Just for a talker, I thought I'd share the results of this C-SPAN survey on how historians rate the leadership of presidents:
C-SPAN RELEASES SECOND
HISTORIANS SURVEY OF
PRESIDENTIAL
LEADERSHIP
Abraham Lincoln Retains Top
Position;
Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush
and Bill Clinton Advance Since 2000 Survey; George W. Bush Ranks 36th
Overall By Historians
(Washington, DC, February 15, 2009) – Timed
for Presidents Day 2009, C-SPAN today releases the results of its second
Historians Survey of Presidential Leadership, in which a cross-section of 65
presidential historians ranked the 42 former occupants of the White House on ten
attributes of leadership.
As in C-SPAN’s first such survey, released in
2000, Abraham Lincoln received top billing among the historians, just as the
nation marks the bicentennial of his birth. George Washington placed second,
while spots three through five were held by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore
Roosevelt, and Harry Truman, in that order.
Based on the results of historians surveyed,
George W. Bush received an overall ranking of 36. Among other recent
Presidents, Bill Clinton who was ranked 21 in the 2000 survey, advanced six
spots in 2009 to an overall ranking of 15; Ronald Reagan moved from 11 to 10;
George H.W. Bush went from 20 to 18, and Jimmy Carter’s ranking declined from 22
to 25.
As in 2000, C-SPAN was guided in this effort by
a team of academic advisors: Dr. Douglas Brinkley, Professor of History at Rice University; Dr. Edna Greene Medford, Associate Professor of History, Howard
University; and Richard
Norton Smith, Scholar in
Residence at George Mason University. The team approved the ten criteria, which
were the same used in C-SPAN’s 2000 Survey, reviewed the list of invited
participants, and supervised the reporting of the results. Harvey C. Mansfield, William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Government at
Harvard, also consulted on the names of invited historians with an
overall goal of geographic, demographic, and ideological diversity.
“Bill Clinton and Ulysses S. Grant aren't often
mentioned in the same sentence – until now. Participants in the latest C-SPAN
survey of presidential historians have boosted each man significantly higher
than in the original survey conducted in 2000. All of which goes to show two
things: the fluidity with which presidential reputations are judged, and the
difficulty of assessing any president who has only just recently left office,”
said Richard Norton Smith.
“As much as is possible,
we created a poll that was non-partisan, judicious and fair minded, and it’s
fitting that for the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln that he remains at the
top of these presidential rankings,” noted Dr. Douglas Brinkley.
“How we rank our presidents is, to a large
extent, influenced by our own times. Today’s concerns shape our views of the
past, be it in the area of foreign policy, managing the economy, or human
rights. The survey results also reinforce the idea that history is less about
agreed-upon facts than about perceptions of who we are as a nation and how our
leaders have either enhanced or tarnished that image we have of ourselves.
Lincoln continues to rank at the top in all categories because he is perceived
to embody the nation’s avowed core values: integrity, moderation, persistence in
the pursuit of honorable goals, respect for human rights, compassion; those who
collect near the bottom are perceived as having failed to uphold those values,”
concluded Dr. Edna Medford.
Full rankings for each of the 42 presidents are
available at
www.c-span.org/presidentialsurvey <http://www.c-span.org/presidentialsurvey>
C-SPAN’s academic advisors
devised a survey in which participants used a one ("not effective") to ten
("very effective") scale to rate each president on ten qualities of presidential
leadership: "Public Persuasion," "Crisis Leadership," "Economic Management,"
"Moral Authority," "International Relations," "Administrative Skills,"
"Relations with Congress," "Vision/Setting An Agenda," “Pursued Equal Justice
for All,” and “Performance Within the Context of His Times."
