The top 40 US presidents

[Skybird]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12195111

Ranking done by British academic experts. Their top five would have been my top five, too.

Also note this:


Currently being computed, the survey findings will be posted on the USPC website (www.americas.sas.ac.uk/research/USPC.html) on January 17, 2011, just before President Obama starts his third year in office.

from: http://www.sas.ac.uk/465.html?&tx_ttnews%5BpS%5D=1294793104&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=618&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=437&cHash=444f78a086

[Feuer Frei!]

Good to see Ronald Regan in the top 10 (8), i always liked his leadership style. :up:

[Takeda Shingen]

Something in there struck me as interesting:

UK scholars, by contrast, elevated FDR in recognition of the breadth of the challenges he faced as president during the Great Depression and World War II, his confident and inspirational leadership in both of these crises, and the significance of his New Deal legacy.

There is no greater crisis for a nation than to be at war with itself. So, by the criteria listed above, shouldn't Lincoln have won anyway? The American Civil War, by the nature of the conflict itself, was more traumatic for America than both the Great Depression and the Second World War combined.

[tater]

Something in there struck me as interesting:



There is no greater crisis for a nation than to be at war with itself. So, by the criteria listed above, shouldn't Lincoln have won anyway? The American Civil War, by the nature of the conflict itself, was more traumatic for America than both the Great Depression and the Second World War combined.

Yep. FDR was likely elevated because he was a more socialist than most others. I think FDR did grave damage to the US in the long term since the Entitlements are going to ruin us.

[Takeda Shingen]

Yep. FDR was likely elevated because he was a more socialist than most others. I think FDR did grave damage to the US in the long term since the Entitlements are going to ruin us.

Actually, I think that FDR was probably a 'top five' president, just not the top president.

[CCIP]

Well, this is a British experts' list. Given how FDR doggedly tried to support Britain in her worst moments even through isolationist sentiment and red tape at home, I think it's not surprising they're a little grateful to him.

[tater]

Any "ranking" of things is pretty absurd (except actual, direct competitions like a race where there is a non-subjective 1st, 2d, 3d, etc).

Best fighter plane in WW2? What metric?

Best submarine?

It's pretty much nonsense. Even a 3-way lumping of good, bad, and neither good nor bad would be subjective. Do they get "bad" credit for starting a program that will later bankrupt the country?

Using things like "effective" where it means getting their own pet legislation enacted is less subjective, but says nothing about their overall value to the nation since the pet project could be a disaster.

How about a "broke things the least" metric?

It's nonsense, as all rankings are.

[Growler]

Yep. FDR was likely elevated because he was a more socialist than most others. I think FDR did grave damage to the US in the long term since the Entitlements are going to ruin us.

How is this even possible? It's not like there's been a socialist agenda in place since Roosevelt held office; I understand that this is your opinion, but I don't understand how you can say "the Entitlements are going to ruin us" when, clearly, there's been lots of other fellows of opposing political theories in office since to undo those Entitlements, if they were so bad. So why are they not undone?

Clearly, Roosevelt deserves mention at the top. Like him or not, he managed the US during the lean years of the Depression (well or not, he did stay in office, so the people liked him enough) and took the country through the trying years of WW2 - the world's first truly global conflict, waged in a manner far different even from the first World War - the first modern war, for sure. Roosevelt did so with virtually no Army and an emasculated Navy that was saved by a few individuals' foresight in investing in submarines and naval aviation. He supported allied nations even before the US got involved militarily, and kept the country moving forward toward economic recovery. He was the first US President, in essence, to project the US beyond the borders of just that nation itself, and it shows in the popular perception of US troops that exists to this day, even after the damage done to the US image by post-9-11 moves into Iraq and Afghanistan.

Does all of this make him "great"? Perhaps, perhaps not. Does it make him influential? Oh, hell yeah. Roosevelt was the first US president to involve the nation on the global stage, at the point in time when it was most needed. I'm not saying that Commonwealth and Soviet forces couldn't have beaten Hitler and Tojo; the price would have been far, far higher for everyone had Roosevelt continued to sit the US out. And the global political situation has been vastly different ever since. For good or ill remains to be decided.

[Takeda Shingen]

Any "ranking" of things is pretty absurd (except actual, direct competitions like a race where there is a non-subjective 1st, 2d, 3d, etc).

Best fighter plane in WW2? What metric?

Best submarine?

It's pretty much nonsense. Even a 3-way lumping of good, bad, and neither good nor bad would be subjective. Do they get "bad" credit for starting a program that will later bankrupt the country?

