Talk Elections

Not really much to do with 2004.... But I ranked the presidents in order, from best to worst.  I ranked them much the same way that CSPAN ranked the presidents a year or two ago.  The categories I based my rankings on were: Public Persuasion, Crisis Leadership, Economic Management, Moral Authority, International Relations, Administrative Skills, Relations With Congress, Vision/Setting an Agenda, Pursued Equal Justice For All, and Performance Within Context of Times.  I gave each president points based on these categories, totaled them up and came up with this list:

1. Ronald Reagan
2. Franklin D. Roosevelt
3. George Washington
4. Abraham Lincoln
5. George W. Bush
6. Theodore Roosevelt
7. John F. Kennedy
8. Woodrow Wilson
9. James K. Polk
10. Lyndon B. Johnson
11. Thomas Jefferson
12. Dwight D. Eisenhower
13. William McKinley
14. George H. W. Bush
15. Gerald R. Ford
16. Chester A. Arthur
17. Benjamin Harrison
18. James Monroe
19. Grover Cleveland
20. Rutherford B. Hayes
21. James A. Garfield
22. Calvin Coolidge
23. Harry S. Truman
24. Andrew Jackson
25. James Madison
26. Richard M. Nixon
27. William J. Clinton
28. John Quincy Adams
29. Herbert C. Hoover
30. Zachary Taylor
31. William Howard Taft
32. John Adams
33. Jimmy Carter
34. Ulysses S. Grant
35. Millard Fillmore
36. Warren G. Harding
37. Martin Van Buren
38. William Henry Harrison
39. Andrew Johnson
40. James Buchanan
41. John Tyler
42. Franklin Pierce

Any comments?  I'm no historian (though I do have a passion for history, especially presidential history), but I figure I came fairly close to most presidential rankings out there.  It's hard to rank presidents like Taylor, Garfield and Harrison who died too early into their terms to make a fair assessment.  Likewise, it was hard to rank Dubya, seeing as how his term hasn't yet ended.  I tried to be as unbiased as possible; just for note, I used to be a Democrat, and I'm a fan of the old Democrat Party.

Anyone care to make their own list?

Well making a list would take a while, but towards the bottom have to be Warren Harding and Tea Pot Dome scandal.  TAylor would be up a bit as his life experience gets him a nudge over other short term Presidents.

Milliard Fillmore is known as  "do nothing President" and usually is last.


Towards the top you have to have all the founding fathers and Lincoln.  Then in more Moderan times, TR, FDR, Reagan.

Yeah looking over your list I'd say at a glance you have the following WAY too high--

Polk, Wilson, Ford, Arthur--need to move Madison, Jeffereson up (LA Purchase for a big reason if nothign else)

just a few thoughts :)  interesting idea though.

George W. should not be in the top 5 or top 10 even. That's just absurd. In fact he should not even been on the LIST until is Presidency his over. It's best to judge a person's preformance as President AFTER he is President.

And Ronald Reagan as NUMBER ONE?!?!?! What the hell!!

Abraham Lincoln should be number one..followed by FDR as a close number 2.

5 Best (no particular order):

Reagan (defeated USSR)

Jefferson (wrote Declaration, L. Purchase)

Washington (set an excellent example with retirement after two terms)

Lincoln (kept the Union together, freed the slaves)

T.R. (one of the more brilliant men ever to lead the country, the quintessential American)


5 Worst (no particular order):

LBJ (Great Society disaster, Vietnam quagmire)

Nixon (Watergate, price and wage controls, too soft on USSR)

Clinton (did nothing to respond to terrorist attacks, lied under oath, eight scandal filled years)

Carter (the second most incompetent president of all time)

Kennedy (the most incompetent president of all time)

FDR a close second?  oh boy.  

Harding for Tea Pot dome scandal and Grant for corruption by his underlings have to rank low.

You should explain yourself...

William Henry Harrison made the fewest mistakes.

He made two that I can think of. He made the longest inagural speech ever and in freezing weather to boot, and he died.

Dying is a BIG mistake.

I think I would rank Harry Truman higher than he appears on the original list.

While he lacked a real understanding of economics, and pushed hard for left-wing programs that don't work, like price controls and confiscatory taxes against the rich, he had the nads to make a major stand against the Soviet Union, and revolutionized American foreign policy from anything it had been up to that point.

He also broke away from his segragationist southern background to speak up for equal rights for blacks.  I was very impressed with a story that I heard about a soldier who was an American Indian who had been killed in the Korean War.  Because of his background, the cemetery in his local town refused to allow him to be buried there.  Truman was outraged, and had him buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

I think Truman was a pivotal president of the postwar period.

Well, you're right on one thing at least:  Dubya should not be listed b/c his term isn't up yet.  But, simply enough, I wanted to include all the presidents.  I do crazy things sometimes, I admit, and he'll no doubt rise or fall on my ranking by the end of his presidency.  But as things stand today, he's in my top 10.  That shouldn't be a total shocker.  One of the things I ranked on was Crisis Leadership.  Were you here on 9/11?  FDR and GWB scored extremely high on this category.  Another thing was Moral Authority.  We all know Bush is a devout Christian and at this point in time he has yet to commit any crimes during his presidency or lie to the public or under oath, steal money, kill anyone, or commit adultery.  So he, (as well as Carter, Hoover, Truman, Wilson) scored high on this.

Dubya has managed to alienate the U.S. from a great many other countries.  My personal view is, who cares about France?  But, being unbiased in my ranking, I scored Bush very low on the category of International Relations.

Other categories Bush scored relatively high on are Public Persuasion (remember 9/11 and the lead up to the Battle of Iraq, Thanksgiving Day with the troops, etc.), Administrative Skills, Vision/Setting an Agenda, and Performance Within Context of Times.

Ronald Reagan as number 1.  Again, high ratings on Public Persuasion (the public loved him), Crisis Leadership (Cold War), Econominc Management and a few others.  The Iran/Contra scandal hurt him slightly, but not too much, considering the public never really blamed Reagan for this; they loved him anyway--even (more than) a few Democrats.

Lincoln and FDR, as you'll see made the top 5 on my list (a list that wasn't conducted by a historian or an expert on presidential history, just to note).  FDR came pretty close to beating Reagan actually.  Here's the final score:

1. Reagan=735
2. FDR=720
3. Washington=715
4. Lincoln=700
5. Dubya=675

Bottom Five:
38. W. H. Harrison=280
39. Andrew Johnson=265
40. James Buchanan=250
41. John Tyler=235
42. Franklin Pierce=205

I'm sorry you didn't like my list.  Why not make one of your own?

Best Presidents? Probably Lincoln, FDR, and Kennedy.

The worst? Most of the recent ones - namely Nixon, Reagan, Pa Bush, and of course the Dumpilator.