Surveys were distributed to 147
historians and other professional observers of the presidency, drawn from a
database of C-SPAN's programming, augmented by suggestions from the academic
advisors. Sixty-five agreed to participate. Participants were guaranteed that
individual survey results remain confidential. Survey responses were tabulated
by averaging all responses in a given category for each president. Each of the
ten categories was given equal weighting in the total scores. Overseeing the
2000 and 2009 tabulations were C-SPAN CFO Robert Kennedy and Dr. Robert
Browning, a political scientist who serves as director of the C-SPAN
archives.
Note that presidents might do well in one category, not so well in another. For instance, Bill Clinton made the top ten on "Public Persuasion," but was sixth from the bottom on "Moral Authority." Which makes sense.
I was going to construct my own Nick Hornby-style Top Five List, but I found it hard to argue with the one that the historians came up with:
- Abraham Lincoln
- George Washington
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Theodore Roosevelt
- Harry Truman
I hated that my favorite Founder John Adams didn't make the Top Ten — he came in 17th — but it's hard to argue with. His greatest contributions to the nation came long before he was president, and however much I like him, he was not that successful a president (probably the greatest thing he did as president was surrender power peacefully to Jefferson). Sort of like the fact that I LIKED Jimmy Carter, but can't say he did that great a job, accomplishment-wise.
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I was surprised historians ranked John Kennedy as high as they did. What were the accomplishments of his short administration? How could William Henry Harrison be anything but last? He was an accomplished military commander but got sick giving his inaugural address, stayed that way and, thirty days later died. Hoover was a bright decent man who was caught by a depression not of his making. I was surprised he was not ranked higher. I don’t think anyone should be ranked by historians until somewhere between 25 and 50 years after their term of office.
I went to the C-span site for the full listing.
I went to the C-span site for the full listing.
This is as worthless as those rankings of stores and eateries by newspaper readers.
Historians manufacturer the reputations of presidents, in order to make a name for themselves and sell books.
Harry Truman was less popular than George W. Bush when he left office after one term.
FDR did the exact opposite of what he promised in the campaign. He expanded Hoover’s failed stimulus programs and deficit spending, and kept the economy in the same sorry condition until World War II. He as a miserable failure.
Jeepers! Reagan No. 10, Clinton No. 15 and Carter No. 25. Have a little humble pizza pie, bud!
Clinton will be #40 when the next generation writes history. Carter will be below that.
Right now, the media still lets Clinton and his apologists repeat the lies about his “leaving us with a surplus” and “great economy”.
This morning on TV, it was a news anchor, apologizing for Obama, mentioning the “2 trillion dollar surplus and 22 million jobs” of Clinton. The lie gets bigger every time they tell it.
I didn’t check out the listings in every category, but some of those categories could cut both ways: “Vision/Setting an Agenda” sounds positive unless your vision, like the W-Cheney joint Presidency, is rather dangerous and unhinged.
I also agree with Greg: Kennedy is ranked too highly, and regarding WH Harrison, well, Greg, maybe in the case of some Presidents having only one month in office at least keeps you from doing protracted harm as in the case of the Presidents ranked below him. I’d rank Harding at the bottom myself. I disagree with Greg re Hoover; the crash of 29 may not have been of Hoover’s making, but Herbie’s actions (or rather, inactions…the Sanford-DeMint of his day) between Oct. ’29 and March ’33—three and a half long years—most certainly DID turn the economic crisis into a catastrophic depression.
LBJ is a tricky one; certainly his legacy in civil rights earns him a high rank, but to essentially authorize the deaths of two million or so civilians via the invasion of a small foreign country that represented no threat to our domestic security should not allow him to rank nearly so high.
Polk is also ranked too high; his biggest legacy is the kind of “Manifest Destiny” expansionism, a belief that God somehow loves Americans more than other humans, which is still affecting, rather I should say “infecting”, our view of the world. Though I am glad that I don’t need a passport to visit Portland.
Along these same lines, John Quincy Adams should be ranked way higher: based on his diplomatic emphasis, for-his-time less brutal policies towards Native Americans, and his Unparty-ish refusal to remove Cabinet members of the opposite party, believing that only incompetence (not ideology or party affiliation) should be grounds for removal from such offices.
