A recent post in a discussion forum asked an opinion about the best US President in the past 100 years. For me that's a trick question. I rank Theodore Roosevelt second best ever (behind James Monroe). In 1914 he was retired but considering another run. I rank Woodrow Wilson fourth, between Lincoln and Washington. He was serving in 1914. However his best year was his first and the question was past 100 years. His administration went downhil each year. If I omit 1913 he drops from fourth to seventh or eighth, behind Franklin Roosevelt (the best since Wilson, sixth on my list.) I ranked them first in the early 1980s. Since then Reagan changed position a bit and I learned more things about others, but few moved notably. In the early 2000s I wrote eight lengthy essays ranking them by fives through Reagan. They were lost in my first computer crash. I won't list the reasoning in full, but start with my ranking of the first 40 best to worst, add a few notes, then attempt to place the last four with careful reasoning. Monroe (1817-1825) T. roosevelt (1901-09) Lincoln (1861-65) Wilson (1913-21) Washington (1789-97) F. Roosevelt (933-45) Polk (1845-49) Jefferson (1801-09) W. H. Harrison (1841) Jackson (1829-37) Madison (1809-17) Mckinley (1897-1901) Eisenhower (1953-61) Truman (1945-53) Hayes (1877-81) Taylor (1849-50) Cheser A. Arthur (1881-85) Reagan (1981-89) Coolidge (1923-29) Kennedy (1961-63) Tyler (1841-45) B. Harrison (1889-93) Garfield (1881) Nixon (1969-74) Fillmore (1850-53) Cleveland (1885-89) J. Q. Adams (1825-29) A. Johnson (1865-69) Taft (1909-13) Pierce (1853-57) Carter (1977-81) Ford (1974-77) J. Adams (1797-1801) Cleveland (1893-97) Van Buren (1837-41) Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-69) Harding (1921-23) Grant (1869-77) Hoover (1929-33) Buchanan (1857-61). You don't haveto be a historian to be surprised at seeing William Henry Harrison in ninth place, He died after 30 days and did nothing. You can't put him at the bottom or leave him out for that. By placing him there he becomes the dividing line between Presidents who basically did only good and Presidents who did some good and some bad, starting with Jackson who did much more bad than good but ranks high because he got things done as he wanted them. Nice men who failed to achieve good things despite good intentions are bunched up together between the two Cleveland administrations. I count Cleveland twice because averaging two non-consecutive terms is unfair. (Ranking terms is another exercise and I might try that soon.) Doing nothing is not a bad thing. Warren G. Harding ran on a platform of a return to normalcy which meant he would not be an activist President. Scandals in his administration put him near the bottom, but otherwise hewould rank near the middle. Coolidge followed his lead with no scandals and provides a second dividing line. He might have been right behind W. H. Harrison except that late in his administration a few things should have been don to prevent the Great Depression. He comes right behind Reagan who was very much like him but more active. Behind him the Presidents decline from ineffective to disastrous. Starting with Nixon the administrations are more bad than good by any standard of measurement. For the last four I must apply my above reasoning impartially. George H. W. Bush won the Gulf War and helped end Communism in Europe. He raised taxes, causing a small recession in pursuit of long-term gains. His two Supreme Court appointees pleased no one except hisenemies. He ends up between Reagan and Coolidge. Clinton had a good economy despite another huge tax increase. He had eight years of scandals and was impeached for them. His two Supreme Court appointments went exactly as he hoped. His cabinet was terrible and many appointees were rejected. He failed to achieve much against terrorists. There was no war, just bombings and unclear deployments with a few sad results. He ends up between J. Q. Adams and Andrew Johnson. George W. Bush got what he wanted from Congress, achieved the original goals in two wars, named two solid Supreme Court Justices, avoided person scandal, dealt with the first recession and was trying to address the second when his term ended. Considering how stubborn that recession became he can not be faulted too heavily. At the moment he stands between Kennedy and Tyler. Obama got his way for two years. The Recovery and Reinvestment Act created temporary jobs. Obamacare has gotten a messy start, but unless it fully falls apart soon his getting it through ranks as a great accomplishment. Scandals are everywhere but not yet defined nor clearly pointed at him. If these policies continue he has much to brag about. In foreign policy however the administration is at best following other countries and at worst receeding towards isolationism. The consequences will not soon be assessed clearly and the reasoning is unknown. His social engineering is in the spirit of L. Johnson and Jackson, though with different goals. At this moment he stands between Truman and Eisenhower.
