More Response to C-SPAN's Presidential Rankings

At the All Spin Zone blog, Steven Reynolds has a very brief rebuttal to C-SPAN's rankings of the presidents — a subject of which I wrote in considerable detail yesterday.

Reynolds seems to take exception to the placement of George W. Bush (36th) in the rankings. I mentioned yesterday that I would advocate not including any president whose term ended less than 20 years earlier, and I stand by that. But I'm not an historian, and I was not included in C-SPAN's survey. And C-SPAN did not ask me about any restrictions I would impose for inclusion in the list.

So, Bush is on the list — even though I still believe that not enough time has passed since the end of his presidency to adequately judge its impact on America and the world. In the years to come, he and his defenders may be proven correct when they say that history will vindicate him.

Reynolds proudly proclaims, in his headline, that "George Bush is NOT the Worst President EVER."

Of course, that is a matter of opinion, like everything else in the survey — and you can see the details of the survey at C-SPAN's website.

But one thing that is not a matter of opinion is the length of William Henry Harrison's presidency. Reynolds says Harrison served 32 days. I'm not a mathematician, but, based on the date that he was sworn in (March 4, 1841) and the date that he died (April 4, 1841), I would say that his presidency was actually 31 days in length.

Although I guess — to use a phrase that is famously attributed to Bill Clinton — that may depend on "what your definition of 'is' is."

A president is typically sworn in at noon. I presume it was done that way when inaugurations were held on March 4 instead of January 20, as they are today. So Harrison would have been president for half of March 4. And it was only minutes past midnight on April 4 when Harrison died, so he really didn't serve as president very long on that day.

That is probably splitting hairs, though. The point is that Harrison's presidential tenure was brief. And, because that is so, I've always tended to reject the notion of including him in a list of presidential rankings. I've always felt much the same way about James Garfield — who, as I mentioned yesterday, had been president for about four months when he was shot, then he lingered for two more months before he died.

Apparently, based on Bush's ranking, Reynolds concluded his very short assessment by asking, "Why do historians hate America?"

If one is dismissed as "hating America" because one disapproves of the job George W. Bush did — and that appears to be the sole criterion Reynolds uses for reaching his conclusion — Reynolds must feel very lonely these days.

Bush's approval rating dropped below 40 permanently — and often dipped below 30 — in the last two years of his presidency.

Polls and surveys are nothing more than snapshots of public opinion. They tell you how the public in general feels about a person or an issue at a particular point in time.

But Bush's approval ratings were consistently low. Does that mean that the vast majority of American citizens hate America? On the contrary. I think the vast majority of Americans love their country — but most of them came to the conclusion that a cretin was in charge.