It’s good to see General Grant rising in the rankings. He has consistently gotten bad evaluations from historians who believed that Reconstruction and civil rights for the freedmen in the postbellum period were bad things.
If you read the history, you will see that Grant fought a losing battle against the tide of southern rejectionism and white terrorism against the newly freed African Americans.
It’s a sorry chapter in Southern history that we still haven’t fully owned up to yet.
It’s all subjective. Clinton loses points for moral authority. The president sets an example so his philandering justifiably cost him. Reagan of course is way over rated but what can you say. As for Bush Jr., 36??? How could any objective rating organization have him so high. Perhaps William H. Harrison and James Buchanan should be lower but that’s about it. And to suggest the great depression is not Hoover’s fault is ridiculous. Of course it was. His ranking is about right, maybe even a bit high.
The worst ranking was for Andrew Jackson. He was terrible. His handling of Indian affairs, the economy and arrogant disregard for the supreme court justify a bottom 5 ranking, maybe even last.
I don’t much like Reagan but I understand his high ranking. He did inspire the country. Not sure why but he did.
One interesting thing is how we evaluate past leaders through the moral lens today rather than through what they were confronted with at the time e.g. Jackson’s treatment of the Indians, Polk and Manifest Destiny.
Grant’s low ranking is due, at least in part to the rampant corruption which permeated his adminstration.
Grant’s corruption today looks tame, compared to LBJ, Clinton and Obama.
I will agree with bud. It is subjective and depending upon your particular perspective and political position, rankings will vary widely from person to person.
I don’t believe we have had enough time for history to accurately judge the last four or five presidents because some of their policies are still moving through the system.
Greg made a good point about the problems facing each president during his time and they should not be compared to our times. Each is uniquely different.
Oh, yeah, Rich, it’s great to have Grant moving up in the rankings, he whose administration rewrote the meaning of the word “scandal.”
Grant’s cronies, if not Grant himself, were crooks. Grant didn’t profit from their misdeeds, but he did pick the wrong subordinates. Some of them even stole $3 million in taxes.
Sounds like another guy I’ve been forced to look at for the last month.
The level of corruption in Grant’s administration was no greater than what typically transpired at the time. As for Grant himself, he was personally incorruptible. But his leadership skills on the field of battle did not necessarily translate into effective administrative skills. This is something we should keep in mind whenever we think of the military as training for leadership. It has its limitations.
Grant’s administration came in for particularly severe criticism because of his staunch support of African American civil rights and the fact that most US historians of the period were pro-southern racists.
I still think we need constitutional reform so that small states like S.C. and most recently Maine will have influence in the Union proportionate to their population, not because they have two US senators.
In fact, why not just abolish the upper house of Congress altogether.
Now that the Democrats are in power, you can be certain that the census will count everybody, that Congressional districts will actually reflect the population, and that most everyone will get a chance to vote.
Real democracy in this country could spell the end of the Republican party. Do you think we’d be in the same mess today if Gore had become president in 2000?
I don’t think so. Instead, we had eight years of a born-again ex-fratboy who gave us a two-trillion dollar war and a trillion dollars of tax cuts as well as disastrous deregulation and lack of economic oversight.
36th? George Bush should be 43rd!
No, Rich, if Gore had been president the last eight years, we’d be speaking Arabic and Gore would be riding a camel, selling green cigarettes from one side of his steed and bemoaning his sister’s death from lung cancer on the other.
You did realize, didn’t you, Rich, that Gore told the Democratic National Convention that after his sister Nancy’s death in 1984 from lung cancer that he had committed himself “heart and soul into the cause of protecting our children from the dangers of smoking,” but after his speech, Gore campaigned in Tennessee as a tobacco farmer and helped the tobacco industry by fighting efforts to put the words “death” and “addiction” on cigarette-warning labels.