Using things like "effective" where it means getting their own pet legislation enacted is less subjective, but says nothing about their overall value to the nation since the pet project could be a disaster.

How about a "broke things the least" metric?

It's nonsense, as all rankings are.

It is nonsense, but it is what we all do. We rank everything from football teams to late night comedians and all that falls in between. It only seems natural that politicians get rankings as well.

[Penguin]

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/4751/obamacopy.png


(yeah I know they are not 40, got bored after 35 ;))

[tater]

SS is socialism. Setting up Fannie Mae and thus getting the feds involved with home ownership...

Entitlements have shown themselves to be impossible to remove. It's charity, and a pyramid scheme. People like getting free stuff taken from others. Since all of it is paid for by a minority, it is hard to get support for removal since even people who claim to be conservative will whine about getting their due (even if the current "due" is grossly out of sorts with what they should have expected during their working lives).

All the years of SS until recently have run on a surplus. The surplus was then loaned to the government (they bought t-bills with it) to finance government spending beyond their means. That spending was for programs enacted and done during the working lives of those now collecting. So they overpaid for entitlements, then allowed their government to spend that money—ON THEMSELVES—not complain when those of us left with the tab have to pay for their mistakes. Ugh. Anyway, FDR started US socialism in earnest, and all since was simply tagged onto it.

Regardless, rankings are stupid, no matter who you put on top, or what metric you use to make the ranking as they are ALL subjective.

[Growler]

SS is socialism. Setting up Fannie Mae and thus getting the feds involved with home ownership...

Entitlements have shown themselves to be impossible to remove. It's charity, and a pyramid scheme. People like getting free stuff taken from others. Since all of it is paid for by a minority, it is hard to get support for removal since even people who claim to be conservative will whine about getting their due (even if the current "due" is grossly out of sorts with what they should have expected during their working lives).

All the years of SS until recently have run on a surplus. The surplus was then loaned to the government (they bought t-bills with it) to finance government spending beyond their means. That spending was for programs enacted and done during the working lives of those now collecting. So they overpaid for entitlements, then allowed their government to spend that money—ON THEMSELVES—not complain when those of us left with the tab have to pay for their mistakes. Ugh. Anyway, FDR started US socialism in earnest, and all since was simply tagged onto it.

Regardless, rankings are stupid, no matter who you put on top, or what metric you use to make the ranking as they are ALL subjective.

I hear you, tater. What I was trying to get to was the fact that it's not the Entitlements themselves that are ruining us - it's our (collectively) unwillingness to remove said entitlements that leads us towards ruin; so its our responsibility to ourselves and each other - sod the gummint - to fix the problem. If we can't remove the entitlements, we can choose to live without them. I don't have to take SS when I'm older; people choose it. On a wholly personal sidenote: My mom retired at 63 after her leukemia diagnosis in April. Her first SS payment was to arrive in January, as it turned out, two months after her death. So, there's at least one person who didn't draw down the SS fund.

[tater]

I think that people should get out a reasonable pay out based upon what they have paid in. That said, the excess tax that was used to spend us into deficit needs to be taken into account (as programs all grow, so setting up something "paid for" by excess SS taxes 40 years ago comes to roost when there is no more "excess" SS revenue. I'd personally eliminate SS and medicare as they are known now, but in a gradual way since many have planned around the charity hand out.

I also don;t think that anyone should get benefits that were not on the table during the bulk of their working life. No retirees right now should get the Medicare Part D (drug beni). None. They never paid for that, they have no right top expect it (in any ranking I'd ding W down to the bottom for not vetoing that POS entitlement expansion).

My personal take is that SS should be what it was when started. VERY low tax rate (like 1%), and insurance, not "retirement." There is no right to retirement.

That said, I would also be a bit peeved to have paid in 15 grand a year for a long time, then get nothing out.

[Skybird]

I think one should not think there is meaning in two ranks just one number apart. The general tendency is what gives the interesting picture. Most of us probably agree that those five they oiucked at the top, are indeed the top five - the actual sequence in which you sort them, is not so important. Interesting is that for example the Brits share my sentiment that Kennedy is massively overestimated and by far no name amongst the top. Interesting is that GWB is the lowest ranling president since "the scandal-hit Warren Harding (1921-23, 38th). Interesting is that both American and now the British rankings see Lincoln very much at the very top. Interesting is that Carter, often ridiculed by the Americans in this forum, is not seen in the lower end of the list, but safely in the midfield, like Clinton. And so on.

Splitting hairs over whether president A was 12th and president B was 13th, or the other way around, is leading nowhere.

