Ranking the Presidents

Tomorrow is Presidents' Day, so I guess it should come as no surprise that C-SPAN has surveyed a bunch of historians to come up with a ranking of the presidents, from best to worst.

This kind of list is always interesting — and debate-provoking. In 2001, former White House counsel John Dean asserted that such a list "is nothing but high-grade hokum, mixed with a lot of bunkum."

My primary argument would be that C-SPAN's ranking includes every president, and, while it is tempting to pass judgment on George W. Bush, his administration hasn't been over for a full month yet (even though there are certainly those who would argue that Bush simply stopped governing — or attempting to govern — well before his presidency ended on Jan. 20, 2009).

I would establish certain rules that would exclude recent presidents from being ranked — on the grounds that history really hasn't had a chance to fully assess those presidents' contributions.

How much time should be given? Well, I guess history is dynamic in that sense, and interpretations of individual presidents may be subject to change long after their administrations end. Harry Truman and Richard Nixon, for example, were both regarded more favorably about 20 years after they left office than they were when their presidencies ended. C-SPAN's rankings indicate that Truman is still as well regarded as he was in the survey that was taken nearly 10 years ago, while Nixon has slipped a couple of spots.

Anyway, I would say that any presidency that ended in the last 20 years should not be considered. That would remove both of the Bushes and Bill Clinton from consideration, although the elder Bush would be eligible in the first survey that is taken after the next presidential election.

Twenty years is an arbitrary figure, though. Based on my personal observation, it would be wiser to allow 30 years — thus giving history additional time to render its assessment. Using that yardstick, the Reagan and Carter presidencies would not be eligible for ranking this time.

I'm going to stick with the 20-year restriction, though. There are many people who believe that sufficient time has passed to judge the Reagan presidency, which ended on Jan. 20, 1989.

Incidentally, for the record, C-SPAN's Top 10 were:

1. Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865).


2. George Washington (1789-1797).


3. Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945).


4. Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909).


5. Harry S. Truman (1945-1953).


6. John F. Kennedy (1961-1963).


7. Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809).


8. Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961).


9. Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921).


10. Ronald Reagan (1981-1989).

Also for the record, the rankings of the last three presidents (who, as I've said, I would not consider because not enough time has passed since the conclusions of their presidencies) were 15th (Bill Clinton), 18th (George H.W. Bush) and 36th (George W. Bush).

It's worth noting, however, that George W. Bush was ranked behind nearly every 20th century president (the exception was Warren G. Harding) — and most of the 19th century presidents who finished behind Bush essentially passed the buck in the years before the Civil War — the exceptions to that were Andrew Johnson (next to last), who succeeded Lincoln after the war was over and became the first president to be impeached by the House and tried by the Senate, and William Henry Harrison (ranked 39th), who caught a cold that became pneumonia and took his life one month after he took office in 1841.

In fact, due to the brevity of his presidency, I don't think it's fair to rank Harrison at all. Even Pope John Paul I had a longer reign. But C-SPAN included James Garfield in the rankings, and his presidency wasn't much longer. He was shot four months after taking office and died two months after that — but at least he lived long enough to do something while he was president.

I don't suppose that I have any serious arguments with C-SPAN's Top 10, other than my reservations about including Reagan in such a list. Most of the presidents on the list had to face at least one national crisis — and did so quite well.

C-SPAN rates James Buchanan as the worst American president, which leads me to a technical point. There are 42 names on the list, but there were actually 43 presidents prior to Barack Obama. Grover Cleveland served as president twice, but his terms were not consecutive. I tend to think that his presidencies should be judged separately since they governed over two different time periods. But C-SPAN's list treats him as one president, and he falls right in the middle, at #21 (between James Madison and Gerald Ford).

I can't argue with Buchanan's placement, though. When Southern states began to secede in the waning days of his administration, Buchanan contended that secession was illegal. But he also took the position that going to war to prevent it was illegal — so he did nothing.

While it's far from certain, if Buchanan had taken some sort of action to stop the Southern states from seceding, history might have been changed — and the country might have been spared the anguish of the Civil War. So, based on that particular "what-if" from history, I would rank Buchanan as the worst president in American history.

It's interesting to look at C-SPAN's rankings and see what has changed since the 2000 survey. Most of the rankings haven't changed much. In most cases, a president moved up or fell back a spot or two, if that. But there are a few noteworthy changes.

Clinton, for example, is regarded more favorably than he was just before he left office. In 2000, he was ranked 21st. In 2009, as I mentioned earlier, his ranking is 15th.

And, inexplicably, Ulysses S. Grant jumped 10 spots in the rankings, from 33rd to 23rd. Why? I don't know. Perhaps it is because his presidency took a hard line against domestic violence, particularly the sort practiced by groups like the Ku Klux Klan, and was supportive of civil rights.

But his presidency was still plagued with corruption, and most historians would probably say that he was a better general than he was a president.