But you’re right about one thing, Rich: A person’s skill at one thing, like Grant’s military skill, doesn’t necessarily translate to political leadership. Witness Obama, the consummate speaker, who can’t follow his own guidelines for appointing an administration.
So with the Democrats in power, they’ll try to steal everything they can, gerrymandering districts to suit them, making illegal aliens voters, etc.
No wonder you think Grant’s administration wasn’t so bad. It appears to have been a model for Democrat doings.
Gore’s family money came from tobacco allotments and oil stocks; his father, after being voted out of the Senate, went to work for Armand Hammer, of Occidental Petroleum. That is how Al Gore, Jr made all those friends with Putin and Chernomyrdin.
Now Al is into selling phony “carbon credits”.
Gore would have continued the successful Clinton economic policies. Also, he would have prevented the attacks on the WTC and pentagon back in ’01. And now instead of trying to fix the economy we’d have the problem of what to do with the enormous budget surpluses we continue to run up. Indeed the world of 2009 would be an embarrasement of riches had Gore succeeded Clinton. As it is we have to suffer the consequences of the Supreme Court’s folly.
Bud, there’s no evidence whatsoever to indicate Gore would have lived up to your pie-in-the-sky, post-partum endorsement.
A man who can’t carry his home state certainly has no business in the White House.
The only groups Gore has ever been able to impress are the liberals in Hollywood and America’s enemies, if indeed those are two separate groups at all.
Oh, and then there was the Democratic Party that nominated him, too. Well, small wonder.
The only groups that Bush ever helped were, well nobody. He was a complete disaster. I believe that Al Gore would have made and outstanding president. But even if not there’s little chance he would have been the disaster that Bush was. At least Gore impressed Hollywood.
Bush kept you safe, bud. Al Gore wouldn’t have. He and Clinton let bin Laden fester into 9-11.
By the way, Obama has already run up a bigger apparent deficit this year than Bush’s deficit last year.
The on-the-job presidential training for the most egocentric politician since Gore has begun.
Obama will be a success. Sure he’ll make mistakes. The whole Judd Gregg fiasco shows how reaching across the aisle is a formula for disaster. It’s high time to end the 60 vote filibuster rule so legislation can get passed to clean up the various messes Bush and his GOP minions created. Given the carnage that idiot has bestowed upon the country and the world let’s hope Obama learns quickly.
To suggest that Bush kept us safe is the perhaps the most hilarious line I’ve heard in years. Just tell that to the families of the 4,200 men and women killed in Iraq, or the families of the men who have committed suicide. Never mind 9-11, the anthrax killer, the Va Tech killings, mine disasters, peanut butter poisonings and the feastering tensions in the middle-east. Really Weldon your comments are absurd. Bush was a disaster from the get go. History will judge the man very harshly. And he deserves it all.
Bud, I’m trying to figure out how the peanut butter salmonella and the killings at Virginia Tech relate to 9-11, but I can’t reach quite that far.
I’d be willing to bet you that 100 years from now, historians will rank Bush above Obama, but neither of us will live that long, so what’s the point?
Besides, the discussion was about Gore, not Bush. You know, Al Gore, Bill Clinton’s lackey.
That’s the same Bill Clinton who admitted he could have extradited Osama bin Laden from the Sudan, but didn’t because he felt bin Laden was not a threat.
The president accused by a senior CIA officer of allowing Saddam Hussein to illegally sell oil, thus making billions of dollars and staying in power.
The Clinton who was warned about the terrorist bombings against American troops at the Khobar Towers, but ignored them.
The president who ignored the 1994 terrorism report that warned of suicidal hijackings.
The philanderer who was impeached on two counts and came only one vote short of being convicted on each of them.
You know, Bill “Waco” Clinton.
And while you’re blaming Bush for Virginia Tech, let’s blame Clinton for Oklahoma City, too.