[tater]

The metrics they use are of course subject to subjective views. Positive historical impact? Most any US President would have won ww2, for example, it would have had to have been grossly mismanaged to be lost. Not dinging FDR down for the huge negatives of his socialist bent is simply subjective. Ask a bunch of people from a country where middle of the road US democrats are considered "right" and you'll get unsurprising results.

I also think the failure to properly place Lincoln at the top shows how kooky it is. There is a reason he is virtually always at the top of such rankings in the US. His very election precipitated the Civil War. Any difference there would result in a vastly different country (or countrieS) moving forward.

[Catfish]

...
My personal take is that SS should be what it was when started. VERY low tax rate (like 1%), and insurance, not "retirement." There is no right to retirement.
That said, I would also be a bit peeved to have paid in 15 grand a year for a long time, then get nothing out.

Ok, let's see. You are 45, have worked for 20+ years in one company, and lost your job. Think you'll ever get a job again ? Sure not in Germany, after 40, you're toast. Served in the army - your fault.
That leaves you with 20 meagre years to slowly die with substandard medical care.
Either you think of all possibilities that can happen and what man can do, to at least lead a decent if not rich life, or you just let the not so well-off die when they lose a job. Because this just is what you propose.

Paying all your life for a meagre retirement loan is nothing else than insurance, only that the government does it, and no greedy insurance company that might get bankrupt tomorrow.
Look at the current interests if you insured yourself privately, and what you will get out of THIS - if your private insurance company still exists at all in 10+ years. I can as well store my money in the bathroom, all interest of what 4 percent will be eaten up by inflation.

Greetings,
Catfish

[Ducimus]

"Old Hickory" should be in the top 15 in my opinion. ( Ignoring that little "blemish" with the Indians. :shifty: )

[ETR3(SS)]

I'll be honest here. I could really care less how a country governed by monarchs ranks the Presidents of my country. Imagine how silly it would be if Americans came up with a list of best to worst British kings and queens.

[Growler]

I'll be honest here. I could really care less how a country governed by monarchs ranks the Presidents of my country. Imagine how silly it would be if Americans came up with a list of best to worst British kings and queens.

That's the price we pay for still being the best deal going.

[UnderseaLcpl]

FDR is #1!?:-? Ain't that a bee with an itch:nope: Then again, I shouln't be surprised the Brits think he's great; they think Churchill's great too and he almost single-handedly destroyed the Empire.

Let's look at some things FDR did during his illustrious presidency:

1) Supported more pieces of unconstitutional (as found by the Supreme Court) legislation than any president in history.

2) Tried to pack the Supreme Court

3) Didn't manage to end the depression until he was dead.

4) Purposely tried to start a war with Japan by specifically instructing US diplomats to refuse any diplomatic offer the Japanese brought to the table.

5) Managed to be unprepared for said war.

6) Blatantly violated US neutrality for absolutely no reason other than Anglophilia, all without the consent of the people.

7) Went to war with Germany, at the expense of hundreds of thousands of American lives and untold sums of money, and yet failed to accomplish any of the war's supposed original aims.

8) In addition to not liberating Poland, a dozen more countries, almost all of which preferred the Germans to the Russians, ended up behind the Iron Curtain for half a century.

9) Sanctioned the internment and prosecution of tens of thousands of Americans on the basis of their ethnicity

10) As has been mentioned, signed social suck-urity, the bankrupt retirement program that pays stipends nobody could possibly live decently on, into law.

11) Allied with a monster who killed far more people via systematic methods of extermination than Hitler ever did.
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The really funny thing about all this is that most of the stuff people hate GW Bush for are things FDR did in extremis, and yet people adore him. It just goes to show how effectively the public consciousness can be whitewashed, just as was done with Wilson's presidency during WW1. Wilson accomplished absolutely nothing he set out to do; his own ideals were torn apart by his allies. The League of Nations and the idea of self-determination for all nations were dead before he ever set foot in Paris. He condoned and turned a blind eye to violence and inhumane treatment of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans, and so on and so forth. He personally referred to what he called "hyphenates" as something resembling a blight upon society on many occassions, and yet nobody remembers that. Hardly a wonder, just look in a high-school textbook and see if you find any mention of such things. How wise we are to let the state ensure that we all receive a proper education.
-------------------------------

I hate to dog on our British cousins so much because I like them, even if their overriding ambition is to tax all of our tea and quarter their troops in our homes:DL, but this ludicrousness that seems to govern their public mindset has to stop. If any nation in the world should know a thing or two about the dangers of the fallacies of idolizing great men for no other reason than "inspirational leadership", as the article puts it, and pursuing interventionist policies, it's Britain. What was easily the greatest empire the world has ever seen was reduced to a shadow of its former self in the span of less than a century, a process which began the moment that the aristocracy tried to "freeze" things as they were, so to speak, through military activity, restrictive trade policies, and later, a socialist outlook.