Here's my list:

1. William J. Clinton
2. Ronald Reagan
3. Abraham Lincoln
4. Thomas Jefferson
5. Theodore Roosevelt
6. George Washington
7. Andrew Jackson
8. Franklin D. Roosevelt
9. William Howard Taft
10. Dwight D. Eisenhower
11. Gerald R. Ford
12. Lyndon B. Johnson
13. Richard M. Nixon
14. Calvin Coolidge
15. Harry S. Truman
16. Jimmy Carter
17. James Polk
18. John F. Kennedy
19. George W. Bush
20. James Monroe
21. William McKinley
22. Woodrow Wilson
23. Chester A. Arthur
24. Benjamin Harrison
25. Rutherford B. Hayes
26. George H. W. Bush
27. Grover Cleveland
28. James A. Garfield
29. Herbert C. Hoover
30. James Madison
31. John Quincy Adams
32. Zachary Taylor
33. Ulysses S. Grant
34. Millard Fillmore
35. John Adams
36. William Henry Harrison
37. Warren G. Harding
38. Franklin Pierce
39. Martin Van Buren
40. Andrew Johnson
41. John Tyler
42. James Buchanan

1. FDR
2. T. Roosevelt
3. Lincoln
4. Washington
5. Truman

-----

42. John Tyler
41.  James Buchanan
40. Herbert Hoover
39. William henry Harrison
38. Ronald Reagan

1. George Washington, no question
2. Abe Lincoln
3. FDR
4. Ronald Reagan
5. Teddy Roosevelt

Side note_ I do not include Bush in the rankings because his presidency is still in progress. If he had been shot this morning I would have put him at 5. I expect him to be higher by 2008, If he succeeds in changing the face of the mideast.

Bottom:
38. Jimmy Carter
39. Rutherford B. Hayes
40. Richard Nixon
41. Ulysses S. Grant
42. Warren Harding

This is what I tried (and, I think, was successful) to avoid in my own ranking.  Doing a true, unbiased presidential ranking, it would be near impossible to rank Reagan so low.  Republican or Democrat, you have to admit the good he did for the country and for the world.

I still have yet to figure out what supposedly makes Reagan so great.

You've had one of the most sensible lists I've read all day. You admit that President Bush's Presidency is not over yet, and thus he cannot be FULLY judge. You also don't have William J. Clinton in your bottom 5 as others do. However, I would argue that George Washington is not the best President, I don't really see what he did to earn that title.

I intend to post MY list soon, however, being the "historian" that I am, I must do some extra research to make sure that my list is not just fluff.

You won't be convinced of Reagan's greatness now if you don't already believe he was a great president for the simple fact that you're one of Nader's raiders.

How can an ultra-liberal leaning-socialist see greatness in someone as conservative as Reagan who did so much good for the country?

Bush is undisputably the worst ever.

Because Reagan didn't do much good for the country.

That's an interesting list.  I think it's cool that you including both Clinton and Reagan in the top 5, which shows you at least didn't base your ranking on the president's party and rather what the president accomplished for the country.  While I disagree that Clinton should be ranked so high (b/c of the many scandals that took place during his time as well as the foreign policy failures), and that Nixon beats Dubya, for the most part I think you've got pretty good list.

I agree that "M" has made a good list here.  I ask why were you so critical of my list when you praised "M's"?  Our lists (at least, our top and bottom 5's) are very similar.

After all, I admitted that Bush's term wasn't up yet and a lot could change; I admitted that he couldn't be "FULLY judged."  I chose to rank Bush, "M" did not but said that if he did, Bush would make the top 5, just as he did in my list.

I didn't have Clinton in my bottom 5, 10 or 15.  Rather, he was right in the middle.

I look forward to your list.  Yes, it takes time to make a *good* list.  I researched each of the presidents, but I confess, I did all of it in just one weekend's time...which doesn't allow for an accurate ranking.  Good luck!

:-)  I guess he's never heard of Buchanan, Pierce, Johnson, Nixon, Harding, Taft, Fillmore, Tyler, so on and so on.

studies ahve been done that more current presidents always do better as they are fresher in the minds of the populace.

GW ( george Washington that is :) ) is #1 on my list b/c he founded the country but also he could have been President for Life but stopped after 2 terms, establishing a tradition that was not broken until FDR.

I didn't mean to be so critical of your list, and if I was I apologize. The main disagreement I had with your list, however, is that you had Ronald Reagan listed as number one. And George Washington above Abraham Lincoln. But I won't argue that those two Presidents deserve to be in at least the top 5 or top 10 category.


Oh no. lol Now I feel like all eyes are on me for my list. lol

Here is my list: It is pretty thorough, and in part I have referenced my list using the following book:  

Kunhardt, Philip B., Jr., Philip B. Kunhardt III, Peter W. Kunhardt. The American President. Riverhead Books, New York, NY

The Following Eight Presidents were placed under the Category: The Candidate in the above referenced material.

Chapter One lists those Presidents who had a Heroic Posture:

1. George Washington: America's First Hero.
2. William Henry Harrison:  A Manufactured Hero.
3. Ulysses S. Grant: In over his head.
4. Dwight D. Eisenhower: The Heroic Image.

Chapter Two:  Compromise Choices

5. Franklin Pierce: The Dark Horse Candidate.
6. James A. Garfield: Awaiting Destiny.
7. Warren G. Harding: "I should never have been here."
8. Gerald R. Ford: Healing the Nation.

Politics and The Presidency-

Chapter Three: The Professional Politician-

9. Martin Van Buren: "The Little Magician.
10. James Buchanan: "Avoiding Conflict."
11. Abraham Lincoln:  Politics with a Purpose.
12. Lyndon B. Johnson: The Art of Political Bluster.

Chapter Four: An Independent Cast of Mind-

13. John Adams: Going it Alone.
14. Zachary Taylor: "Old Rough and Ready."
15. Rutherford B. Hayes: "No Fondness for Political Life."
16. Jimmy Carter: The Outsider.

A Matter of Destiny-

Chapter Five: Family Ties-

17. John Quincy Adams-His Father's Son.
18. Benjamin Harrison: "Nobody's Grandson."
19. Franklin D. Roosevelt: Possession by Right.
20. John F. Kennedy: Vindicating the Irish.

Chapter Six: Happenstance-

21. John Tyler: Establishing the Precedent.
22. Millard Fillmore: "Called by a Bereavement."
23. Andrew Johnson: "Elect of an Assassin."
24. Chester A. Arthur: "Gentleman Boss."
25. Harry S. Truman: American Optimist.

Executive Vision-

Chapter Seven: The American Way-

26. Thomas Jefferson: His "Empire of Liberty."
27. Calvin Coolidge: Preacher of Prosperity.
28. Herbert C. Hoover: American Individualist.
29. Ronald Reagan: An American Dreamer.

Chapter Eight: The World Stage-

30. James Monroe: A vision for the New Hemisphere.
31. William McKinley: Reluctant Apostle.
32. Woodrow Wilson: American Idealist.
33. George [Herbert Walker] Bush: Personal Contact.

An Office and its Powers-

Chapter Nine: Expanding Power-

34. Andrew Jackson: The Power of the People.
35. Grover Cleveland: Ugly Honest.
36. Theodore Roosevelt: "Rough Rider."
37. Richard M. Nixon: Abuse of Power.

Chapter Ten: The Balance of Power-

38. James Madison: Creating the Balance.
39. James K. Polk: "Young History."
40. William Howard Taft: Preserving the Balance.
41. William Jefferson Clinton: Second Chances.