Inconvenient truth is, Gore was vice-president for all of that.
Weldon VII,
It seems as though you, Lee, Bart, and few other conservatives on this blog tend to get your rhetorical style from Rush Limbaugh! And from me that’s not a compliment.
Bud, I think, addressed the issues quite lucidly. All you seem to come up with is hyperbole.
There is no doubting that the current mess in which we are in came at the end of Bush’s administration, not Clinton’s. Other than Herbert Hoover, I can’t think of a president who has left us more in a mess. Even Nixon did better. Nixon was intelligent and his handling of foreign policy was masterful. He was dealing with an economy that would not fully tank until Carter (through no fault of Carter’s), but, although he was forced to resign, he left America in a relatively strong geopolitical position and he fended off the worst of what the recession he had to deal with.
Bush inherited a magnificent surplus in a country widely respected the world over. He left us poor, reviled, and on our knees.
Gee, you Republicans really know how to govern!!
Hate to break it to you, Rich, but even absent my ear, Limbaugh has more influence than you.
When I have heard him, his rhetorical style topped yours, too.
Sorry to hear you’re poor, reviled and on your knees, though. I’m not, even if I did lose a fortune on bank stock in the last year.
I don’t blame Bush for it, by the way. My Ouija board keeps pointing to the House Finance Committee. You know the guy: Barney Frank, Mr. Chairman. His oversight didn’t exactly turn up much, did it?
And, oh, guess what? I blame the bankers, too! And the stupid people who took out loans they couldn’t afford!
Maybe that poor, reviled, on-your-knees thing you’re going through is because you understand precious little about recent history for a man who claims to be a social studies guru.
Ignoring the facts to call bud’s fact-free argument lucid might have something to do with the condition your condition is in, too.
Maybe your anti-Republican bias has so imprinted itself on both your corneas that your vision has a blue tilt.
And, as I’ve said here before, I’m a blue dog, a South Carolina Democrat, not a Republican.
Just to straighten you out, the only hyperbole in my post above yours is calling Gore “Clinton’s lackey.” Otherwise, it’s basically a list of facts.
You know, the things liberal Democrats generally gloss over or just don’t bother to bring up.
Phillip said,”Unparty-ish”.That is SO gay!
I got left with a surplus last night;talk about a huge stimulus package…
Weldon, you continue to spin and spew a wide range of incoherent nonsense that only shows you for the GOP lackey that you so obviously are. Facts are facts whether you want to acknowledge them or not. You make the ludicrous claim that “Bush has kept us Safe”. That’s pure bull.
Fact: Mining safety took a step backward during Bush’s reign. And we paid the price with disasterous mine accidents that claimed many lives.
Fact: Food poisoning issues ran rampant during the Bush years. That was due in part to cutbacks at the FDA and cronyism that put incompetent friends of Bush in charge of our nation’s food supply.
Fact: Cronyism was not limited to our food. FEMA was infested by the utterly incompetent “Brownie” who despite his years of ‘relevant’ experience as a horse judge was unable to conduct anything like a proper relief effort following hurricane Katrina. Bush was AWOL in that episode spending time in Arizona singing happy birthday while a Cat 5 hurricane was bearing down on New Orleans. He actually spent more time and energy trying to blame the Democrats than he did leading a relief effort. What a shameful episode in the American presidency.
Fact: For at least 5 agonizing minutes after the SECOND plane hit the WTC Bush continued to read about pet goats to 2nd graders. Again, what a shameful episode.
Would Al Gore have been so incompetent, negligent and clueless? Hell no. Gore was a bright and articulate Vice President who would have acted decisively and competently. I doubt 9-11 would have occurred at all, but if it had he would not have acted like a deer with the headlights shining in his face. And he certainly wouldn’t have been at birthday party thousands of miles from DC during the Katrina crises.
The American people voted for Gore over Bush by over a half million votes. Had the will of the people been honored America would be a far better place today. That is something that is a virtual certainty.
