Aggregate Ranking of all 43
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As noted, this is an aggregate poll done by mostly professional historians....and not by random individuals who may have one point of view or another.
Some right winger might put Carter, Obama, Johnson in their bottom 5. Some left winger might put W. Bush, Reagan, and Nixon in their bottom 5.
I kind of like the fact that there was a professional approach made to this into which each POTUS was graded on about 20-25 different factors. It measures accomplishment, not prejudice.
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Barack Obama has accomplished enough to be the 17th best overall? I don't believe that.
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Barack Obama has accomplished enough to be the 17th best overall? I don't believe that.
Barack Obama has accomplished enough to be the 17th best overall? I don't believe that.
To satisfy your curiosity, here you go:
http://pleasecutthecrap.com/obama-accomplishments/
And guess who the most hated President in his day likely was?
http://knowledgenuts.com/2014/01/02/abraham-lincoln-was-actually-hated-when-president/
Yea, the guy who is ranked #1 best President, by historians. (this is why you cannot trust current public opinions)
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Hard to empirically rank Presidencies. In my lifetime I'd say Reagan and Obama seem quite high.
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Hard to empirically rank Presidencies. In my lifetime I'd say Reagan and Obama seem quite high.
Hard to empirically rank Presidencies. In my lifetime I'd say Reagan and Obama seem quite high.
Agree that it is very difficult to do this scientifically. It seems that Siena College has perhaps best attempted to achieve that. At least they have set forth multiple criteria on which to try to do their study:
The Siena College Research Institute (SRI) has been conducting the US Presidents Study since 1982. The study calls upon historians, political scientists and presidential scholars to rate the presidents in twenty areas:
- Background
- Imagination
- Integrity
- Intelligence
- Luck
- Willing to take risks
- Avoid crucial mistakes
- Court appointments
- Domestic Accomplishments
- Executive Appointments
- Foreign Policy accomplishments
- Handling of U.S. Economy
- Party leadership
- Relationship with Congress
- Ability to compromise
- Communication ability
- Executive ability
- Leadership ability
- Overall ability
SRI conducted 5 separate studies since 1982 including one in 2010 that includes current president, Barack Obama.
- See more at: https://www.siena.edu/centers-institutes/siena-research-institute/social-cultural-polls/us-presidents-study/#sthash.4d0eoFNP.dpuf
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How many Presidents were forced to resign?
He gets my vote as worst.
Others have been impeached, but Nixon QUIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Nixon did a lot to enforce civil rights. Things that RFK (who gets all the credit) didn't have the balls to do.
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You've got to wonder who is doing these rankings because party affiliations aside it's difficult to believe the legacy of lyndon Johnson is greater than Reagan.
It was hundreds of historians of all sorts.....not just a few with personal political views.
I guess if you look at the records, Johnson did a lot on the positive side with domestic legislation...the Great Society and all that. But he had his negative foreign policy issue...Vietnam.
With Reagan, he made people feel good....but the country suffered from one of its worst economic recessions in his term.
He had his positives in foreign affairs....but also negatives, Iran-Contra.
I suspect that perhaps a hundred years ago you could have had people saying: "how in the hell can you rank Grover Cleveland over William McKinley".
Debate that one!
With Reagan, he made people feel good....but the country suffered from one of its worst economic recessions in his term. He had his positives in foreign affairs....but also negatives, Iran-Contra.
Not sure what's so successful about LBJ's Great Society. A trillion or two dollars put into it and the numbers haven't budged. But of course, that is how liberals are graded: by the nobility of their intentions, not by the results of the actions.
Re: Reagan. The recession was in his first year. It can be easily attributed to his predecessor. Reagan pulled the country out of it and set the foundation for steady growth all the way up to 2008 (his tax cuts were THAT drastic).
"Had his positives in foreign affairs."? That's gotta be up for understatement of the year. You can't cancel out ridding the world of the greatest threat it had ever known because of a scandal. Which president since Nixon has NOT had a scandal? Bush the elder maybe? Reagan was phenomenal.
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Reagan should be far and away on the top of the list. The only reason Kennedy is rated high is because he was assassinated.
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Only liberal presidents get to blame their economic woes on their predecessors
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Here is Ann Coulter on these presidential rankings by "historians." She is truly hilarious and did a good job in this piece of exposing people who make these lists. Here goes:
Being gracious winners, this week, liberals howled with delight at George Bush for coming in seventh-to-last in a historians' ranking of the presidents from best to worst.
Being ranked one of the worst presidents by "historians" is like being called "anti-American" by the Nation magazine. And by "historian," I mean a former member of the Weather Underground, who is subsidized by the taxpayer to engage in left-wing activism in a cushy university job.
So congratulations, George Bush! Whenever history professors rank you as one of the "worst" presidents, it's a good bet you were one of the best.