Since my book was published just after the Impeachment and Acquittal of William J. Clinton, I will place George W. Bush under the following Category, even though his Presidency is not over!

I place George W. Bush under Chapter One's: Heroic Posture Sub-Category; also, under: Chapter Four's: The Independent Cast of Mind; also, under: Family Ties;  under the Happenstance Sub-Category of Chapter six; Under Eight's World Stage Sub-Category of Presidents; and last but not least: Chapter Nine's: Expanding Power Sub-Category.

Why does a Democrat put G.W.B. under so many different sub-categories? I only call them as I see them, and this is how I see G.W.: As a Heroic Figure, He has an Independent Mind, he has Family Ties to the Oval Office, Happenstance? The 2000 Election Debacle, the World Stage-Look what he's done as far as his foreign accomplishments so far! Also, I place him under the Expanding Powers Sub-Category: He wanted a new Cabinet: Department of Homeland Security-He Got It!

I hate to admit: He falls under so many Categories and Sub-Categories.

Questions/Comments? Want to chat: AOL: micma9

At least two eyes are watching..... :-)

I think I misunderstood when it all comes down to it.  No apology necessary.

My Favorite Ten in the order of Reverence to me:

1. George Washington
2. Abraham Lincoln.
3. Thomas Jefferson.
4. Franklin D. Roosevelt.
5. Ronald W. Reagan.
6. William J. Clinton.
7. Grover Cleveland.
8. Richard M. Nixon.
9. John F. Kennedy.
10. George Walker Bush.

     There you have my top 10! And David Letterman should Boast! Ha

Mr. Fresh,

     Why did I surprise you? Just Curious, As Usual.

I don't "THRASH" Republicans, I have voted Republican many times. Although I am a Democrat, I do vote Republican "Upon Demand." I still cannot see a Dean Presidency. If he becomes the nominee, this DEM will be voting Republican!
Hey, Mr. Fresh, Will Dick Cheney be on G.W.'s Ticket again?

I think FDR is perhaps the most overrated president in U.S. history.  Most economist have come to the conclusion that he prolonged the Great Depression.  He interned the Japanese.  He created the welfare state that we're still paying for today.  He gutted the military putting us at risk when war came knocking at our door.  He fabricated the case for going to war.  Communists were infultrating his administration and he was asleep at the wheel.

Did this man do any lasting good for this country?  I don't see that he did.  To the contrary, I think he did more long term damage to the country than almost any other politician in American history.

Same with Truman.  Someone commented on this thread that even though Truman embraced failed economic policies, he was tough on Communism.  He wasn't though.  "Containment" was a sham.  He didn't contain Communism during his administration, rather, Communism spread.  Not long before announcing the policy of containment, Truman was still referring to Stalin as "Uncle Joe."

Reagan was the first president since the Bolshevic Revolution who actually saw Communism lose ground during his administration.  He recognized that the Soviet Union's economy couldn't withstand an arms race with the United States.  By walking out of the Reykjavik during the arms reduction talks, Reagan doomed the Soviet Union.  They were struggling to catch up as we built a military machine.  He swept away the Soviet pawn of Grenada and halted Communism's advance in South America.

Reagan was just about the only president who actually stood up to the USSR.  Who knows how much earlier the USSR would've fallen had Truman or FDR or Kennedy or Nixon or any other Cold War presidents had stood up to them?

You are misinformed on two points. One, FDR had to do whatever he could try to do, times were desperate, 25% of the U.S. workforce were out of work. Hoover thought that somehow, if he just let things be, we'd come out of it, that didn't happen. Tough times call for Tough measures, even seemingly idiotic, thoughtless measures, but someone had to try something. Second, if Kennedy was not assassinated, he would have put an end to the Cold War before it got out of hand like it did. He had already dealt with the Cuban Missile Crisis Successfully. Russia had already been put on notice by Kennedy. As far as other Presidents, Johnson was dealing with the Vietnam Crisis, that Crisis that destroyed him, politically and personally. Nixon, was trying to figure out how he was going to keep his promise of ending the Vietnam Crisis, and became pre-occupied with opening doors with China and then Watergate, Carter, he had the Iranian Hostage Crisis, and of course, the fledgling Economy. So, Reagan was the only President with enough time on his hands to call an end to Communism in Russia.

Allow me to sum up your post.

Democrats bad....Republicans..goooood.

He is responsible for a huge chunk of that national debt that haunts us to this day.  His illegal wars in South america slaughtered thousands.  Now, he is seemingly a good guy, I'll give you that, but he was not a good president.

I agree with most of what you said about FDR, but don't blame Truman.  Remember, he had to deal with a mess that was left to him by the privious president.  He was though on communism.  It wasn't his fault the communists got half of europe, FDR negotiated that deal, not him.  He cut back big time on the waste in the new deal.  He cut back to the point where every program was managible and sustainable.  It was later that the Democrats reexpanded the programs to their current levels.  Personaly, I think Truman was one of our best president Democrat or Republican.

I'd agree I always liked Truman and TR ( the ones that said Bully and the Buck stops here)   larger than life and didn't care what EITHER political party thought they just did what was right.

Actually, Truman wasn't that great...IMO, of course.

He did *let* communism spread.  He sat back and did nothing while China fell to communism, creating a whole slew of problems that are still haunting us today.  His war in Korea hurt his approval ratings, which fell to the low 20s at the end of his administration.  He finished WWII (FDR actually won it--in the same way that Reagan won the Cold War and G.H.W. Bush finished it up), I'll give him that.

But you have to keep in mind the times in which Truman led.  The Cold War was beginning to heat up, and he literally did nothing.  He actually had (as is now proven, but was in doubt during the time) Soviet spies in his administration.  While those accusations arose, he wasn't even open to the possibility that they might be right--allowing Soviet spies to freely give top secret information to the enemy.

No matter what good he did, that lack of responsibility on his part and the complete disregard of the growing threat of communism, IMO, makes him a bad president.

FDR was the greatest President ever, and you can't change my mind on that.

More on others soon(ish)

Here's my list ... I used the same criteria and assigned each item a 5 point value.  I also only paid attention to what each individual did while President (Eisenhower & Grant get no points for military service, Jefferson gets no points for the Constituition).  Here's how my totals came down ... the higher the #, the better the rating (note, William Henry Harrison & James Garfield received even 30's because they really didn't have time to do anything).  Additionally I left George W Bush off the list as I don't think you can rate a President until they've been out of office for at least 2 years.