According to the official numbers from the US Treasury and the Office of Management and Budget, there was never a budget surplus under Clinton, except for a temporary accounting ruse where money borrowing was shifted for one month during the rollover of the ever-increasing national debt.
Clinton and the Democrats never proposed a budget without at least $300 billion of deficit spending, on top of a $3 trillion tax increase on the middle class.
The national debt increased every year under Clinton, totalling over $1.3 trillon. He left us with a recession in 2000, right after the loss of $4.5 trillion in the 1998 stock market crash.
Bush’s small, partial rollback of the Clinton income taxes immediately ended the Clinton recession, and the economy was doing very well until the Sept 11, 2001 attacks ( again, thanks to Clinton, Reno, Gorelick, Panetta).
Even with Democrats stealing as much Hurricane Katrina money as they could, last week, the OMB announced there was $3.98 billion of aid unspent, and not needed.
So much for the media BS about President Bush not caring about New Orleans.
Bud, Al Gore would spend your last dollar if it would buy him a positive headline on the front page of the New York Times.
So full of himself is he that he would have been a horrible president.
The voters of his own state, the people who knew him best, didn’t back him for president.
He’s a starstruck hyprocrite who lost his chance at the presidency fair and square. We live in a democratic republic, not a pure democracy, thank goodness.
What else can Al Gore do but huckster the Eco Scam? He is a career politician, kicked out of college, who never held a real job in his life.
Al Gore would boil his mother if he thought he could sell the tallow.
Weldon,
Rush has absolutely nothing of any importance to say. Have you looked at the gallup poll lately? The Republican Party is plummeting in the eyes of the public. They’re not fooled. Except for an ideologically-oriented minority, the American people seem to be aware who was running the country in the last eight years and they have been able to contrast the end of the Clinton administration with end of Bush’s.
When bailing out banks is not considered wasteful, but spending on social programs is, something’s wrong.
As for my own personal condition, it’s not at all bad. I have money in the bank and no debt. As a National Board certified teacher with an earned doctorate from USC and 27 years in this business, I am well paid and secure in my continuing employment.
Public service is not always easy, but it has its benefits and I am not complaining. 🙂
Spending on social programs is wrong when it encourages laziness and immoral behavior, keeps people in a state of morose dependency, and enriches bureaucrats and community activists who have no interest in helping people become independent and prosperous.
Rich, what could you earn teaching in the free market? That is what your services are really worth.
bud,
What did you think about Obama reading books to kindergarten students, when he didn’t have time to negotiate the pork spending bill, which has caused the economy to contract with every statement he and his team make?
Hey Weldon not only are you stupid, but you are a liar. If you are a Democrat…I’ll eat my hat!
You don’t know the facts…the facts are that Clinton DID leave us with a surplus and to deny that and call it a lie is to reveal your ignorance. You are the one that is a mere drone and water boy for the misguided Neo-cons. I sure hope you make more than $250,000 since you think it’s ok to steal from the poor/middleclass to enrich the richest people. It’s mind-boggling where you idiots get your ideas from!
Barney Frank is not to blame for anything. Only an idiot would make such a statement so enough said about that.
A Democrat who is a fan of Rush Limbo…what a laugh!
You are nothing but a Bush apologist and as misguided and evil as the rest of your Neo-con pals.
Get a Life and quit lieing…..
Bud,
You are completely full of it! The only one that played fast and lose with the numbers was Dubya who didn’t add the cost of the war into the deficit which would make it much larger.
You are a stone cold liar. There most definately was a surplus under Clinton and the budget was balanced. You better take another look at your sources.
There was no recession during Clinton’s time. It was not until March of 2001 that we were in a recession and that is well documented so stop spinning your neo-con lies.
Turn off limbo and fixed news and do some research, man.
With out history we cannot live very good historians please implement the history so it will helpful to nation shine
Christena
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