Six months after America's all-time greatest president left office in 1989, historians ranked him as only a middling president. (I would rank George Washington as America's greatest president, but he only had to defeat what was then the world's greatest military power, whereas Ronald Reagan had to defeat liberals.)
At the time, historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. dismissed Reagan as "a nice, old uncle, who comes in and all the kids are glad to see him. He sits around telling stories, and they're all fond of him, but they don't take him too seriously." Then Schlesinger fell asleep in his soup.
Even liberal historian Richard Reeves blanched at Reagan's low ranking in 1989, saying, "I was no fan of Reagan, but I think I know a leader when I see one."
Reagan changed the country, Reeves said, and some would say "he changed the world, making communism irrelevant and the globe safe for the new imperialism of free-market capitalism." Reeves most inspirational remark to me was to say that said Reagan "was a man of conservative principle and he damned near destroyed American liberalism."
By 1996 things hadn't gotten much better for Reagan in the historians' view. A poll of historians placed Reagan 26th of 42 presidents -- below George H.W. Bush, his boob of a vice president who raised taxes and ended Republican hegemony begun by Reagan. Four of the 32 historians called Reagan a "failure."
I guess it depends on your definition of "failure." To me a failure is someone who aspired to be a legitimate scholar but ends up as an obscure lecturer at Colorado College.
Speaking of which, Colorado College political scientist Thomas Cronin explained Reagan's low ranking, saying Reagan "was insensitive to women's rights, civil rights, oblivious to what was going on in his own Administration -- the procurement scandal, HUD, Iran-Contra."
Soon after he took office, President Reagan famously hung a portrait of President Calvin Coolidge in the Cabinet Room -- another Republican considered a failure by historians. It's as if geology professors took a poll and announced their opinion that gold was heavier than lead.
Coolidge cut taxes, didn't get the country in any wars, cut the national debt almost in half, and presided over a calm, scandal-free administration, a period of peace, 17.5 percent growth in the gross national product, low inflation (.4 percent) and low unemployment (3.6 percent).
Unlike some recent presidents with Islamic middle names, he didn't run around constantly comparing himself to Lincoln.
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. ridiculed President Calvin Coolidge as a hayseed who slept too much and took decisive action only once in his life. Schlesinger never tired of pointing out that Coolidge slept 11 hours a day, as if hours of sleep is the true measure of presidential greatness.
Perhaps Schlesinger's venom toward Coolidge was meant as penance for his once accidentally admitting that Eisenhower was a good president despite being another president hated by historians.
Under President Dwight Eisenhower the gross national product grew by over 25 percent and inflation averaged 1.4 percent. George Meany, then AFL-CIO president, said that the American worker had "never had it so good." Like Coolidge and Reagan, Eisenhower was enormously popular with the American people.
In a poll of "leading scholars" taken soon after Eisenhower left office, he was named one of the 10 worst presidents. The distinguished scholars -- none of whose names anyone remembers today -- called him dumb, dismissing the five-star general who smashed the Nazi war machine as "Old Bubble Head."
As Patton said, these "bilious bastards ... don't know anything more about real battle than they do about fornicating."
Reagan and Eisenhower have recently started to move up in the presidential rankings -- for the same reason George Washington is always ranked one of the best. Historians ought to detest Washington, but his exclusion from the top ranks of these pompous historian polls would expose the absurdity of their rankings.
Putting preposterously overrated presidents like John F. Kennedy or FDR in the same category as Reagan or Washington is like a teenage girl ranking the Jonas Brothers with the Rolling Stones and the Beatles as the three greatest bands of all time.
Liberals may call him a "war criminal," but historians have inadvertently paid Bush a great tribute this week by ranking him as a "below average" president. I can only dream that, someday, no-name, left-wing historians will rank me as one of the all-time worst columnists.
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Diehard and Cysko, both true statements!
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As noted, the historians job is to try to make objective evaluations.
Ann Coulter's job is to advocate for her personal prejudices...and as such she is naturally going to be critical of anyone that doesn't agree with her prejudices. To her every Democratic President would be bad and every Republican President would be good.
That is why it is better to listen to the historians in my view than the likes of her....or her liberal counterparts who might argue that every Democratic President is good and every Republican President has been bad.
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This is the ruse of the left. Take over the education system so that they can create a façade of credibility. As Miss Ann notes, these are the same kind of people that joined the Weather Underground as kids. If you think historians have no prejudices (or even just less than everyone else) then I've got some oceanfront property in Arizona to sell you.
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This is the ruse of the left. Take over the education system so that they can create a façade of credibility. As Miss Ann notes, these are the same kind of people that joined the Weather Underground as kids. If you think historians have no prejudices (or even just less than everyone else) then I've got some oceanfront property in Arizona to sell you.