Harding - 20
Van Buren - 22
Grant - 22
Fillmore - 23
B. Harrison - 23
Ford - 23
Coolidge - 25
Carter - 25
Buchanan - 26
Pierce - 27
Hoover - 27
Adams - 29
Tyler - 29
LBJ - 29
Nixon - 29
H. Harrison - 30
Garfield - 30
Taft - 30
Reagan - 30 -> High in some areas, low in others, he balances out at a 30
Jackson - 31
Hayes - 31
Arthur - 31
McKinley - 31
Wilson - 31
Truman - 31
Eisenhower - 31
HW Bush - 31
Taylor - 32
A. Johnson - 32
Clinton - 32
Quincy Adams - 34
Cleveland - 34
Monroe - 35
Jefferson - 36 -> hurt by moral authority score
JFK - 37 -> helped by charisma score
Madison - 38 -> War of 1812
Polk - 38 -> high morality score & Mexican American war
Washington - 39
T. Roosevelt - 42
Lincoln - 43
FDR - 44

I do think Reagan should be in the top 5 or at least 10, and not for partisan reasons. He won the Cold War against great domestic and international opposition, and I think more importantly, he restoreds the faith of the American people in their government. After the murders of the Kennedies and Martin Luther King, the Vietnam War, the culture Wars, Watergate, and to top it all off, the disaster of Carter (economic maliase and all), all against the backdrop of the Cold War, the nation had little left to believe in. Suddenly here's this old actor from the patriotic WW2 era, symbolizing the even older proud American era of the open frontier (the "Cowboy"). He makes people believe in the country again, then wins the forty year Cold War (not entirely his doing, I admit, but he played a large part.) After that, most Americans believed again in ideals higher than personal security, in the cause of freedom.

Truman didn't "sit back while communism spread".  He created the Defense Department and the CIA.  What could he have done in China that would have made any major difference.  If he went into China, we would have had fewer troops in Europe or in Japan to handle the reconstruction there.  Probably every administration from FDR to Reagan had Soviet spies in it somewhere.  The difference is that Truman did not try to shield these people as FDR did.  Truman did a good job in dealing with Korea.  The mess there was MacArthur's fault.  What was Truman supposed to do?  Use the bomb?  Start WWIII 4 years after WWII had ended?  That would have been great for us (sarcasim)!  Most of the communists in Truman's administration were hold-outs from FDR.  You can't fault Truman for that.  He and FDR didn't know each other very well.  He had a total of three meetings with FDR while he was vice-pres.  Truman didn't just end WWII.  He ended it decisivly by dropping the bomb and not throwing millions of more live onto the fire or giving half of Japan to the Soviets.  Truman was very worried about the Soviet threat, but first he knew we had to concentrate on rebuilding the world inorder to prevent Western Europe and Japan from falling to the communists.  Before you start assigning blame, remember that the Soviets didn't really start to flex their muscles until the 1950's and Ike didn't do much more about it than Truman did.

Rice would be more energizing than Cheney.  I have nothing against Cheney, but I think that he was a poor chioce to begin with.  He did get the administration off the ground, but there were better chioces I think.  Besides, Cheney isn't going to run for president.  It's time to think about the future.  Rice would definatly have my support.

I think there are a whole slew of potential candidates for vice president.

Unfortunately, Bush has already stated that he sees no reason to kick Cheney off the ticket.

Oh well.  Don't get me wrong, I like Cheney, but, as many people have already said, he adds nothing.  I'd really like to see Giuliani on there, though he's planning on a senate run in '06.  

Maybe Bill Owens.  Rice would be great, as would Powell.

At least, with Cheney, Bush is sure to get Wyoming...oh wait, he was sure to get that anyway.

Clinton should be in the top 5, peace, prosperity, and progress in those 8 years that we'll never see again. His record flattens reagan.

W Bush will end up probably somewhere between 15-25

FDR would be #1

  Clinton was in the right place at the right time and had a amazing string of luck on both the international and economic fronts. When Clinton came into office, the major international threat that the US faced, the USSR was gone, and it looked like the Middle East was on the mend, the only real problem at the time was Bosnia, and that was a small country whose impact was strictly local.

  As for the economic front, the fact a GOP congress was elected in 94 held the line of Clintons spending hikes(conversely he held the line on the GOP excessive tax cut proposals) so the combination of the two produced a unusual amount of fiscal restraint. This fiscal restraint produced dropping intrest rates. As for inflation, the fact Japan for most of the 90s was mired in various recession caused inflation, especially on fuel, to be far lower than it otherwise would have been, and Japans deflation led the Japanese to buy record amounts of US tresuries, further taking pressue off intrest rates.

   The 90s economically in part was real, but also was in part illusion, the economic stats from the 90s, especially when one measures productivity gains(and these stats are still quite suspect because the Clinton era methods of taking them are still in place). History will show Clinton not as a horrible president, but not as a great one either, he will be viewed as somthing equivlent to William Mckinley.  On the other hand, Clintons insane strong dollar policy under Robert Rubins advice, the trade gap that exploded and the illegal immigration problems that got far worse are problems that will impact the US for decades to come.

Peace and prosperity can be achieved many ways. They can be achieved if the Nazis complete world conquest. Isolationism is not a worthy national goal.

I would rank Clinton the better part of middle of the road except for lying under oath, which brings him down to lower part of middle of the road. What great thing did he accomplish for the expansion of the ideal that "all men are created equal"? Nothing.

George W. Bush should not be ranked yet. So far, however, he has shown a moral clarity not seen since Wilson, but unlike Wilson and like Washington, Lincoln, FDR, and Reagan especially, he has had the guts to get it done against strong opposition. This is evidenced by his incredible vision of spreaqding democracy and self-determination to the entire Near East.

I put FDR at 3. He did the most ever to expand democracy (our system was truly in danger of collapse during the depression, but he saved it. Then he not just won WW2, but turned the Axis into thriving democracies.) Abe Lincoln is higher, his moral clarity and determination not to allow the Union's split and later to eradicate the evil of slavery make him one of the greatest men in history. Washington, though, founded more traditions about running the country than it is possible to count. Unlike any other president ever, there was broad support for him to be made King or Dictator. He turned all these offers down, and governed with the principles of Locke and Montesqieu. He truly was First In War, First in Peace, and First in the Hearts of his Countrymen.

 

I think Carter is one of the most underrated Presidents in history. Firstly, people tend to equate the problems of the Carter years with Carter himself, but in fact the problems of that era, notably stagflation, had begun far before the Carter presidency. In fact, it was Jimmy Carter's appointment of Paul Volcker to head of the Federal Reserve board that began to turn the country's economy around. Volcker, who says that he was "sort of a Democrat" was also a known monetary tightener. He curbed growth of the money supply and immediately began to raise interest rates dramatically in October 1979. This sent the economy into a recession that hurt Carter in the election but brought inflation down from its peak- and it would continue to fall ever since. The "Carter recession" of 1980 and the much deeper "Reagan recession" of 1982 were all engineered by Paul Volcker. At the time, he was widely disliked and accused of creating high unemployment, but inflation was finally defeated. Another thing that hurt Carter (and Volcker) but which was beyond his control was oil price hikes set off as the result of the Iranian revolution. These hikes were even bigger than the oil price hikes under the OPEC oil embargo. A glance at a long-term chart shows that Carter and Volcker were trying to steer an industrial economy at a time when energy prices were at pre-industrial levels-- the highest since about 1870.

http://www.wtrg.com/oil_graphs/oilprice1869.gif
http://www.wtrg.com/oil_graphs/crudeoilprice7281.gif

One interesting thing pointed out by the chart is that Carter announced oil price decontrol. The website says: "The US imposed price controls on domestically produced oil in an attempt to lessen the impact of the 1973-74 price increase.  The obvious result of the price controls was that U.S. consumers of crude oil paid 48 percent more for imports than domestic production. Of course U.S producers received less.
Did the policy achieve its goal? In the short term the recession induced by the 1973-1974 crude oil price rise was less.  However, it had other effects as well.  In the absence of price controls U.S. exploration and production would certainly have been significantly greater. The higher prices faced by consumers would have resulted in lower rates of consumption: automobiles would have had higher mileage sooner, homes and commercial buildings would have been better insulated and improvements in industrial energy efficiency  would have been greater than they were during this period. As a consequence, the United States would have been less dependent on imports in 1979-1980 and the price increase in response to Iranian and Iraqi supply interruptions would have been significantly less. "
Thus, price decontrols, plus monetary policy reversal, brought short-term pain that cost Carter the election, but at the long-term benefit to America.

