G.Bush ranked 36th out of the 42 Presidents

Discussion in 'Politics' started by insider trading, Feb 16, 2009.

  1. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090215/ap_on_go_pr_wh/ranking_presidents

    Lincoln ranked best president by historians

    WASHINGTON – Just days after the nation honored the 200th anniversary of his birth, 65 historians ranked Abraham Lincoln as the nation's best president.

    Former President George W. Bush, who left office last month, was ranked 36th out of the 42 men who had been chief executive by the end of 2008, according to a survey conducted by the cable channel C-SPAN.

    Bush scored lowest in international relations, where he was ranked 41st, and in economic management, where he was ranked 40th. His highest ranking, 24th, was in the category of pursuing equal justice for all. He was ranked 25th in crisis leadership and vision and agenda setting.

    In contrast, Lincoln was ranked in the top three in each of the 10 categories evaluated by participants.

    In C-SPAN's only other ranking of presidents, in 2000, former President Bill Clinton jumped six spots from No. 21 to 15. Other recent presidents moved positions as well: Ronald Reagan advanced from No. 11 to 10, George H.W. Bush rose from No. 20 to 18 and Jimmy Carter fell from No. 22 to 25.

    This movement illustrates that presidential reputations are influenced by present-day concerns, said survey adviser and participant Edna Medford.

    "Today's concerns shape our views of the past, be it in the area of foreign policy, managing the economy or human rights," Medford said in a statement.

    After Lincoln, the academics rated George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt and Harry Truman as the best leaders overall. The same five received top spots in the 2000 survey, although Washington and Franklin D. Roosevelt swapped spots this year.

    Rated worst overall were James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce, William Henry Harrison and Warren G. Harding.

    The survey was conducted in December and January. Participants ranked each president on a scale of one, "not effective" to 10, "very effective," on a list of 10 leadership qualities including relations with Congress, public persuasion and moral authority.
     
  2. Lets see

    George Bush on the economy-No explanation needed

    Foreign policy-Made the biggest foreign policy mistake in the country's history(Iraq)

    National budget-Added more to the National debt then every other President COMBINED

    National security-Worse attack in this country's history happened on his watch

    Civil liberties and upholding the Constitution-Took more rights from citizens then any other President,Shit on the Constitution more then any other President

    This motherfucker should have been dead last
     
  3. Waaaaaay too high.
     
  4. Give the soup time to cook over the next couple of generations, he will end up last...


    "It hurts my head when I have to think."

    <img src=http://boskolives.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/bush-idiot.jpg>
     
  5. Lincoln should have been last as he was a mass murderer and violated the constitution:mad:
     
  6. Brandonf

    Brandonf Sponsor

    These things are such BULLSHIT because these supposed "historians" do not have the benefit to time and of seeing how the things that Bush did actually work out.
    Look don't get me wrong, I think he will be worse then 36th when it's all said and done, especially the shit he did in the last year he was in office, but it's complete BS for them to claim to be "historians" and giving a ranking on Bush already. I'm sure the same "historians" already have Obama's ranked secured at number 2, right behind Lincon.
     
  7. hughb

    hughb

    I think I would rate George Washington number 1. I base it on the fact that he stood up against government tyranny and threw the bastards out. He definitely wasn't perfect, and he was probably the most hated president of all time if you could ask all of the soldiers who helped him throw the govt out after they were told there was no money to pay them. Whiskey distillers didn't think very highly of him either.

    FDR up there?? That's a tough one. His leftist politics were extreme. However his leadership was par exellence - the way he rallied the country into war and the way he said fuck anybody of Japanese descent, throw 'em in jail. Sorry, but that's the way it has to be when you are at war, like it or not. Here we are, suposedly at "war" with Iraq, and President Bush brings Iraqis over here in droves. Bush let so many Somalis in over here, he had trouble finding airliners to fit them all.

    WG Harding down at the bottom makes sense. His admisitration was plagued with scandal, the biggest being the Teapot-Dome scandal.

    I never understood the love and fascination with Reagan. Reagan was the epitome of a politician who says one thing and does another. He talked of lower taxes, and even though he cut them once, he also raised them later. He talked of smaller government, but he increased the size of the governmnet. He was suposedly a fiscal conservative, but spent like a drunken sailor. Reaganophiles vehemently defend him as if he were a demigod. Very confusing indeed. Wanna see a Reaganophile get rabid? Next time you hear a Reaganophile lambasting Clinton for cutting and running from Somalia, remind them that Reagan did the exact same thing in Lebanon. Man they go ballistic on that.
     
  8. These rankings are a joke. A collection of far left professors rank ex-presidents on how much they expanded the federal government or based on liberal fantasies. JFK ranked above Reagan? Please, not even close. What did JFK do in his brief time? Got us into vietnam, backed down at the Bay of Pigs, made secret concessions to look like a winner in cuban missile crisis, enshrined Castro as dictator for life. Reagan? Won Cold War, restored our economy, turned our country around, just a few little things that liberal historians would discount. Lebanon? A big screwup by military that was so incompetent it put troops in a barracks with inadequate security. Reagan acted decisively and cut his losses, seeing correctly we had no business there in the first place.

    FDR is a tough one to rate. He manipulated us into an avoidable war and handed eastern europe over to communist oppression. Like Churchill, he was a great wartime leader, but the real question is why there was a war in the first place.

    Lincoln is a president whose popularity seems to grow with time. He was reviled in his day, but now is seen as the ultimate symbol of politicial correctness and the antithesis of anything connected to conservatism, states' rights or southern culture. Hence, his popularity with the faculty lounge crowd.

    I have to go with the idea of George Washington as the greatest. He set us on a course that made our country great and was so obviously right that it has taken liberals over 200 years to alter it. He could easily have been a King or dictator but instead was a leader of rare character, at least by our contemporary standards.

    I can't quarrel with Bush's low ranking. He presided over pointless wars, insane spending and the wreckage of our financial system. He stays out of the very bottom due to a lack of scandals and his success in combatting terrorism.
     
  9. What should be of more concern is that President Obama has already been anointed as the best of the best. His first month in office has been nothing short of a complete cluster fuck on the economic front, and he hasn't even dealt with the craziness overseas yet. Still, the left has him as one of the greatest of all time.:confused:
     
    #10     Feb 17, 2009