# Who Was the Greatest President of All Time? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 25, 2014, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-greatest-president-of-all-time/691593 "2014-06-25T07:20:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-greatest-president-of-all-time/691593/41 "2014-06-25T20:26:11Z")
Lincoln gets it for the vampire slaying alone! ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-greatest-president-of-all-time/691593/42 "2014-06-25T20:44:00Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > FDR was probably the worst for the nation. His psuedocommie agenda continues to hamper the prosperity and freedoms of us all. The economy was still in the diaper pail when we got into WW2. Nationalization will crutch an economy momentarily but not permanently. What really helps against unemployment is to have a lot of able bodied men get killed in combat. Its true the New Deal didn’t immediately end the Great Depression totally and completely, but it did help alleviate the worst of it and the economy would have been much worse off without the program. Also he hardly was a “pseudocommie” and indeed pursued a moderate agenda that prevented further radicalization of the country. > [@](#): > > Nixon was the biggest asshole to ever step inside the white House, including any other pols or tourists. Moderate my ass. “Price controls” is an idea that only Marx could love. Even some of his actions before he assumed office may have been treasonous. I’m thinking the guy was severely mentally ill. Certainly Nixon wasn’t a saint but putting price controls as one of his greatest evils is laughable much less that it was a Marxist idea. > [@](#): > > LBJ may have been the greatest seeing there is no poverty in the USA and all the trillions of dollars spent to fight it were justified. Plus he kept the pacific rim free by spending billions on our presence in Vietnam. He was the only one with the vision to know winning such a conflict was possible! I’m assuming this is sarcasm but the Great Society actually did reduce poverty in the United States especially among the elderly. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-greatest-president-of-all-time/691593/43 "2014-06-25T20:53:37Z")
I think Obama needs to be up near the top. I’ll put him just below Washington, Lincoln, and FDR. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-greatest-president-of-all-time/691593/44 "2014-06-25T20:54:26Z")
I’ve always liked Lincoln, but since the movie came out I’ve found myself reconsidering (not because of the movie, just because it put him back in my mind). I feel like Lincoln is sold on his good points, which are: 1. His politics were reasonably solid in regards to the Union and in regards to slavery. 2. He was a great speaker with a lot of great quotes. But, those neglect the following points: 1. His politics on the Native Americans were not laudable. 2. His chosen generals were pretty inept during the war, until he finally hired Grant. 3. Had the South not seceded, he likely would never have tried to do much of anything at all for the slaves. 4. He was more anti-slavery than pro-equality. I believe, if anything, his thought was that it was better to have the blacks living in Africa than mingling with us here. The part which turns me off isn’t so much that has has negative points as that those negative points are generally ignored. His actions against the natives are, for example, part of the top-level overview on Lincoln on the Japanese-language Wikipedia, but barely discussed at all on the English-level. I feel like he’s great more because we’ve all censored everything that would stop making him great, than because he actually was. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-greatest-president-of-all-time/691593/45 "2014-06-25T20:58:54Z")
To some extent, I feel like the Greatest President might be one who was largely unnoticed. I’m not sure who that would be, but if we make the following assumptions: 1. He has great ideas. 2. He can get them implemented without much fuss. 3. Emergencies are handled quickly and efficiently, so that they never even become news. Well then suddenly you’ve got a President who basically goes unnoticed, because nothing dramatic ever happens. It’s all always **boringly good**. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-greatest-president-of-all-time/691593/46 "2014-06-25T21:01:14Z")
Washington is the greatest American president. He could have created a throne, but did not. His greatest leadership skill was keeping things from falling apart. He kept the Continental Army functioning, and thus the Revolution alive. He kept the States from disaggregating into their own interests. He kept the ideologues reasonable. He was not perfect, and any one thing could have been done better, but he did everything that kept the United States surviving. Compare to other revolutions and revolts and all the ways things can go wrong, and the fact that Washington charted a course that avoided all the rocks (for several generations, at least) is amazing. Lincoln is obviously the next greatest, and not the greatest. It was a great feat holding the nation together, but there were more ways for things to go wrong during the Revolution than during the Civil War. The Union was going to absorb the Confederacy sooner or later; the two factions would not be able to live peaceably next to each other. Lincoln made it happen sooner. After that is a large drop-off of greatness and big muddle. Jefferson started the US on an imperial quest across the continent. FDR dragged the US into the 20th century. And so on… ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-greatest-president-of-all-time/691593/47 "2014-06-25T21:13:44Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > I’m assuming this is sarcasm but the Great Society actually did reduce poverty in the United States. Nonsense. All it did was create and perpetuate life forms dependent on government programs. The fact that people get food and shelter paid for does not mean they aren’t still poor. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-greatest-president-of-all-time/691593/48 "2014-06-25T21:23:21Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > Nonsense. All it did was create and perpetuate life forms dependent on government programs. The fact that people get food and shelter paid for does not mean they aren’t still poor. Exactly-the poor no longer suffer as much. Of course your dehumanizing rhetoric isn’t particularly surprising. And even granting this, the main beneficiaries of Great Society programs (such as Medicare) have seen poverty decline massively-namely the elderly: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty\_in\_the\_United\_States#mediaviewer/File:Poverty\_Rates\_by\_Age\_1959\_to\_2011.\_United\_States…PNG](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States#mediaviewer/File:Poverty_Rates_by_Age_1959_to_2011._United_States..PNG) ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-greatest-president-of-all-time/691593/49 "2014-06-25T21:50:52Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Exactly-the poor no longer suffer as much. Of course your dehumanizing rhetoric isn’t particularly surprising. But they are still poor. Creating a class that is dependent upon handouts is far more dehumanizing than someone pointing it out. LBJ knew his civil rights legislation was going to lose Democrats a significant number of the electorate. By creating a dependent class he was able to balance those numbers out for his party. You don’t really think that prick gave a rip about poor people, do you? ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-greatest-president-of-all-time/691593/50 "2014-06-25T22:13:27Z")
[QUOTE=Kenm] With his “Vive le Québec libre” he peed on Canada, a country whose soldiers bled to death by the thousands on French soil freeing it (and the Netherlands) from Nazi Germany, and before that in France in their thousands from 1914 to 1918. [/QUOTE] Yes. And yet, he was right. Self-determination, bitches. Of course he was also a gigantic fucking hypocrite, and not just because he was 6 foot 5 womaniser. Brittanians, Corsicans, Basques are and were in the same boat as Quebecois. But of course, those were different, 'cause the sacrosanct unity of France trumps _that_. But not Canada to Quebec. Because… reasons :rolleyes:. [QUOTE=adaher] Bill Clinton. Best manager of the federal government we’ve ever had, least partisan President since Eisenhower, wonkiest President ever [/QUOTE] First I read that as “wankiest”, and I couldn’t blame you. Then I read it as “honkiest”, and I couldn’t blame you either 🙂 That said, I agree with you - the Clinton administration might have been any amount of negative things - undignified, lacked decorum or class, maybe corrupt a bit… but it was fucking _competent_. Clinton got the economy singing like an opera of canaries, made good strides diplomatically, didn’t bomb too many foreigners and despite your terrorism criticism his guys did sow the seeds of good work in that direction - too bad the Bush crew fucked that all up, almost deliberately (check out Al Franken’s _Lying Liars_ if you don’t believe me. It has cites and everything). Plus he played the saxophone and got his freak on in the Oval - and don’t tell me that’s not an item on your bucket list ! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-greatest-president-of-all-time/691593/51 "2014-06-25T22:23:40Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > But they are still poor. Creating a class that is dependent upon handouts is far more dehumanizing than someone pointing it out. LBJ knew his civil rights legislation was going to lose Democrats a significant number of the electorate. By creating a dependent class he was able to balance those numbers out for his party. You don’t really think that prick gave a rip about poor people, do you? The vast majority of all poor people who are able-bodied and not retired still work for a living especially with welfare “reform”. If the only thing keeping back poor people from prospering was welfare we’d have expected poverty rates to have been much lower before the Great Society, which wasn’t the case. So what would you suggest the poor do instead if they didn’t have food stamps or federal housing to help allivate their condition? And I could care less what LBJ personally thought about poor people-what I do care is that as a politician he supported policies that benefitted them. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-greatest-president-of-all-time/691593/52 "2014-06-25T22:26:53Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > I know I am not the first person to ask this question. And I surely won’t be the last. But I would really like some input from these boards: **Who was the greatest U.S. president of all time?