Iranian revolution. Carter came into office much as a result of the corruption of the previous administrations. Consequently, he was the only President to pressure all of America's authoritarian allies to improve their human rights records, even if it made things more difficult for him (or, say, the Shah of Iran). But Carter's concern for human rights in dictatorial regimes didn't  lead to the revolt of Iranian religious leaders-- that came after somebody assasinated a relative of the Ayatollah in Iraq in 1977, and after the Shah's regime published an article mocking the Ayatollah in January 1978. At the time the revolution was actually a broad-based democratic revolution with a wide political spectrum participating. Only as 1979 and the early 1980s wore on did the Ayatollah increasingly eliminate all of his political opponents.

Peaks and troughs. The second oil shock sent prices to record (industrial) highs, and they peaked in January 1981, the same month Ronald Reagan took office. Thus while Reagan had falling oil prices throughout his presidency (they finally fell through the bottom in 1985), Carter dealt with rising oil prices throughout his.

Here are the prices under Reagan. Note that only the change in oil prices leads to inflationary/deflationary pressures; their absolute level does not lead to price presures over the long term.
http://www.wtrg.com/oil_graphs/crudeoilprice8198.gif

Hostage situation. Throughout the hostage year, television channels kept reporting the number of days the hostages had been in Iran. I read that Walter Cronkite began every broadcast with something like "today is the 339th day..." However this misses the point that the most important thing is that the hostages are not killed and eventually freed. Carter must be credited with taking very seriously the lives of the hostages in the U.S. embassy in Iran, and he was ultimately successful. He managed to negotiate for the release of all the hostages without a single dead. That is quite a remarkable feat considering they were held by a fanatical religious regime in a city in central Asia some 800 miles from the coast. Compare this to Putin's sledgehammer approach in central Moscow last year-- it may have benefitted him politically but it cost 115 innocent lives. Finally, Carter takes the heat for the failure of a military rescue mission, but it isn't the President's job to micromanage the mechanical viability of every helicopter. In this case Carter got unlucky.

Overall, Carter was probably one of the unluckiest Presidents in the 20th century, which is unfortunate because he was also one of the most honest and concerned about human rights.

This argument is... astonishing. Wow. I am speechless.

Until I remember there are those who apologize for Hitler as well. A lot of them. They rule several Middle Eastern nations.

On second thought, Beet isn't so out of touch with reality.

It's true that Truman mishandled the internal security issue.  I also don't approve of his hostility toward business, and propensity toward price controls and high taxes.

But he did revolutionalize US foreign policy into taking the first steps to confront communism.  He developed the Marshall Plan and NATO.

I don't think anybody could have prevented the fall of China to the communists without a massive military intervention that would never have received the sustained support of the American public.  The nationalist government was completely ineffectual and corrupt, and Truman was not to blame for that.

Here is my list.  A couple of notes:

I didn't include James Garfield, WH Harrison, and Zachary Taylor because they didn't have enough time to establish a presidential legacy.  I didn't include Clinton and GW Bush because it is too soon to recognize their legacy.  In fact, I think it's still a bit early to recognize GHW Bush's legacy, but I included it anyway.  Even though I'm fairly young, my choices lean more toward the historic than the modern.

Great Presidents

1   George Washington
2   Thomas Jefferson
3   Franklin D. Roosevelt
4   Abraham Lincoln
5   James K. Polk
6   Lyndon Johnson
7   Theodore Roosevelt

Excellent Presidents

8   Harry S. Truman
9   Ronald Reagan
10   John F. Kennedy
11   Dwight Eisenhower
12   James Madison
13   Andrew Jackson
14   GHW Bush
15   William McKinley

Good Presidents

16   Grover Cleveland
17   James Monroe
18   Calvin Coolidge
19   John Adams
20   JQ Adams

Good Presidents with critical negatives.

21   Richard Nixon
22   Woodrow Wilson
23   Benjamin Harrison
24   WH Taft
25   Jimmy Carter
26   Herbert Hoover
27   Ulysses S. Grant
28   Gerald Ford

Poor Presidents

29   Martin Van Buren
30   Rutherford Hayes
31   John Tyler
32   Franklin Pierce
33   Andrew Johnson
34   Chester Arthur
35   Millard Fillmore
36   James Buchanan
37   Warren G. Harding

Washington is easily the greatest president of all time, because he could have maintained power, becoming a defacto monarch or dictator.  It was critical to the success of democracy that he voluntarily pass on the power of the presidency.  He was also instrumental in maintaining the legimacy of federal power in a very weak and unstable union.

Harding made a mockery of the Presidency.  Whatever lack of respect you have for Clinton, it should be magnified one-hundredfold for Harding.

So instead of making any points you launch an ad hominem attack and compare Carter to Hitler? Wow that post must have really struck a nerve. Carter is a real patriot and I'm surprised you hate him so much.

For me I view Jimmy Carter as such.  Great person, HORRIBLE president.

When you think of bad economic times in the modern area think f Carter.  Gas shortages, grain embargo, sky high inflation.

Jimmy Carter deserves to be listed among the worst of presidents.  Just like Herbert Hoover.

I will admit that with both Carter and Hoover, the times of their administrations weren't great times, and there are many things that happened during their presidencies that aren't directly their fault.  The problem was that both Carter and Hoover reacted to those problems in ways that solved nothing, or they reacted too late, or simply didn't react at all.

Both Carter and Hoover were great humanitarians and they deserve to be recognized for that.  But their terms in office were horrible, and *that* deserves to be recognized also.

I think of lot of people are confusing good and great.

Nixon was a terrible President who abused his power and ruled a country that had been democratic for almost 200 years like a dictator.
However he was also *great* as he casts a very long shadow.

