The CSPAN ‘historians’ list of presidential rankings offers the usual suspects:
1. Abraham Lincoln
2. George Washington
3. Franklin D. Roosevelt
4. Theodore Roosevelt
5. Harry S. Truman
6. John F. Kennedy
7. Thomas Jefferson
8. Dwight D. Eisenhower
9. Woodrow Wilson
10. Ronald Reagan
As usual, the ineffectual Kennedy is vastly overrated for specious reasons. People clinging to Camelot AgitProp like Gollum and his Precious. Cuban Missile Crisis aside his legislative and international accomplishments are essentially nil. And one can make a compelling case that Kennedy’s own callowness led directly from Vienna to the Berlin Wall to Cuba (and let’s overlook Vietnam out of politeness).
We would rank Washington ahead of hollow Lincoln gushing so much in vogue in Sally Quinn’s universe. First, few Americans understand he told the U.S. Army to stand down, not overthrow the Congress in Philadelphia and obey civilian government. He also declined the crown and did not want it offered three times. More importantly, he later stepped down voluntarily. Creating is so much more difficult than preserving or destroying.
Jefferson was actually a calamitous president and his Neo-con-esque Jacobin policies largely not understood by modern scholarship. Points for the Louisiana Purchase geopolitically — although students of republican theory then and today understood the expansion meant inevitably some form of political decay devolving inexorably to an imperial endgame of some sort.
Woodrow Wilson? Please explain to the Stiftung how this disaster is not in the bottom 20.
Overall, morons like Tweety who purport to be be pros with his fluffer Howard Fineman miss the fundamental dynamic with this pseudo intellectual exercise. Tweety suddenly blurts he’s mystified how ‘liberals’ made this ranking. Fineman gushes his number one president would be JFK. Allowing these people more air time is crime against the future.
Contrary to what Tweety and Fineman claim, the Eisenhower re-evaluation began in the early 1980s. The Stiftung had many a conversation back then with Princeton Professor Joanne Gowa about her research on this very topic. Sabato and Brinkley should know better when they did their Mutt and Jeff turn on the Tweety obscenity. Is truth determined by what popularizers like Ambrose churn out? It continues to boggle the Stiftung’s mind how vacant, shallow and superficial our self-styled media (cough) intelligentsia remains.
Modern individuals are given more credence — either way — because of the imperial dimension. Teddy marked a turning point, but FDR marked the dawn of President as Global Emperor. The throne by necessity elevates those upon it, even those named Bush. This essential geopolitical reality can’t be escaped. Hence the Warlord’s ranking.
What will be interesting is to see how the diminished presidency and dissipated American global hegemony affects the re-evaluation prism going forward. Perhaps C-SPAN will be wise enough to allow our Chinese landlords to have input on the next round.
Anon says
If we were advising Joe Wilson – we’d tell him now is the best time to pile on and start attacking Cheney for the Commuting of Libby’s sentence – Forget about the pardon – pretend that you are not glad because it was inconceivable to begin with. The goal should be to coax Cheney into easily provable lies when he writes his book – So he can sue him.
Anon says
re Scooter and Ollie – Ollie’s first venture was in the right-wing leaning ‘security’ world of stuff like vests and car alarms. Scooter too soft for that, image-wise. What Scooter needs is a replacement scandal – a new issue that makes people forget about the old one. Perhaps, he can go back to the noble work of defending Mark Rich. But we recommend he start defending steroidal athletes like a-rod and others. Once he becomes associated, in the public mind, with juicing athletes and that slimy world – he’ll lose some of the Cheney taint.
Oh wait – he was disbarred. Then he should go abroad for a while
flypsyde says
From where or what is the photo at the top of this post taken?
DrLeoStrauss says
Everybody wins in this scenario. Bush asserts distances from Cheney and the entire morass. Cheney shows his fanatical loyalty to the man whose memoirs could destroy him. Scooter’s defense fund presumably take of tuition and other expenses for his family and the rubber chicken circuit beckons. Is it a fall? For those who’ve toiled in the billable hour grind before, getting paid 5 figures by the Altoona Chamber of Right Thinking Americans to explain how Communists and RINOs in the Administration sabotaged finding WMD might well beat having to keep a daily time diary memorializing “Con Call re Seychelles Reebok tariffs; draft letter to W. Kristol; review Chinese child labor regulations.”
Everyone’s a lawyer it seems in the Imperial City. Not everyone can be as lucky to be a Rightist (albeit Neocon) martyr. Perhaps Scooter should lunch with Ollie for tips on a possible Fox show.
Anon says
The failure to pardon Libby is still a delight – Over the weekend we watched the Leon Charney show where he sort of sadly wondered why Bush failed Scooter. Now this from DefRank;
http://christyhardinsmith.firedoglake.com/2009/02/17/trouble-at-the-dick-and-george-corral/
Tiffa says
no effing way George Jr was a greater president than William Henry “I think I’m coming down with something” Harrison.
Aldershot says
I hate it when that happens:
“A Royal Navy nuclear submarine was involved in a collision with a French nuclear sub in the middle of the Atlantic, the MoD has confirmed.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7892294.stm
Anon says
Wilson was an arrogant prick – Thank God for Cabot Lodge for undoing that treaty. Wilson was a racist too – far more so than the run of the mill defensible prejudices that ordinary people had/have.
DBake says
Nice photo. Who would the Guild be though? Not the IMF, I think. OPEC, maybe. And who are the Bene Gesserit?
Well, we all know who the Fremen are.
Lincoln’s an odd case. He wins points simply for being the best writer. (And there were some good writers in that crowd.) But his actual political decisions are so hard to get a handle on. Much like with FDR, it’s trying to get a handle on the government institutions of the modern US. And any love of either of those two has an ends justifying means aspect which, as is pointed out, Washington doesn’t require.
Anon says
Obviously the list is mostly meaningless – since it changes so often. The top three are usually the same because the historians like their policies. But then they are inconsistant – TR is cool, but Polk is not cool. Not clear why. Lots of BS like that – RWR was always underrated – but now he may be overrated in some respects. Why/ Fashion and time. etc
Anon says
We think Polk should have made the list – Did he hype war? Yes, but unlike Bush it was ‘manifestly’ in the national interests and was common sense reaction to Euro politics. We think Truman is probably overrated – Yes, Kennedy is overrated, but we like him (just like the rest of the world – an accomplishment in itself) so will leave him alone.
TR is overrated – He was a great man and a great leader, but not a great Pres – He was too bloodthirsty and chauvinistic – TR is what McCain wanted to be.
If we were advising Dubya’s legacy project, we’d be pushing for TR as a passive aggressive trick to get liberal academics accept the premise of bellicose leadership. TR must of had second thoughts when he son died in battle.