# U. S. Presidents Who Were Great... Not! **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 12, 2017, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-presidents-who-were-great-not/801439 "2017-11-12T17:03:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2017, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-presidents-who-were-great-not/801439/41 "2017-11-14T22:21:03Z")
It seems that Adams was quite radical about the idea of American independence and self government, but never really cared much about liberty or democracy. He certainly didn’t want a monarchy but I could easily have seen him turning the American revolution into something more like the French Revolution had he enough power and influence to do so. Fortunately, Madison and Jefferson were also around and far more committed to this new experiment in governance. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2017, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-presidents-who-were-great-not/801439/42 "2017-11-15T01:18:52Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Then I’ll fall back to my other argument, that Presidents being judged for legislative accomplishments is vastly overrated. Congress should be judged on that. Presidents manage the executive branch and conduct foreign policy. Yeah, Presidents are all but irrelevant with respect to domestic policy, right? They do nothing but execute the laws that Congress comes up with totally on its own. Why do Presidential candidates even _talk_ about what they’ll do domestically if they win? They don’t do nothin’, it’s all Congress. /s ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2017, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-presidents-who-were-great-not/801439/43 "2017-11-15T01:21:38Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > LBJ was the least worthy. Horrible President whose legislative accomplishments were either inevitable(Medicare) or ill considered(War on Poverty). :walks away, shaking head: ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2017, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-presidents-who-were-great-not/801439/44 "2017-11-15T01:24:50Z")
As you know, and was much talked about in the 2016 race, Clinton’s promises were all DOA due to there being little chance of a Democratic takeover of the House. Presidents cannot guarantee control of Congress by their party, nor can they guarantee that they can get their own party to agree to their agenda. Whether or not that happens has little to do with their skills, although some Presidents have been better than others. Reagan was very skilled at leveraging conservative Democrats to pass a lot of his early agenda, which I’d argue is a heck of a lot more of a slick legislative hand than using a Congress in which you have overwhelming majorities. So if we’re going to judge Presidents in large part on their legislative accomplishments, I’d argue that Reagan is #1, and Bush and Nixon very close behind. I’d give points to Clinton as well in his later years. Any idiot can get some legislation out of his own party. The real men get it out of the opposition. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2017, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-presidents-who-were-great-not/801439/45 "2017-11-15T01:35:15Z")
I’ll never understand the rehabilitation of LBJ’s reputation. He began a 15 year decline in the West’s position vs. the Communist bloc due to his incompetence and destroyed his own party. No President was more responsible for making the “tax and spend” attack stick like glue onto the Democratic Party. He was rightfully reviled by Democrats for decades. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2017, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-presidents-who-were-great-not/801439/46 "2017-11-15T16:51:24Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > The run FDR –\> HST –\> DDE –\> JFK –\> LBJ is an amazing run of five consecutive great or near-great Presidents; can we all agree on that? I’ll happily stipulate that JFK is the least worthy of the five, as long as y’all concede that JFK was clearly “above average” :— with his inspirational Moon program(\*it has come to my attention that some of you did not click links provided), Peace Corps, New Frontier, RFK, etc. > > The only comparable run of great Presidents AFAIK is the very first run, GeoWash –\> JAda –\> TJef –\> JMad –\> JMon –\> JQA –\> AJac FDR was great in the war, awful at home. Truman was good but not great. Eisenhower was very good, JFK was bad for the most part, LBJ was awful with one great exception (Civil Rights legislation). ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2017, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-presidents-who-were-great-not/801439/47 "2017-11-15T17:33:38Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Any idiot can get some legislation out of his own party. The real men get it out of the opposition. Look, if ‘any idiot’ can get legislation out of his own party, Trump would have a list of accomplishments worth boasting about. Not to mention, a President has to pass legislation that will actually accomplish useful purposes, and not just kinda look like it will. Some programs have stood the test of time, others not so much. And if we’re going to judge Presidents by the legislation they pass, relative to the situational handicaps they have, I’d say it was way easier for Reagan to make deals with Southern Democrats than it was for Obama to make deals with Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson. YMMV, of course, but my point is that if we’re going to rate the accomplishments of Presidents in terms of what sort of Congress they had to deal with, there’s no bottom to the argument. Just judge them by what they accomplished, and how it’s worked out. Certainly that has to be the case when you’re making the cut for greatness. Either they had great accomplishments, or they didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2017, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-presidents-who-were-great-not/801439/48 "2017-11-15T19:31:17Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I’ll never understand the rehabilitation of LBJ’s reputation. He began a 15 year decline in the West’s position vs. the Communist bloc due to his incompetence A well-kept secret, until now. 🙂 > [@](#): > > and destroyed his own party. This is true, but only partly LBJ’s fault. The party’s divisions over Vietnam lingered for decades afterward. The big driver, IMHO, was that most of the labor unions took a very pro-war, anti-protester stance, where ‘anti-protester’ meant actual beating up of protesters on occasion. The result was outright hostility between the McGovernite wing and labor. This didn’t work out well for the unions, who could have used some allies along the way, and damned sure weren’t going to find them in the GOP. > [@](#): > > He was rightfully reviled by Democrats for decades. But this was all about the war. Domestically, Dems believe he was a great President. The rehabilitation of LBJ’s reputation, at least within the Democratic Party, has to do with the fading salience of Vietnam as a political issue. > [@puddleglum](#): > > FDR was great in the war, awful at home. IYHO. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2017, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-presidents-who-were-great-not/801439/49 "2017-11-16T06:29:34Z")
Given how many Democrats became ex-Democrats(and not just in the South), I’d argue that Democrats were not all that enamored with his domestic accomplishments. It’s just that the ones that were stayed in the party. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2017, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-presidents-who-were-great-not/801439/50 "2017-11-16T06:47:38Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > A well-kept secret, until now. :)This is true, but only partly LBJ’s fault. The party’s divisions over Vietnam lingered for decades afterward. The big driver, IMHO, was that most of the labor unions took a very pro-war, anti-protester stance, where ‘anti-protester’ meant actual beating up of protesters on occasion. The result was outright hostility between the McGovernite wing and labor. This didn’t work out well for the unions, who could have used some allies along the way, and damned sure weren’t going to find them in the GOP. But this was all about the war. Domestically, Dems believe he was a great President. The rehabilitation of LBJ’s reputation, at least within the Democratic Party, has to do with the fading salience of Vietnam as a political issue. I think there’s a bigger issue that has overshadowed Vietnam: civil rights. The Democratic Party used to have a solid base of white conservative southerners. Johnson knew quite well that he was going to lose that base when he moved forward on civil rights. But it was an issue that he felt strongly enough about that he was willing to give up future votes for it. Johnson was right. Nixon and Reagan wooed those white conservative southerners and they have become part of the Republican Party base’ ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2017, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-presidents-who-were-great-not/801439/51 "2017-11-16T07:15:59Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Eisenhower was very good No. Eisenhower was mostly unremarkable. His high point was the MIC speech, which was some very insightful stuff that amounted to absolutely nothing. His low point, early in his administration, seemed like nothing, but in the view of history, by green-lighting Operation Ajax, he began decades of fomenting radical Islamic violence and terrorism and painted a huge target on the US. I mean, the intetstate highway system seems kind of nice, but I cannot see how it makes up for that enormous mistake. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-presidents-who-were-great-not/801439.md?page=2)