I really disagree for the following reasons;
-Carter had poor relations with a US Congress controlled by his own party. He had very poor political skills with the give and take needed and casted everyting as a "moral choice".
-He was very naive dealing with the Soviets and was completely surprised when they invaded Afghanistan just 6 months after signing a peace agreement while they were amassing forces on the Afghan border.
-He let the Shah of Iran enter the US after he was overthrown and this infuriated the Muslim Revolutionaries (Ayatollah Kohmeni).
-While professing to seeking only a negotiated release of the hostages in Iran, Carter ordered a poorly planned rescue (Operation Eagle Claw) in April 1980.  Carter ordered the helicopters to fly very low which caused desert dust to overwhelm several helicopters - result was failure and many deaths -then his Sec. of State C. Vance quit.
-Carter kept saying that he had a plan to control inflation and interest rates but they both spiraled to record heights by 1980.
-And on election night 1980 Carter conceeded defeat right after the east coast polls closed which resulted in thousands of Democrats not voting in the Central, Mountain and Pacific time zones - the Democrats unexpectedly lost the US Senate as a result :)

I beg to differ that Clinton did nothing for the expansion of the ideal that "all men are created equal," he had an affair didn't he. He shares a love for Oral Sex, which is incredibly awesome, if he or she knows how to please. He lied about sex-further acknowledging the old addage that "a gentleman never tells." So, he did a lot for his fellow man. He showed all of the country his humanity, that he is not a perfect being. He did a lot.

Always said Clinton was the PERFECT DEMOCRAT Candidate and so GOP couldn't beat him.

Draft Dodger, adulteror, lied through his teeth and directly to the American people many times.

Hard to beat their perfect candidate :) :)

I am glad you're coming around! Clinton is contagious, if only other Republicans would catch it like people catch the flu. It would be a better country. And, before you blow your tops, I think if us Democrats jumped on the Bush Bandwagon, noone would have to worry about supporting a DEM candidate they despise, especially if it's Dean. I have said it before, and I will say it again, I will go Bush if Dean is the Nominee.

Can we agree to drop this myth of Clinton as a draft dodger?  Say what you want about the guy, but he was in school (as a Rhodes Scholar I believe) at the time of the war.

It would be more accurate to call George W a draft dodger (I'm not so don't get fired up).  Bush was in the same National Guardsman unit as Lloyd Bentsen's son and the son's of several other prominent Washington politicians.  I doubt that happened by chance and I sure as heck doubt that unit was EVER getting called to do ANYTHING.

They were defending Texas from North Vietnam goddammit! ;)

hehehehehehehehehehahahahahahehehehehe

Great Presidents

FDR
Lincoln
Washington
T. Roosevelt
Jefferson
Truman

Good Presidents

Eisenhower
Kennedy
Clinton
Wilson
A. Jackson

Fair Presidents

Polk
Monroe
LBJ
Hayes
Cleveland
Grant
McKinley
GHWB
Taft
B. Harrison
Ford
Nixon
Van Buren

Moderately Bad

Reagan
Madison
Carter
Buchanan
Pierce
A. Johnson
Quincy Adams
Tyler

Crown Jewel of badness

Herbert Hoover

Those unlisted I have not feeling to.

You lost twice, didn't you?

That's right. They lost twice! And, if Clark gets elected, they'll have lost the White House after one term again. But, not if it's Dean!

MiamiU's list is pretty good, a few places I disagree, but the glaring problem is your ranking of Reagan, which is utterly ridiculous/ Winning the Cold War and restoring the nation's faith in govt is moderately bad? What the heck?

I see many Republicans here claiming that Reagan singlehandedly "won" the cold war. He didn't. Reagan's foreign policy undoubtedly contributed to the collapse of the USSR, but the Soviet Union failed primarily on its own accord due to having an economic and sociopolitical system which was utterly unsustainable.

You're also disregarding the involvement of Gorbachev, Kohl, and others.

Reagan I would say defeinately Accelerated the Soviet Unions demise.  They just couldn't keep up with us.  Yes Reagan ran up deficits, but Russians just couldn't keep up militarily then and fell.

God Bless Ronald Reagan!

Right now Reagan needs all the help he can get...

As far as the Cold War goes, the U.S.S.R collapsed because it had to(see: Davies, "Europe. A History")

There are four people who are responsible for winning the Cold War. These are: Pope John Paul II; President Ronald Reagan; Margaret Thatcher; and last but not least: tada, Mikhael Gorbachev.

Yes, certainly others contributed to the CCCP's fall, including Thatcher, Kohl, John Paul II, Walesa, Havel, Yeltsin, Schervadnadze, and of course Gorbachev, but certainly Reagan's victory in the Cold War should not rank as moderately bad! Even if you make Iran-Contra out to be as Watergate, MiamiU still ranks Reagan below Nixon! This can only be explained by ideological considerations, which should be strongly avoided as a factor when ranking presidents.

There's certainly a major problem in evaluating Presidents for which the ranking party had the opportunity to vote.  No one ever likes to admit that they were wrong.  So the rankings of any President from JFK through GW Bush are going to be skewed.  Long after either Jefferson or Lincoln were in office you could find people who called them the worst thing that had happened to America.

Reagan and Clinton are the perfect examples of what I'm talking about.  It seems rather rare to find someone who loves them both.  I think both men did some excellent work while President ... I also think they both made some horrendous mistakes.  At the end of the day the good and the bad balance them out in my opinion.

I wont make an attempt at a comprehensive ranking, since it is so hard to compare different feats (like getting 5 points for winning WWII, I mean seriously, that is kind of priceless). I also think that the influence of presidents is overrated. Economy, for example, mostly just happens, the notion that politicians decide about it is largely a myth.

Still, those who would make top 10 would be (in no particular order, though I might rank some higher than others) Washington, Jefferson, Truman, Reagan. Arguably Lincoln, though I have my doubts there (free trade and centralization).

FDR sold out Eastern Europe and chose Stalin over Churchill, betraying democracy and the western world. He did a great deal of good things, but I just can't forgive him for that. Carter I think was a good guy doing his best during harsh times and with a lack of statemanship. Pretty much the same could be say of LBJ, although less good guy and more decisivness. The rest of the 20th century presidents I don't really like.

And I know I only put 5 people in top 10 but I couldn't bring myself to making Truman top 5 and I didn't come up with more good names.

top ten

1-FDR
2-LINCOLN
3-CLINTON
4-WASHINGTON
5-TRUMAN
6-WILSON
7-REAGEN
8-LBJ
9-CARTER
10-EISENHOWER

I think that the most under-rated president is LBJ, while the most over-rated is Lincoln.

LBJ's domestic policies helped millions of people escape from poverty and gave Blacks basic civil rights.

I don't like Lincoln.
He is usually credited as freeing the slaves and ending the Civil War.

Lincoln caused the Civil War(which was NOT about slavery, which although a terrible institution would have died out within a few years as it would have become economically stupid), he only freed the slaves(most of which continued to work for very bad wages under their old masters and on the same plantations),  because it would ruin the economy of the south.
He was an abominable racist(his view of Black people apparently shocked many southern congressmen) and did nothing to help black people other than a token proclamation of their freedom.

I think LBJ was great on civil rights, but terrible on everything else, so it's hard to think of him as a "great" president.  LBJ and Nixon are the most conflicted modern presidents, with great strengths and ruinous weaknesses.

As far as Lincoln goes, I'm sure he didn't believe that blacks were equal to whites, but few people, if anybody, believed that back then.

He was radical in the sense that he not only opposed slavery, but wanted to end it.  He thought it evil enough that it had to end, and that was what those in the south could not abide.

