Obviously any such list is going to be subjective. It’s hard to say anything about anyone’s “list” if you don’t know why they’ve placed someone in it. Just for fun, I’ve put together my “Top/Bottom 5” lists for the last 100 years.
Bottom 5
Nixon - For dragging out Vietnam for so damn long. And, of course, that little Watergate thing you may have heard about.
LBJ - For letting the Vietnam conflict blow up into such a major fuck-up.
GWB - For getting into Iraq with even less of a clue than LBJ had. The only reason I’ve got him behind LBJ is pure numbers.
Carter - Runaway inflation, runaway taxes, runaway spending. While I have great respect for Carter the man (I think he’s the best ex-president we’ve ever had), his presidency was a disaster.
FDR - Totally fucked the country during the depression.
PS – McKinley doesn’t qualify, as 1905 is our starting date.
Top 5
Reagan - Regardless of whether he meant to do it or not, he sent the Soviets into bankruptcy as they tried to keep up with his inanely high defense spending.
JFK - If for no other reason than spurring us to go to the moon.
T. Roosevelt - “Walk softly and carry a big stick”. Nobody “walks softly” anymore.
Truman - Handled WWII and the aftermath as well as anyone could have.
Clinton - For not screwing up the country too badly during a great economic boom.
I’m going to take a slightly different tack on this.
Firstly, I think that it is unfair and counter-productive to try to compare presidencies of recent president to those that are long-gone. The reason for that is because the broader effects of George W. Bush’s presidence (and probably Bill Clinton’s as well) are yet to be felt. I don’t think you can really judge an administration until you’ve had at least five (and preferably ten) years to look back and re-assess. It may turn out that Bush’s invasion of Iraq may have ultimately been the right thing to do. It may also be the biggest boondoggle of the century. Unfortunately, at this point in time, we really can’t tell. We have yet to see how this will play out and don’t have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight that we have for other (past) presidents.
Off the top of my head, excluding the present occupant. Can’t judge now, wouldn’t be prudent. Wait for history’s verdict.
Calvin Coolige. Our last Laissez faire president. Calvin, we hardly knew ye. I do not choose to run. Brilliant.
Eisenhower. Didn’t fuck up the postwar boom of the 50s. Started the space program. Hated Nixon.
Truman. Kicked ass and took names during the start of the cold war. The Marshall plan.
Clinton. Hate to say it, but Clinton is looking better and better. An asshole, sure, but he ended protectionism, he ended welfare, he kicked the liberals in the teeth and they loved him for it. Presided over best economy since the 50s. Mitigated by being such an idiot as to give the republicans Monicagate.
FDR. The US needed leadership through the depression and WWII and he gave it to us. Saved America from Fascism and Communism, both at home and abroad, but at a steep price. Still we survived thanks to him.
Teddy Roosevelt. A man, a plan, a canal.
Reagan. Realigned american politics. He was hated, hated, hated as president, now somehow everyone claims to love him.
Bush the Elder. Mediocre. Lacked the vision thing. Good job on Gulf War I, avoided the mess his son got us into. Manegerial type.
Taft. Not too bad. Made a good Chief Justice.
Ford. A caretaker after the disasterous Nixon presidency. Didn’t fuck up too bad.
Carter. A bumbler. He thought his role was to manage the decline of America. Mitigated by Camp David.
Wilson. Racist who formallized segregation in government. Flubbed the postwar peace, leading directly to WWII. Should have resigned after his stroke and let the VP take over, not his wife.
Hoover. Vacillated over the depression. A bumbler.
Kennedy. Started the Vietnam war. Escalated the cold war, but in a stupid way. Invaded Cuba. Sexaholic. Asshole. Mitigated by moon race.
Johnson. Sure, Kennedy got us into the war, but Johnson kept us there. Tax and spend, created the modern welfare state. Mitigated by voting rights acts.
Harding. Corrupt, stupid, incompetant.
Nixon. Corrupt, brilliant, incompetant. And evil. And sick and twisted. Detente, Kissenger, and of course, Watergate. The worst ever. Worse than Buchanan.
I’d put Teddy Roosevelt a spot above FDR. Nixon over Harding. Taft to a spot under Wilson.
Finally, I have no problem putting G.W.Bush dead last on that list. I don’t think it’s possible for a president to bungle more than he has. Evil, stupid, incompetent, and his party seems pathologically incapable of admitting there’s anything wrong. Yikes. Nixon was more twisted, but Bush is more stupid.
I dunno. I have a hard time saying anyone’s worse than Andrew Jackson.
I just wish the Michigan Democratic Party, being closely affiliated with my employer, wouldn’t name a goddamn fundraiser after Jackson.
At any rate, I find it curious that among his top 10 presidents, Roland includes both FDR (history’s greatest president, since Madison and Jefferson, despite their stature as among the greatest statesmen in the nation’s history, had fairly undistinguished presidencies (the Louisiana Purchase hardly being the result of Jefferson’s work)) and the man who’s working hardest to undo everything FDR accomplished. (By the way, Lincoln’s limited commitment to emancipation, despite the fact that it happens, pulls him out of the running.)
As for Nixon, politically, he wasn’t all that bad. Opened relations with China and all. He might be scum as a person, but as a president, we’ve done far worse.
I find it interesting that you describe the two most honorable, decent men to be President in the last 100 years as bumblers. Not that I disagree, I just find it interesting. Food for thought.
JFTR, he didn’t say greatest; he said last decent.
Off the top of my head, I’m going to predict that his reasoning is that with the advent of FDR’s New Deal, the Federal government became tainted by coercive economic redistributionism. Any subsequent president who did not repudiate this de-legitimizing taint by eliminating all traces of it cannot be considered, by Liberal’s standards, to deserve the label “decent.”
On the other hand, if you care to stretch a principle far enough to include Henry Rice Atchison and his supposed one-day presidency, then it’s possible for W to rank 44th, which would save at least one place holder.
It’s a tough call: Atchison supposedly slept through most if not all of his term, whereas Bush displays many characteristics associated with consciousness, generally considered a desirable quality in a president. It’s true that Atchison took no stand to prevent gay marriage from undermining the nation’s moral fibre, but neither did he see fit to invade any countries on false pretenses. The Atchison administration never paid anyone to endorse its policies, and was never tainted by egregious cronyism in its distribution of government contracts. America was as prosperous and militarily strong at the end of his term as at the beginning, and neither his domestic agenda nor his foreign policy incurred any significant criticisms from his constituency, the global community, or from the generations of historians since.
Man, why don’t we have presidents like Atchison anymore?
For the record:
(a) lots of people LOVED him when he was president. Look at his reelection margins
(b) lots of people still don’t love him. Like me. I think he was an awful president.