The US is doing the same thing right now, and it has been doing so for quite some time. It will take longer for us to fail because we have so many unbelievably unfair advantages in terms of geography and economy, but it will happen if our national attitude does not become more pragmatic in the near future. That doesn't mean elevating arrogant, incompetent powermongers (and especially those who are part of a political dynasty:roll:) to the status of sainthood simply because of their ideals or charisma.

I'd go on, but I think I'm sure I've gone on enough for those who cared to read all that. Thanks in advance to those who have something to add. I know I haven't responded to many posts in the past few months because I've been busy or out-of-state, but I've got some time off so I won't be inadvertently posting stuff and then seemingly ignoring the responses for a while yet.

[Takeda Shingen]

I'll be honest here. I could really care less how a country governed by monarchs ranks the Presidents of my country. Imagine how silly it would be if Americans came up with a list of best to worst British kings and queens.

1. Henry the 8th
2. Edward the Longshanks
3. Winston Churchill
4. King Arthur
5. Mister Bean
6. That British guy that hosted the Golden Globes

[UnderseaLcpl]

You never fail to impress, Tak. It's nice to see someone who knows Churchill for what he was. :up:

[Platapus]

positive historical significance of their legacy

What political analysts call a self licking ice cream cone.

In other words contemporary historians are ranking this high in cases where past historians have ranked this high in cases where even older historians... well you get the point.

If people get amusement from these rankings great. But I see little value other than for entertainment purposes.

[Takeda Shingen]

You never fail to impress, Tak. It's nice to see someone who knows Churchill for what he was. :up:

Praise from Caesar is praise indeed.

[Kaye T. Bai]

My Top Four (in no particular order) :salute:

George Washington
Abraham Lincoln
Theodore Roosevelt
Dwight David Eisenhower

[Onkel Neal]

Great Depression was really horrible historical event. But if it didn't happen who knows what would be now. Finally, I am so happy that North and South had found the compromise before I was born. :D


Spam, never reported.

[joea]

4) Purposely tried to start a war with Japan by specifically instructing US diplomats to refuse any diplomatic offer the Japanese brought to the table.

5) Managed to be unprepared for said war.

6) Blatantly violated US neutrality for absolutely no reason other than Anglophilia, all without the consent of the people.

7) Went to war with Germany, at the expense of hundreds of thousands of American lives and untold sums of money, and yet failed to accomplish any of the war's supposed original aims.

8) In addition to not liberating Poland, a dozen more countries, almost all of which preferred the Germans to the Russians, ended up behind the Iron Curtain for half a century.

9) Sanctioned the internment and prosecution of tens of thousands of Americans on the basis of their ethnicity

11) Allied with a monster who killed far more people via systematic methods of extermination than Hitler ever did.
-------------------------------------------------




Wow long post. :D Ok I won't comment on domestic stuff except point 9) which I agree with totally and am rather disgusted how the Canadian government of the time treated citizens of Japanese origin.

I disagree or question all the other points however.

4) There is still a long debate on this issue like here: http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=107123

Long thread but academic and primary sources are debated and cited. The poster BravoMike probably is closest to my view. I'll return later but suffice it to say the actions against Japan have to be seen in the context of the war in Europe, no war, no Axis alliance no war in the Pacific IMHO. I feel FDR either wanted to make Japan back down or goad them into action to make it easier to get into the war against Germany luckily Hitler made it easy by declaring war (he didn't have to - check the text of the Tripartite Pact) on the US.

5) Hardly Roosevelt's fault-given the Depression and isolationism meant delayed start to rearmament.

6) and 7) Nonsense IMO, I think FDR honestly felt in the medium to long term a Europe under the control of the Third Reich would be a threat to US security. We can debate that now but it must have seemed like that then. The US did not go to war to guarantee Poland, that was Britain and France's war aims in 39 at least. The aims obviously changed as the war went on and at no time was the Holocaust a reason - any more than Stalin's crimes a reason not to ally with the USSR - Realpolitik.