It took another 100 years after slavery ended to truly give blacks even a semblance of equal rights,
but Lincoln did make a start with that, when others weren't willing to take the risks he did.

You have a point there.


Hmmm, I'm not so sure about that. Many historians argue that the Civil War was inevitable, because conflict had been brewing for a long time prior to Lincoln's election.

I don't think that the Civil War was inevitable.
Certainly had either the Official Democrats or the Constitutional Union party won the war would have been averted.

It's got to be remembered that only the extreme Abolitionists(eg. John Brown) and the Fire Eaters(eg. SC legislature) actually wanted a war.
Lincoln was not directly responsible(and I doubt that he wanted a war), but he was indirectly responsible as he and the rest of the Republican party were very divisive.

I don't have a problem with Lincoln himself, he was a flawed giant, but I do have a problem with the cult that has grown up around him.

LBJ was great just as Nixon was great.
I find Nixon abhorrent and you dislike LBJ, but great is not the same as good.

WHAT??

LBJ underrated, can we say Vietnam and NOT WANTING TO WIN!  If you got to War you go to win.  I agree with the war, but not of his micromanaging it.  You let the generals run the wars.  Then there was the Great Society, or the Great Giveaways which never helped even though BILLIONS of dollars were spent.

Lincoln not great?  When he took over from Buchanon who had done nothing (so I'd have Buchanon as one of the worst President) the war was already at a boiling point.

"other than a token proclamation of their freedom"  WELL YEAH BESIDES THAT.  geez.

The Civil War wasn't really about slaves, but about states v federal government and economical issues like free trade. Also, Lincoln did not actually advocate an abolition of slavery just a confinement to those states who already had it.

Okay, an 'across the pond' view on Top 5 President's (post war) here! Attack me at your will.

1. Bill Clinton (Steady economy, genuine care for social values. Indirectly helped create New Labour in the UK under Tony Blair)

2. Richard Nixon (Scandal aside, history will judge him kindly. Do you think we would have such and open and co-operative China today if it wasn't for Nixon?)

3. Lyndon Johnson (Again, his Medicare achievements echoed British style Welfare State reforms. His tenure coincided with that of Labour's Harold Wilson in the UK who legalised abortion, homosexuality, easier divorce and a whole wave of reforms.)

4. Jimmy Carter (no reason here, hes just a nice guy!)

5. Ronald Reagan (No one can deny his 'hurt to help' policies worked, similar to Thatcher's over here. And im saying this as a Social Democrat!)

LBJ was out of control. He didn't try to end Vietnam. He just sent more and more troops in. Nixon ended the Vietnam War. He had the BALLS or Kissinger did, to do it. We had control of 90% of the Territory for South Vietnam when we did pull out. After we left, Congress withdrew funding and then North Vietnam gained ground again. It's the Congress' fault that the final outcome of the war was so negative.

Congress did not cause the downturn.  LBJ did.

The North wouldn't even talk at the peace talks except about stupid stuff like the size of the meeting table because we had traitors like Hanoi Jane Fonda out helping th eother side.  So they stalled until Nixon renewed Bombing of the North and they started to talk again.

You can't fight a limited war.  War is hell, get in and get it done!

LBJ's legislative legacy is far better than his foreign policy legacy.  He passed the most important legislation of the latter 20th century, directly affecting the social make-up of the USA today.

The Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Housing Act effectively ended segregation, the Fair Immigration Law of 1965 eliminated the quota system and vastly increased the cultural diversity in the US, and of course Medicare.

The riots and demonstrations are long gone, and what is left from his presidency far better America than it would have been without him.  It's why I put him in my Top Ten list.

LBJ had a great legislative legacy in terms of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but beyond that I think he did far more harm than good.

I think it's a great tragedy that LBJ followed up on his well-conceived plans to bring blacks into the mainstream with programs that encouraged the poor to rely more heavily on government programs.  Liberalized welfare programs increased dependency, and encouraged the kind of behavior that can only result in poverty.  Black illegitimacy, a strong predictor of poverty and criminality, jumped from 25% in 1965 to 70% today.  LBJ's approach to crime (rehabilitation, not punishment) also helped lead to a tripling of the per-capita crime rate since the early 1960s.

The meltdown of the black family has undone a lot of the good in Johnson's civil rights platform.  And largely because of this, racial separation (I won't call it segregation, since it's not imposed by law) has persisted throughout the country.  Housing laws only go so far when millions of individual decisions, made on the basis of perceived self-interest, lead to continued separation of the races.

I think that if LBJ had backed programs designed to create self-sufficiency rather than dependency, and if his administration had been a little more realistic and a little less idealistic, those he wanted to help would be in a far better position today than they are.

See what I mean? You can disagree whether or not LBJ was a good President but it's a fact that he was great

The same can be said for Jackson, Lincoln, Nixon etc.

hw can you say he was great? especially when their is such heated debate if he was eeven good, which I would consider to be BELOW great

Nixon took a heck of a long time to end the war in Vietnam, though. 5 years after he came in with his supposed "secret plan to end the war", and we were still there. Nixon basically continued the policies of LBJ in Vietnam after having said that he wouldn't.

I agree that Johnson is one of the best Presidents we've had, he was duped into going into Vietnam by the Gulf of Tonkin which was a complete staged lie. Johnson was fooled by the military into starting the war because the military wanted to kick some commie behind (think of General Buck Turgidson or General Jack Ripper from Dr. Strangelove. One of the best movies of all time, by the way, if you've never seen it. An absolute classic! The only thing very unrealistic about it though is that no one with the name Merkin Muffley could ever get elected President!)
Johnson never would've gotten into the war if he hadn't been fooled into thinking that the Vietnamese had attacked our ship in the Gulf of Tonkin. Then once we were in, we couldn't just run out with our tail between our legs. It was a very difficult situation, Johnson made some obvious mistakes, the largest being a lack of effective communication with the public and misinformation about how things were going (though that happens in every war). Overall though, I think he did the best he could with what he had to work with.

I agree that Dr. Strangelove is very good (like most Kubrick films)

To return to subject: the Christmas number of The Economist features a ranking of the last 20 American presidents compared to the last 20 British monarchs to see whether inherited positions give much worse results than a republican system. The monarchs actually win narrowly...

The ranking is simply that each of these persons is given a score from 1 to 4, where 4 is worse and 1 is best. There is no particular order within each number category, but I did put GWB and Clinton close to each other, so as to try to make both parts happy!

