Americans Rank the Presidents

[Bloodshot Scott]

Every eight years Siena College in Loudonville, N.Y., asks scholars to rank the best and worst presidents in American history, and every survey since 1982 has seen Franklin D. Roosevelt in the number one spot. This year is no exception.

But there's a shakeup at the number two position in the 2010 ranking. For the first time in 20 years, Abraham Lincoln has been supplanted as second-best by another Roosevelt: Teddy.

"Teddy Roosevelt had, more than any other president the 'right stuff', and tops the collective ranking of a cluster of personal qualities, including imagination, integrity, intelligence, luck, background, and being willing to take risks," according to the poll's authors. "Lincoln, according to the experts, demonstrated the greatest presidential abilities while FDR ranks first in overall accomplishments."

Rounding out the top five in the survey of 238 presidential scholars are Lincoln, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

"In nearly thirty years, the same five presidents have occupied the first five places with only slight shuffling. Despite decades of new research on former presidents and the accomplishments or lack thereof of the current chief executives, scholars display amazingly consistent results," according to Douglas Lonnstrom, professor of statistics at Siena and one of the study's directors.

As for the five lowest-ranked presidents, that list is fairly consistent as well, with one new addition. George W. Bush came in at 39th out 44 presidents. He's ranked just ahead of Andrew Johnson (pictured), James Buchanan, Warren G. Harding, and Franklin Pierce, all perennial bottom-dwellers.

The second Bush was rated "especially poorly in handling the economy, communication, ability to compromise, foreign policy accomplishments and intelligence."

The current president, Barack Obama, enters the survey in the 15th position.

...

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/0...johnson-poll-ranks-worst-and-best-presidents/

Okay, who is in charge of the voting in these contests, 3rd graders? Obama at 15? It's a joke... that's all it is. To have him right next to an American icon Adrew Jackson is laughable. Next we should put Obama's face on the 2 dollar bill.

 

[LukeEl]

Jefferson Davis was my favorite Confederate President

 

[SRF]

These polls are always the work of college professors and other academics, and we all know how their politics run. G W Bush at 39th??? He made mistakes, but to rank him that low is pure partisan spite. Obama ahead of Reagan? Again pure politics.
My advice to all is to not to take these things too seriously. If you want to find out about the presidents, do your own reading and make up your own mind.

 

[maildude]

Too many variables and criteria to determine the best president. But I hear LBJ had a big cock.

 

[LaLiLuLeLohan]

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/0...johnson-poll-ranks-worst-and-best-presidents/

Okay, who is in charge of the voting in these contests, 3rd graders? Obama at 15? It's a joke... that's all it is. To have him right next to an American icon Adrew Jackson is laughable. Next we should put Obama's face on the 2 dollar bill.

The Roosevelts were 1 and 2? HAHAHA!

I understand why people hate Bush...I fucking hate Bush. BUT, compared to that tyrannical gimp, FDR, Bush was a saint.

Let's see, did FDR:

Provoke the Japanese into an attack? Check!
Purposely ignore signs that the Japanese are going to attack a US Naval base? Check!
By executive order, seize property of over 100,000 Japanese Americans before sending them to live inside fenced in internment camps?
Check!
Try to singlehandedly control The Supreme Court? Check!

And his sadistic warmonger cousin Teddy? Yeah, he had no problem acting as the catalyst of a civil war in Columbia. How anybody can despise Bush yet champion the Roosevelt boys is beyond me.

 

[GregCentauro]

Where is Bill Pullman?

 

[maildude]

And his sadistic warmonger cousin Teddy? Yeah, he had no problem acting as the catalyst of a civil war in Columbia.

Sheesh...a President instrumental in a foreign civil war...SEE Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Clinton, etc........

 

[roronoa3000]

No Danny Glover? Fuck this list!!!
I wouldn't even rank Obama being less than 2 years in. I 'll be back in 2012 to comment.


...I mean 2016.

 

[LaLiLuLeLohan]

Sheesh...a President instrumental in a foreign civil war...SEE Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Clinton, etc........

Who's suggesting that he's alone in meddling? I'm pointing it out because he was ranked as the SECOND BEST president ever....far above our last true two term peacetime president, Eisenhower, and above George Fucking Washington...the president who held a fledgling country together for its first 8 years.

People are retarded.

 

[maildude]

Who's suggesting that he's alone in meddling? I'm pointing it out because he was ranked as the SECOND BEST president ever....far above our last true peacetime president, Eisenhower, and above George Fucking Washington...the president who held a fledgling country together for its first 8 years.

People are retarded.

Yep. People are retarded. Do you vote?

 

[Bloodshot Scott]

The Roosevelts were 1 and 2? HAHAHA!

I understand why people hate Bush...I fucking hate Bush. BUT, compared to that tyrannical gimp, FDR, Bush was a saint.

Let's see, did FDR:

Provoke the Japanese into an attack? Check!
Purposely ignore signs that the Japanese are going to attack a US Naval base? Check!
By executive order, seize property of over 100,000 Japanese Americans before sending them to live inside fenced in internment camps?
Check!
Try to singlehandedly control The Supreme Court? Check!