8) If we do want to discuss morality though consider that many of the countries that preferred the Germans to the Soviets were allied with Germany ! Yes some like Finland and Romania had lost territory to the USSR before the war and wanted to recover it - but many went to far. Not to pcik on Romania but their war aims went far beyond recovering Bessarabia and their government took part fully in the Holocaust. Heck many Western European occupied countries took part fully and btw I am sure French and Italian communist partisans were as upset to be liberated by the Western Allies as the Poles were by the Soviets.

One more thing about Poland, the nation that probably suffered more than Russia or China proportion wise, yes the Soviets committed crimes there (and the Russian government has apologised for Katyn) but if you look at just this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#endnote_Poland

In August 2009 the Polish Institute of National Remembrance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_National_Remembrance) (IPN) put the figure of Poland's dead at between 5,620,000 and 5,820,000; including an estimated 150,000 Polish citizens who died due to Soviet repression. The IPN's figures include 3 million Polish Jews who died in the Holocaust, as well as ethnic Poles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poles) and other ethnic groups (Ukrainians and Belarussians). The Institute of National Remembrance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_National_Remembrance) (IPN) classifies the various ethnic groups by language spoken. Jews, Ukrainians and Belarussians who spoke Polish were considered Poles.
The Institute of National Remembrance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_National_Remembrance) (IPN) figure for deaths of Poles due the German occupation is 2,770,000. This figure includes "Direct War Losses" -543,000; "Murdered in Camps and in Pacification" -506,000; "Deaths in prisons and Camps" 1,146,000; "Deaths outside of prisons and Camps" 473,000; "Murdered in Eastern Regions" 100,000; "Deaths in other countries" 2,000. These figures include about 200,000 Polish speaking Jews who are considered Poles in Polish sources.[251] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#cite_note-Tomasz_Szarota_1945._pp._29-30-250)

In August 2009 the Polish Institute of National Remembrance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_National_Remembrance) (IPN) researchers estimated 150,000 Polish citizens were killed due to Soviet repression. Since the collapse of the USSR, Polish scholars have been able to do research in the Soviet archives on Polish losses during the Soviet occupation.[257] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#cite_note-KK_1994-256) So the Nazis killed far more Poles than the Soviets-even if you exclude Jews-the Soviets can claim they saved the country from extermination- not that it justifies the forced imposition of communism of course.


11) Well the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and the US has been good at finding unsavoury friends to fight other unsavoury enemies. :DL Not that they're alone of course Stalin must not have been happy allying with capitalists and imperialists. Also while he killed many people I think the numbers are in dispute in a way they are not with the Nazis (who lost and whose records were captured etc.) . While the Russian archives are still difficult to access we do know more than before and yea I have to dig around to find the sources, but seriously, if the numbers bandied about for the victims of Stalinism were correct then counting the 25 million casualties of WWII the USSR would have ceased to exist and would not have bounced back to defeat the Nazis. Look up the Generalplan Ost sometime to know what the Nazis intended to do-consider also 5 million NON-Jews were also killed in the extermination camps.

Final point, if the USSR was seen as a threat to the US (whether they were, or the Nazis for that matter, or not is for another discussion), why wouldn't Germany - in control of Europe- not be? After all it was scientifically and industrially far more advanced than the USSR.

Anyway this is my 20 bucks worth. :arrgh!: Take it or leave it and I'm sure you'll leave it. :haha:

See below just the date darn spammers. :oops::oops::oops:

[Betonov]

Teddy Roosevelt :DL

The guy would make my backwater country a superpower :DL

[Oberon]

FDR at number one is subjective, but yeah, it's probably got a lot to do with the support he gave to the UK even though many did not want him to. There's a lot of deep gratitude to FDR in that, throughout those in the UK who actually know who he is (despairs at younger population).
Te-ahem...sorry...Theodore Roosevelt should be a bit higher than five imho, mayhap he be put at three and FDR brought down under Jefferson...or perhaps the two Roosevelts should be four and five Theodore at 4 and FDR at 5. Hard to say really, but anyone who can continue a speech for an hour and a half after being shot in the chest, well, he gets my vote. :salute:

Interesting that Lyndon Johnson is higher than JFK, also interesting to see Truman so high up the list. If Europe is as socialist as many think it, I'd have thought he'd have been ranked lower. :03:

[TarJak]

FDR is #1!?:-? Ain't that a bee with an itch:nope: Then again, I shouln't be surprised the Brits think he's great; they think Churchill's great too and he almost single-handedly destroyed the Empire.

The Empire was well and truly stuffed long before Churchill got his hands on the reins. A long chain of mismanagement and the ruinous costs of defending the far flung dominions, was, as it is for all empires, too much to bear.