This is the ruse of the left. Take over the education system so that they can create a façade of credibility. As Miss Ann notes, these are the same kind of people that joined the Weather Underground as kids. If you think historians have no prejudices (or even just less than everyone else) then I've got some oceanfront property in Arizona to sell you.
And it is the ruse of the right to claim that anything that they don't agree with is a ruse of the left. Again, she has her point of view and anything else is invalid in her mind.
Historians come in all sizes/shapes/persuasions. I suspect there are as many right thinking historians as there are left thinking historians. Do you think only liberals went to college? Only liberals studied history? No. When I was in college....and admittedly that was a long time ago, the couple of history teachers I had were WWII veterans. I expect there are a share of Vietnam and Iraq/Afghanistan vets out there teaching history now.
Maybe you are too young to know....but the fact is out of millions and millions and millions of baby boomers.....very, very, very few were ever members of the Weather Underground. In fact, they can be easily listed...and here they are:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Weatherman_members
Ann Coulter is just so paranoid about anything liberal that she sees leftists under every rock and cranny.
Again....bottom line......the historians....from all points of view....who put all this together are far far more credible than one silly blonde woman.
I come from a centrist point of view. I prefer rational objectivity.
I suspect if there were a right wing version of the Weather Underground....Ann Coulter would likely be on that list. Put her in a room with the ghost of Jerry Rubin and let them have at each other about who/what is bad for this country.
I will try to listen to the more reasonable people...not the irrational ones like those.
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You just compared Ann Coulter to people who bomb buildings, but you prefer "rational objectivity." Can't make this stuff up.
I also said these are the "kinds" of people who joined the Weather Underground. I didn't say they were all in the Weather Underground. Come on man.
What your professors were like in the prehistoric era is of no relevance to what professors are like post-60s. No comparison whatsoever. Do I really need to post links for the percentage of college professors that are liberals/vote Democrat? It's absurd.
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Was Howard Zinn part of this panel?
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You just compared Ann Coulter to people who bomb buildings, but you prefer "rational objectivity." Can't make this stuff up.
I also said these are the "kinds" of people who joined the Weather Underground. I didn't say they were all in the Weather Underground. Come on man.
What your professors were like in the prehistoric era is of no relevance to what professors are like post-60s. No comparison whatsoever. Do I really need to post links for the percentage of college professors that are liberals/vote Democrat? It's absurd.
You just compared Ann Coulter to people who bomb buildings, but you prefer "rational objectivity." Can't make this stuff up.
I also said these are the "kinds" of people who joined the Weather Underground. I didn't say they were all in the Weather Underground. Come on man.
What your professors were like in the prehistoric era is of no relevance to what professors are like post-60s. No comparison whatsoever. Do I really need to post links for the percentage of college professors that are liberals/vote Democrat? It's absurd.
Look, I get it. You don't want any objective criteria to be established to this sort of thing. You want your own personal prejudices to hold sway. You want who many think are mediocre Republicans glorified and who many think are outstanding Democrats vilified. At least that is where it sounds like where you are coming from. You want only those who have done something that fits your point of view to be considered at the top.
Sorry. But I think they got things just fine. 6 of the Top Ten were Dems...but note, the Dems have been around 60-70 years longer than the Reps, and are you going to compare the ideas/policies of Dem Andrew Jackson to Dem JFK. Three of the bottom 4 were also Dems...should the Dems complain about that? 4 of the bottom 10 were Whigs. Three were Republican. They came from various eras.
Does Ann Coulter think that we should tear down Mt. Rushmore and put Bush, Ford, Reagan and Nixon up there instead? (She probably does).
Lets not be that stupid. (There are 2 Reps, 1 Dem and 1 no party up on that mountain, so again, shut it.)
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Was Howard Zinn part of this panel?
I'm still struggling to know what the "objective criteria" was, other than "we're a bunch of blowhard liberal professors and this is what we think. Also, given the fact that we are professors, this list has full credibility." Well by that standard....
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Was Howard Zinn part of this panel?
I'm still struggling to know what the "objective criteria" was, other than "we're a bunch of blowhard liberal professors and this is what we think. Also, given the fact that we are professors, this list has full credibility." Well by that standard....
Was Howard Zinn part of this panel?
I'm still struggling to know what the "objective criteria" was, other than "we're a bunch of blowhard liberal professors and this is what we think. Also, given the fact that we are professors, this list has full credibility." Well by that standard....
I don't know.....this ranking was an aggregate of many individual rankings. There may have been thousands of people involved. That is my point, this was done by a wide section of the nation....not by one or two or 10 yabos of any ilk with their own points of view prevailing. If you looked at the link you could see where all the contributions to the aggregate ranking came from.
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