

Harding
Hoover
Nixon

[gorkay]

Overrated: Reagan, Kennedy, Madison

Underrated: Polk, L.B. Johnson, Hayes

Madison gets credit for being a great man, which he was, but he was a pretty lousy President. Kennedy gets overrated because of the sorrow over his untimely demise. Reagan is currently overrated because there is a big conservative lobbying effort going on to exaggerate his accomplishments wildly (the most egregious of which is giving him credit for "winning" the cold war and ending communism in Eastern Europe; he had very little to do with the latter and the very premise of the former is specious).

Polk is already highly rated by the historians, but the average person still barely knows who he is, if he recognizes his name at all. Johnson is underrated because of Vietnam, but there is plenty of blame to go around for that, and to assign it all to him is unfair. His domestic accomplishments were as great or greater than any other President in history, with the possible exception of FDR. Hayes is underrated because of the dubious circumstances under which he came into office, but once he got there he was honest and forthright, and did much to clean up the cesspool of corruption that post-Civil War American politics had become. (Which cost him the support of his party and a chance to run for re-election.)

[Friz]

I can't really think of any underrated presidents, but I can definitely name a few that are grossly overrated...

Abraham Lincoln
John F. Kennedy
Ronald Raegan
Bill Clinton

[HappyWarrior]

Overated:
Ronald Reagan,
Thomas Jefferson,
Woodrow Wilson

Underated:
Richard Nixon,
Jimmy Carter,
Lyndon Johnson