And his sadistic warmonger cousin Teddy? Yeah, he had no problem acting as the catalyst of a civil war in Columbia. How anybody can despise Bush yet champion the Roosevelt boys is beyond me.

I agree totally about FDR. The most overrated. A lot of people probably simply look at the four terms and the entry into WWII (which was not wanted by Americans) and think, wow. But he did quite a bit of damage and was not a pragmatist, by all accounts.

 

[maildude]

I agree totally about FDR. The most overrated. A lot of people probably simply look at the four terms and the entry into WWII (which was not wanted by Americans) and think, wow. But he did quite a bit of damage and was not a pragmatist, by all accounts.

I agree. You want a good president? Truman. Think about it. Or, for most of you, look it up.

 

[Bloodshot Scott]

I 'll be back in 2012 to comment.


...I mean 2016.

And why exactly is that? What exactly has he done except break down a racial barrier? I swear to Christ his face will be on our currency some day. And to think there is a school named after him already in my town is BS. Total BS.

 

[Bloodshot Scott]

I agree. You want a good president? Truman. Think about it. Or, for most of you, look it up.

My dad thinks Truman was justified in dropping the bomb on them (twice), because the Kamakazes kept suicide bombing. I don't agree with that view at all. I think they could've dropped those bombs off the coast a ways out just to send a message. On the bright side, Japan is one of our best allies now and a great nation. A testament to the fact that we Westerners wrote their Consitution perhaps?

 

[~~whimsy~~]

Lack of history knowledge completely blows this ranking out. Basically this is a popularity contest between the presidents. Sort of like People Magazine top 100 people of the year. Instead the only difference is is people know more about celebrities and their history than there is knowledge about the presidents.

 

[Bloodshot Scott]

Lack of history knowledge completely blows this ranking out. Basically this is a popularity contest between the presidents. Sort of like People Magazine top 100 people of the year. Instead the only difference is is people know more about celebrities and their history than there is knowledge about the presidents.

Absolutely. I posted it because it popped up on my AOL screen today. Thought I'd show y'all how disgraceful this is. To put Obama next to an American hero and legend like Andrew Jackson should make all these 'scholars' ashamed.

 

[LaLiLuLeLohan]

I agree totally about FDR. The most overrated. A lot of people probably simply look at the four terms and the entry into WWII (which was not wanted by Americans) and think, wow. But he did quite a bit of damage and was not a pragmatist, by all accounts.

I don't know if many will agree, but to me, using the attack on Pearl Harbor to get us into the war was akin to Hitler using the burning of the Reichstag to issue marshal law and declare Nazi dominance. So, in a non-Glenn Beckian psycho way, I find that FDR and Adolf Hitler did indeed share much in common. And people can try to counter this by bringing up all the social programs and welfare that came from his administration...just as I'm sure you would have heard in the beer halls of Berlin.

We look back on it now as if Americans were lining up in the streets to fight over in Europe and Asia...as if the war was some universally shared patriotic idea. But you're exactly right...nearly 90% of Americans wanted America to stay out of it. Even after the attack on Pearl Harbor, most Americans were opposed to us entering the European theater.

History has become mythologized. Most Americans still think trhat FDR got us out of the Great Depression. It's unreal.

 

[~~whimsy~~]

Absolutely. I posted it because it popped up on my AOL screen today. Thought I'd show y'all how disgraceful this is. To put Obama next to an American hero and legend like Andrew Jackson should make all these 'scholars' ashamed.

I bet things like this happen all the time. Ranking political figures. It just comes down to opinions with very little knowledge of the facts presented to the public and little to no knowledge on history. Oh! I like President Lincoln because he freed the slaves! George Washington was the first president. That's great. He needs top five at least. I like President Garfield because I like the orange cat Garfield. I bet one asked what about that guy on the $100 bill.

Meh. Different times; different minds. That list will change with less and less knowledge in it each time it is reproduced by college know it alls.

 

[LaLiLuLeLohan]

My dad thinks Truman was justified in dropping the bomb on them (twice), because the Kamakazes kept suicide bombing. I don't agree with that view at all. I think they could've dropped those bombs off the coast a ways out just to send a message. On the bright side, Japan is one of our best allies now and a great nation. A testament to the fact that we Westerners wrote their Consitution perhaps?

Dropping the bombs off of the coast wouldn't have worked. You know why? Because dropping Fat Man and Little Boy on Hiroshima and Nagasaki didn't work.

Americans HATE to acknowledge this, but the reason Japan surrendered when it did was because the Soviets were headed East...through Manchuria and towards Japan. Japan would have kept fighting with us after we nuked them...but the idea of a Soviet occupation frightened them beyond belief. Does anybody think that Stalin would have allowed Hirohito to hold his title?

The A-bombs didn't win the war. The fear of Soviet style Communism did.

 

[roronoa3000]

^I'm going to say it was the bombs.