WWTBAM Bored

C-Span has polled a number of prominent historians asking them to rank all the former presidents in terms of attributes of leadership. They had done a similar poll in 2000 which included Bill Clinton, but not, obviously, George W. Bush, who clocks in at #36 in the new poll. The top three are Lincoln, Washington and FDR while poor James Buchanan still brings up the rear.

Bill Clinton, who ranked 21st last time, moves up to 15th this time, while Bush, Sr. has also moved up, from 20th to 18th. One president who is usually an object of disdain, Grant, made a big jump from 33 to 23.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities ... 62913403/1

The criteria used:

Public Persuasion
Crisis Leadership
Economic Management
Moral Authority
International Relations
Administrative Skills
Relations with Congress
Vision/Setting An Agenda
Pursued Equal Justice For All
Performance Within Context of Times

Everybody's favorite sexy beast, Calvin Coolidge, came in at #26.

Not quite as sexy as Carter, but slightly sexier than Nixon.

silverscreenselect wrote:C-Span has polled a number of prominent historians asking them to rank all the former presidents in terms of attributes of leadership. They had done a similar poll in 2000 which included Bill Clinton, but not, obviously, George W. Bush, who clocks in at #36 in the new poll. The top three are Lincoln, Washington and FDR while poor James Buchanan still brings up the rear.

Bill Clinton, who ranked 21st last time, moves up to 15th this time, while Bush, Sr. has also moved up, from 20th to 18th. One president who is usually an object of disdain, Grant, made a big jump from 33 to 23.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities ... 62913403/1

The criteria used:

Public Persuasion
Crisis Leadership
Economic Management
Moral Authority
International Relations
Administrative Skills
Relations with Congress
Vision/Setting An Agenda
Pursued Equal Justice For All
Performance Within Context of Times

I'm not sure how seriously I can take that poll. It had Kennedy, at number 6, one slot ahead of Jefferson. --Bob

Bob78164 wrote:I'm not sure how seriously I can take that poll. It had Kennedy, at number 6, one slot ahead of Jefferson. --Bob

There were a few others that had me doing a double-take (and sometimes more than that) as well. But then I looked back at the title of the survey and saw that it specified "leadership" as opposed to the usual rank by "greatness" or some similar criterion. Even at that, though...Carter at 25? Jimmy scored quite well in two categories ("moral authority" and "pursued equal justice for all"), which skewed his ranking an awful lot higher than it would have been otherwise. An overall rank of 25 is, IMO, excessively generous in his case.

As an aside, AOL was featuring a poll this weekend that was done in the UK this past fall ranking the presidents by their "greatness". And there were what I consider some eye-poppers in there as well...

I'm sorry- Warren G. Harding was pretty bad- he should be ranked the worst.

I'm OK with Bush at 36.

And I think 25 is too low for Carter and that it will rise as time goes on. Grant should have stayed where he was.

Good thing they don't let me do these things . . .

Carter.... shiver.

This reminds me of a poll of British historians about the greatest 20th century PM. Their pick? Why, Clement Attlee, of course. Churchill was third, I recall.

AlphaDummy wrote:

Bob78164 wrote:I'm not sure how seriously I can take that poll. It had Kennedy, at number 6, one slot ahead of Jefferson. --Bob

There were a few others that had me doing a double-take (and sometimes more than that) as well. But then I looked back at the title of the survey and saw that it specified "leadership" as opposed to the usual rank by "greatness" or some similar criterion. Even at that, though...Carter at 25? Jimmy scored quite well in two categories ("moral authority" and "pursued equal justice for all"), which skewed his ranking an awful lot higher than it would have been otherwise. An overall rank of 25 is, IMO, excessively generous in his case.

As an aside, AOL was featuring a poll this weekend that was done in the UK this past fall ranking the presidents by their "greatness". And there were what I consider some eye-poppers in there as well...

Yes, if you front load the quiz with "pursued values indicative of those of the modern Democratic party" as one of the criteria, Carter will do great, even though really very little good came of his presidency (Bush, who I am loathe to defend, never seemed to sink into that weirdly defeatist "malaise" talk that I associate with Carter)(Obama, BTW, may think he is lowering expectations, but he needs to tone that down a bit, too. We need a prez who is an optimist). Of course, there is reasonable disagreement about what "pursued equal justice for all" actually MEANS, but those who vote in these type of things tend to lean toward one side of that issue.

silverscreenselect wrote: ...while poor James Buchanan still brings up the rear.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Jeemie wrote:I'm sorry- Warren G. Harding was pretty bad- he should be ranked the worst.

Worse than the President who fiddled while the Republic burned (or seceded)? --Bob

Bob78164 wrote:

Jeemie wrote:I'm sorry- Warren G. Harding was pretty bad- he should be ranked the worst.

Worse than the President who fiddled while the Republic burned (or seceded)? --Bob

Yes- because Harding's failures also gave us Calvin Coolidge, who fiddled while Rome burned the first time.

silverscreenselect wrote:C-Span has polled a number of prominent historians asking them to rank all the former presidents in terms of attributes of leadership. They had done a similar poll in 2000 which included Bill Clinton, but not, obviously, George W. Bush, who clocks in at #36 in the new poll. The top three are Lincoln, Washington and FDR while poor James Buchanan still brings up the rear.

Kinda makes me wonder why my elementary school was named after our 15th prez, if he had no redeeming virtues (other than his bachelorhood). It's not like we had so many schools named for presidents that they reached the "bottom of the barrel" when ours was built. And AFAIK there's no connection between the great state of Oklahoma and President Buchanan.

Sure, nail poor ol' Millard Fillmore from Buffalo again...he had lots of fine attributes as a President, like...

...uh...

...but then...

...ok...he really sucked.

BTW, for a really good analysis of the period from Jackson to Buchanan, which doubtless contained our run of worst Presidents ever, read Harry Truman's take on it in Merle Miller's Plain Speaking.