Presidential Rankings, C-Span styles.

Thanks to a recent survey by C-Span, conducted with consult from 65 presidential historians, we have our most recent rating of the best and worst presidents.

According to the survey, Lincoln, Washington, and FDR were ranked as the top three presidents. Pierce, Andrew Johnson, and Buchanon brought up the end.

Interestingly, none of the Presidents from the 1990s or 2000s made the top ten... one made the bottom ten -President G.W.Bush, at number 36. Not too shabby, out of 42 so far (Obama was not included on the list). Personally, I think I'd be a bit upset if i found myself ranked under, or even with, Hoover (34th) or Tyler (35th).

According to a Wall Street Journal survey in 2005(Wikipedia ):

Another presidential poll was conducted by The Wall Street Journal in 2005, with James Lindgren of Northwestern University Law School for the Federalist Society.[6] As in the 2000 survey, the editors sought to balance the opinions of liberals and conservatives, adjusting the results "to give Democratic- and Republican-leaning scholars equal weight." Franklin D. Roosevelt still ranked in the top-three, but editor James Taranto noted that Democratic-leaning scholars rated George W. Bush the sixth-worst president of all time, while Republican scholars rated him the sixth-best, giving him a split-decision rating of "average".

Further, a survey conducted by Siena College of 744 professors reported the following:

* "George W. Bush has just finished five years as President. If today were the last day of his presidency, how would you rank him? The responses were: Great: 2%; Near Great: 5%; Average: 11%; Below Average: 24%; Failure: 58%."
* "In your judgment, do you think he has a realistic chance of improving his rating?” Two-thirds (67%) responded no; less than a quarter (23%) responded yes; and 10% chose no opinion or not applicable."

Although, not all of the past 30 years was a bust... Ronald Reagan topped the list at number ten, Bill Clinton came in at 15th, and George H.W. Bush ranked 18th. Jimmy Carter brought up this pack at at 25th, just above Nixon at 27th.

So, we've got in order:

• Carter, 25th


• Reagan, 10th


• HWBush, 18th


• Clinton, 15th


• WBush, 36th

Mind you, I promise I'm not attacking GWBush or anyone for any reason, I just think this is interesting. Here's the C-Span site with results:
www.c-span.org/PresidentialSurvey/presidential-leadership-survey.aspx,

and read more about it here:
http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2009/02/presidential_rankings_leadersh.html


More to come, later.

I promise I'm back now. Needed a break for a while - holidays, traveling, and starting a (few) new jobs.