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For the fifth time in five surveys, Franklin D. Roosevelt tops a Siena College survey of the best U.S. presidents, the school said Thursday.
Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson — the four faces of Mount Rushmore — are all runner-ups, according to 238 historians, presidential scholars and political scientists who participated in the Siena College Research Institute Survey of U.S. Presidents.
Of the other recent presidents, Bill Clinton ranked 13th, Ronald Reagan ranked 18th, George H.W. Bush ranked 22nd, and Jimmy Carter ranked 32nd.
Automatically, I would say including Obama and GW Bush is absurd. Not possible to rank their Presidencies without at least 10 years of historical context.
Oh, I agree, and I was mostly interested in the top 10 and bottom 5. I did find that Clinton was ranked higher than Reagan entertaining though I will admit.
You do realize that this is going to turn into an FDR bashing thread by conservatives... and especially libertarians, right?
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If you guys want, I'll refrain from posting bad things about FDR.
A while back the history channel did a similar survey and Reagan was listed as number 1.
Not that I agree with that either. :shrug:
I think a discussion about the merits of Clinton vs. Reagan would be interesting. Both had strengths and weaknesses. Though I would rank Clinton slightly higher, this would be a debate that would go SO along party lines it would be ridiculous.
Some things I'm dealing with about guns reminded me of bad Clinton.
At the moment I'm not a happy camper with him.
Reagan isn't much better though either.
Each had some definite weakness, but both had strengths, too. In fact, one thing they both had in common were their abilities to communicate and connect with the population.
Definitely, both had high charisma levels.
I think that lends to them being well regarded.
As one who reads a lot about Presidents, I didn't agree with some of the rankings. I'm not sure I would put FDR first; I'd probably rank Lincoln and TR slightly higher. To me, FDR's court packing plan cannot be ignored as being very significant. I also think Ike should get kudos for being one of the luckiest Presidents. He was in charge during an era of prosperity and did little but play golf in 8 years. Then again, he didn't really have to do much. I cannot believe that Coolidge is not ranked in the bottom 5. Worst President of the 20th Century. Here's someone who's lack of action helped cause a catastrophe... the Great Depression. Oh, and as far as luck goes, along with Ike, Washington was one of the luckiest Presidents. I've never been much of a fan. Only reason, to me, that he gets a lot of credit for things is because he did them FIRST. I'd move Adams up and both Madison and Monroe down.
Eh, but ultimately, this is all opinion based on what an individual deems as important in a President.
If you guys want, I'll refrain from posting bad things about FDR.
A while back the history channel did a similar survey and Reagan was listed as number 1.
Not that I agree with that either. :shrug:
Each had some definite weakness, but both had strengths, too. In fact, one thing they both had in common were their abilities to communicate and connect with the population.
I think another thing that they both had was an ability to get what they wanted from congress. Both of them pushed lots of things through a congress generally opposed to them.
FDR is the single most important cause for the bloated federal government we have to day and along with it the massive numbers of people who look to the government to take care of them
Did you reply to the wrong post?
yeah it should have been to the one mentioning FDR but it is responsive to the thread-those who rank FDR one clearly support parasitic statist income redistribution
I again point out that the survey was not "rank the presidents overall best to worst", but was instead "rank the presidents, best to worst in 20 categories". In other words, they where not calling FDR the best president necessarily, but that he scored highest overall in the categories ranked.
Rating presidents is so subjective that it seems a little strange for an "expert" opinion to be more meaningful than anyone else's opinion.
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