FDR: 1 "Saved the world"

TR: 1 "Inconstant but inspiring, a reformer"

Ronald Reagan: 2 "Good cold warrior, amiable, limited"

Grover Cleveland: 2 "Decent and able in most  corrupt of times"

Harry Truman: 2 "Rose to the occasion, good helpers, policies"

Dwight Eisenhower: 2 "Decent post-war consolidator"

JFK: 2 "Able, good ,missile crisis, little achieved"

William Taft: 2 "Decent, stolid, fat"

Woodrow Wilson: 2 "Great reformer, though tragic figure"

LBJ: 3 "Good reforms, bad economics, worse war"

Gerald Ford: 3 "Decent but limited succedaneum"

Jimmy Carter: 3 "Good intentions, few achievements"

George Bush Sr.: 3 "Good war, otherwise mediocre"

William McKinley: 3 "Mediocrity"

Calvin Coolidge: 3 "Honest, but limited"

Bill Clinton: 3 "Brilliance outweighed by dishonesty"

GWB: 3 "Too soon to rate him more highly"

Richard Nixon: 4 "Capable of brilliance, but corrupt, reckless"

Herbert Hoover: 4 "Failed to rise to the occasion"

Warren Harding 4 "Stupid and corrupt"

I should have included President Johnson in my Top Ten List. I would have done so only on the Domestic front, not on Foreign Affairs. The Voting Rights Act was a part of the Kennedy/Johnson plan, he did it in memory of the President.
     However, I also did not include him because of allegations of his involvement in President Kennedy's assassination. He called the NSA [National Security Agency] forces that were in Texas in advance of Kennedy's arrival and told them to withdraw, that they were not needed! I was told this by an Academic Scholar who was part of the eight man march  with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and he was arrested, and thrown in the Birmingham, AL jail with Dr. King. He had experienced a lot and was involved heavily in stuff back then, before becoming a prof.

That's a complete bunk of a conspiracy theory. LBJ wouldn't have that kind of power to be able to call off the NSA, I don't really think that is a decision for Vice Presidents to make. And even in the unlikely event that it is true, I'm sure there is likely to be a more plausible explanation for why it was done. You're dealing with mighty circumstantial evidence there.
Security in general was a lot more lax back in those days. Today, there is no way they would allow someone to have a gun in a building along the parade route of the President. Plus the President would not be likely to be riding in an open top car along a parade route now anyways. But it was the 1960's, and people just didn't think such a thing would happen. The security was just not what it is today.

 I would say that LBJ and Nixon are among the most damaging presidents the US ever had,  in terms of how they dramatically increased the size and scope of federal govrenmnet and how both LBJ and Nixon pushed the federal govrenment to micromanage the affairs of its own citizens. Most of the social problems the US has todaym, and many of the fiscal problems can be laid at the feet of both the Great Society programs and the social programs Nixon introduced in the early 70s.

   To me, the lats great president was Truman, a man who did not care about world opinion, a man who did what he thought was best, regaurdless of what others thought.

  My list would be for the top 5 would be., though in no order are

  1.)  FDR
  2.) Truman
  3.) Lincoln
  4.) Jefferson
  5.) Madison

   Reagan had he had congressional majorities to impliment what he wanted to implement on domestic issues may have been in the top 5, but he didnt because of the annoying aspect of split ticket voting, a aspect of Americans politics that has for the most part vanished in the last 10 years thankfully.

JNB, your list looks good except for Madison.  Why is he there?  He didn't do anything that monumental, unless I am seriously mistaken.

 James Madison was the author of a large portion of the constituion. Yes it was before his presidency, but his influence on the US was monumental.

Fine enough.... :)

Not necessarily true.  As JNB pointed out, he was a major contributor to the Constituition.  He held the nation together while it was getting slammed in the War of 1812 (imagine how a modern Pres would be cheered if he held things together after Washington was burned).  Madison served as Sec. of State during the Jefferson years and helped to engineer the Louisiana Purchase.

It's true that we never hear of Madison very often. But he was instrumental in those accomplishments.

Yes, but what did he do *as president*?  That's why he isn't top 5 on my list.

1. Franklin Roosevelt
2. Lincoln
3. Wilson
4. Clinton
5. Washington

42. Harding
41. Grant
40. Hoover
39. Buchanan
38. Coolidge

Reasonable list.  Clinton and Wilson are too high.  Wilson was good, but I don't like the way it all went down, leaving his wife in charge.   Truman should be higher.

no Bush has done a lot and as been very successful, but now with the loss of the Presidency, both houses of Congress and a majority of state legislatures and governors the Dems are swinging farther to the left and just anti-bush and filled with a lot of hate.  kind of sad really.

OK, I am confused...if I have understood it correctly, there has been 42 American presidents, but GWB is the 43d. Or am I missing something? Does Cleveland count for two or what?

And that makes him incompetent?  Go away.

Ehh...he does say NOT the most incompetent, you know. He isn't all bad!

Damn!  Now I look like the jerk.

Thank You, Thank You Very Much!

Yep, I'm afraid you do! :) Maybe you could be a good troll if you wanted to! :) :)

Thanks....
LETS GO HURRICANES

Oh, never mind! :)

Btw, does anyone intend to answer my little question? Why is GWB the 43d president when there seem to have been only 42?

This is because grover Cleveland was elected twice.  He was elected, defeated, and then elected again.  He is the 22nd and 24th presidents.

OK, that's what I thought. It seems a little weird to me, but what the heck, most things here do... :)

No problem.

I read that book, it's not very good, I hope you didn't get your rankings from it. You need to learn about the presidents individually to get accurate rankings

I would really like to see what proof you had that Kennedy would have ended the cold war! If you look at the Cuban Missile crisis, Russia got the better end of the deal. For removing the missiles in Cuba, to US removed the missiles in Turkey and agreed not to invade Cuba. That's a 2 for 1 deal. LBJ was probably the worst foriegn policy president ever, so I doubt he would have done anything. Nixon/Ford were into detene, not confrontation. Carter's big answer to the soviets was to boycott the olympics.

As far as Hoover, if he had actually did nothing, the depression would have cleared. Instead he panicked raising Tarrifs and taxes, started spending more money and interfering in business, which turned a recession into a great depression.

How on earth did Wilson show moral clarity? He was a racist who imposed segregation into the federal government and stirred racism through his glowing review of the move "The Birth of a Nation." He also stirred anti-eastern European racism with his world war I propoghanda. He appossed womens right to vote. He was easily one of the most moralist presidents ever.

You give Carter too much credit. Carter asked Volker to do the exact opposite of what he had done, so he deserves no credit there. Volker worked for Nixon, and was for loose monetary policy, after Carter named him head of the Fed, he did a 180. As far as human rights go, the Ayatolla was far worse than the Shah, He gave the panama canal zone over to panama & signed a treaty with China stating China could take over Taiwan. He also gave arms to Saddam Heussien and the Taliban. Not the great Humans rights record you claim he had. He also had no idea of how to actually do the job. Like Hoover, Van Buren & Cleveland, he was swallowed up by a poor economy.

If you took the time to actually learn about him, you would see Harding was a really good president

If Reagan hadn't put pressure on the USSR it wouldn't have collapsed, at least not as soon. Gorbachev recognized the writting on the wall from what Reagan was doing, which is why he was willing to loosen the soviet grip in eastern europe in order to save the USSR, but it was too late.

LBJ's policies actually locked people into poverty. He expanded welfare, started the practice of stealing money from social security to pay for other things, and created the budgetary timebomb of Medicare/Medicade. All the bad things that were going on that led to watergate were going on under LBJ (Historians just forget to tell people about it) This doesn't even go into the Vietnam debacle. He was the first president since Pierce who couldn't even get renominated by his party when he sought renomination.

...why are you bumping a nine year old thread?