Mate, if you really think there hasn’t been a general decline in competence, I suggest you compare textbooks from 40 years ago to the ones used now. The American History text I used the last time I taught (at the University of Illinois) could have passed for the text I had in junior high. If we have higher education levels today, it’s because we’ve made upper education accessible, not because students are better prepared. The safety net represented by expansion of social services has enabled people to make life choices that would have been disastrous generations ago. Not to say my inclination would be any different, but there you are. Snarky stick figures be damned.
Well. I can believe you, or I can believe James R. Flynn. Anyway, this is way off-topic.
Not much traction for Clinton, so I will switch to Taft.
They both were also war heroes and amateur painters. 
Interesting that you’d cite a fellow who feels that increased fertility among less educated women will ineviably drive intelligence down. But hey.
I’m going off the research he produced in his prime. You’re welcome to consider an interview given to a random newspaper in his 70s as dispositive.
Final vote count:
Taft 10
LBJ 8
Clinton 2
Eisenhower, Polk 1
After a flurry of vote-switching and back-room deals, William Howard Taft is out. Somewhere, Teddy Roosevelt is smiling. Fortunately for Taft, he’s still eligible for the Chief Justice Elimination Game.
George Washington (None, 1789-1797)
Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican, 1801-1809)
James Monroe (Democratic-Republican, 1817-1825)
James Polk (Democrat, 1845-1849)
Abraham Lincoln (Republican, 1861-1865)
Grover Cleveland (Democrat, 1885-1889, 1893-1897)
Theodore Roosevelt (Republican, 1901-1909)
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Democrat, 1933-1945)
Harry S. Truman (Democrat, 1945-1953)
Dwight Eisenhower (Republican, 1953-1961)
Lyndon Baines Johnson (Democrat, 1963-1969)
William Jefferson Clinton (Democrat, 1993-2001)
Eliminated Presidents:
- James Buchanan (Democrat, 1857-1861)
- Franklin Pierce (Democrat, 1853-1857)
- Andrew Johnson (National Union, 1865-1869)
- Warren Harding (Republican, 1921-1923)
- Millard Fillmore (Whig, 1850-1853)
- Richard Milhous Nixon (Republican, 1969-1974)
- Herbert Hoover (Republican, 1929-1933)
- Ronald Reagan (Republican, 1981-1989)
- Andrew Jackson (Democrat, 1829-1837)
- Rutherford Hayes (Republican, 1877-1881)
- Ulysses Grant (Republican, 1869-1877)
- John Tyler (Whig, 1841-1845)
- James Earl Carter (Democrat, 1977-1981)
- James Madison (Democratic-Republican, 1809-1817)
- Martin Van Buren (Democrat, 1837-1841)
- Woodrow Wilson (Democrat, 1913-1921)
- Calvin Coolidge (Republican, 1923-1929)
- John Adams (Federalist, 1797-1801)
- Benjamin Harrison (Republican, 1889-1893)
- Gerald Ford (Republican, 1974-1977)
- Zachary Taylor (Whig, 1849-1850)
- George Herbert Walker Bush (Republican, 1989-1993)
- John Quincy Adams (Democratic-Republican, 1825-1829)
- Chester Arthur (Republican, 1881-1885)
- John Fitzgerald Kennedy (Democrat, 1961-1963)
- William McKinley (Republican, 1897-1901)
- William Howard Taft (Republican, 1909-1913)
I’ll put aside Polk and vote for James Monroe, whose limited accomplishments don’t fit him for a place in the top 10.
Voting closes Monday at 2 PM.
Clinton - also not a top tenner. Or elevener.
I gotta go with LBJ now, I’d say Clinton is more of a 10nner than the Beej.
LBJ. One thing that we do ignore about his administration is that, by January, 1969, only 5% of Black children (I believe; quoting Boller from memory) attended integrated schools. For a president esteemed for his civil rights record, it’s a bad mark that Nixon was actually far more instrumental in integration.
Monroe. Shouldn’t even be in the Top 20, let alone the Top 12.
“Let’s put it over with Grover/ Don’t rock the boat/ Give him your vote!”
(scroll down to footnotes on this page)
I can’t believe either Clinton or LBJ got this far.
My vote is for Clinton
Clinton-a vote which has nothing to do with his peccadilloes.
Still going with LBJ.
Clinton!
Cleveland is the least accomplished of this bunch I’d think. I haven’t been here in a while, does he have any defenders?
Yes, as I wrote on the previous page, Cleveland vetoed a lot of wasteful spending, was scrupulously honest and a good administrator. He was an anti-imperialist and tried to make things right with Hawaii.
I can’t really justify Clinton keeping company with this group so I vote for him.