** I think without question the greatest POTUS ever will be President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-greatest-president-of-all-time/691593/53 "2014-06-25T22:29:21Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > Don’t forget he installed the first elevator in the White House. Okay, but then don’t forget that (Garfield) was also responsible for the introduction of air-conditioning . . . everywhere, i.e. in an effort to lessen the agony that his non-healing bullet wound was causing him during the humid Washington summer, huge quantities of ice were brought into the White House and piled up. Fans were then placed on one side the pile, while Garfield lay dying on his bed on the other. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-greatest-president-of-all-time/691593/54 "2014-06-25T22:40:51Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > Washington is the greatest American president. He could have created a throne, but did not. His greatest leadership skill was keeping things from falling apart. He kept the Continental Army functioning, and thus the Revolution alive. But he didn’t do any of those things as _President_. Which is why I say, great man, but not great POTUS. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-greatest-president-of-all-time/691593/55 "2014-06-25T23:17:54Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > Nonsense. All it did was create and perpetuate life forms dependent on government programs. The fact that people get food and shelter paid for does not mean they aren’t still poor. I want to thank **pkbites** for bringing this on-going problem to our attention. [Even V.P. Joe Biden prefers to suckle at the taxpayers’ teat, unwilling to earn his own way.](http://freebeacon.com/politics/biden-plans-to-live-off-taxpayers-forever/) Fortunately, there are Americans fighting the Give-me Society. [Virginia House Speaker William J. Howell used Capitol police in an effort to prevent Governor Terry McAuliffe from making still more life forms dependent on government health care](http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/25/to-foil-medicaid-expansion-in-va-gop-lawmakers-broke-into-governors-office/). (I’ve been an unrepentant centrist myself, but have now come around a full 360 degrees in my thinking. \*\*\* Bachmann-Beck for the White House in 2016\*\*\*!) ---
**Author:** ![Randvek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a6a055/32.png) [@Randvek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randvek)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-greatest-president-of-all-time/691593/56 "2014-06-25T23:27:01Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > But he didn’t do any of those things as _President_. Which is why I say, great man, but not great POTUS. It feels almost like a cop-out, but I also support Washington as the “greatest President” simply because he was the mold of what a President _was_. I mean, imagine how different our nation’s history would be had he decided that he should have been a _three_ term President and set that as precedent. Washington cast a very long shadow indeed, and every other President has been in it. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-greatest-president-of-all-time/691593/57 "2014-06-26T01:43:50Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > But they are still poor. Creating a class that is dependent upon handouts is far more dehumanizing than someone pointing it out. LBJ knew his civil rights legislation was going to lose Democrats a significant number of the electorate. By creating a dependent class he was able to balance those numbers out for his party. You don’t really think that prick gave a rip about poor people, do you? Yes, he certainly did; read [_Made in Texas_](http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/made-in-texas-by-michael-lind/) by Michael Lind. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-greatest-president-of-all-time/691593/58 "2014-06-26T01:45:41Z")
> [@Randvek](#): > > It feels almost like a cop-out, but I also support Washington as the “greatest President” simply because he was the mold of what a President _was_. I mean, imagine how different our nation’s history would be had he decided that he should have been a _three_ term President and set that as precedent. Would it have been that different? I can’t think of a pre-FDR president who was healthy enough and popular enough after eight years to win a third term. “Healthy” here denoting not just hale but also not dead. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-greatest-president-of-all-time/691593/59 "2014-06-26T01:45:41Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > But they are still poor. [Actually, the War on Poverty had considerable success.](http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/the-war-povertys-surprising-success) ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-greatest-president-of-all-time/691593/60 "2014-06-26T03:47:49Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > And yet, he was right. Self-determination, bitches. Yeah. Self-determination through the “aid” of a half-mad foreign president, and FLQ kidnappings, murder and bombings. Much more self-determining than two democratic referendums on sovereignty, both of which failed. And Vietnam — starring de Gaulle, Kennedy and Johnson. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-greatest-president-of-all-time/691593.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-greatest-president-of-all-time/691593.md?page=4)