I have an interesting link explaining that Woodrow Wilson was worst. Read first, then comment. In principle "Good" and "Bad" depends from the definition criteria. If "Bad" means "inactive", it will be not Wilson to be at the end of the list (from "good" on top to "bad" at the end). . If "bad" means: "Ruining the constitution or democracy", Wilson will get the award, perhaps together with G. Bush. http://is.gd/M9SxZq
I thank you for offering any comment, especially one that can clarify my reasoning on some of the list. The only thing of consequence in that article I didn't know were his 1890 comments. They don't surprise me and it makes sense. Wilson would be well aware of how Jefferson dealt with Napoleon's Continental System and Britain's rival embargo. As you can see, Jefferson ranks eighth on my list largely because he was able to navigate those problems without war. Madison stands at 11th because he couldn't avoid war, but got out when it was obvious we couldn't win. I put Polk at 6th and McKinley at 12th because they wanted war, won it quickly, and expanded the country (adding four huge states in Polk's case and several colonies in McKinley's case. In other words, a President with a fixed agenda who achieves his goals ranks high even if there is no need to achieve those goals. That's why Obama is currently 14th pending further developments and Jackson 10th even though most of Jackson's agenda was evil and Obama naive idealism. Doing nothing is good provided nothing needs to be done. Monroe ranks first because he dealt with three problems perfectly. Jackson overstepped his authority in Florida. We bought Florida. The addition of Missouri created a problem regarding slavery. We got the Missouri Compromise. Latin American countries became independent. He announced the Monroe Doctrine but made no deployments. There was a brief recession. He did nothing. It ended on its own. Theodore Roosevelt ranks second because he addressed problems in the food industry and monopolies while taking proactive steps in conservation. He used his big stick but didn't go to war. Lincoln is third not just for winning the war but for the Homestead Act. That would have made him great in peacetime. I put Wilson fourth because of his early reforms, restraint in joining the war and plan for both swift victory and stabilizing peace. Theodore Roosevelt would have joined the war in 1914. Taft would have stalled, leaving his successor a mess. If the other three men had paid more attention to him things would have been very different 20 years later. Doing nothing is fine if nothing needs to be done. That's why I put W.H. Harrison ninth. Coolidge did as little as possible for six years. He ends up 19th because a few things needed to be done. Pierce and Buchanan did nothing when something urgent needed to be done and place 34th and last. Harding promised to do nothing and only ranks near the bottom because of scandal and three weak Supreme Court picks. By my reasoning the lowest I could consider dropping Wilson would be to ninth, between W. H. Harrison and Jackson. I didn't expect George W. Bush to rank as high as he did, but he got what he wanted from a heavily divided Congress. Even Wilson couldn't do much when Republicans took control. That 1948 poll is easy to explain. Most people polled had pleasant early memories of Wilson. Older persons would have favored T.R. FDR converted many people to Democrat so any Democrat would be considered more nicely. I imagine Cleveland had more support than he deserved. By 1962 T.R. had no sentimental votes but Wilson had some. since then his placement has become less biased but still often flawed.
exactly,i would say wilson wins first prize because he betrayed the constitutun and americans in 1913 with the federal reserve act.we lost our independence and freedoms then and became a facist dicatership.
It depends how you rank. To me one of the best presidents is of course Roosevelt. I also rank Jimmy Carter high on that list although many of his policies got reverted by one of the worst in my mind: Reagan! I don't think FTR has to be argued for really, so I'll jump to the other two. Jimmy Carter is actually the only president after WW2 not to bomb another country during his presidency. He made the US go to the metric system, a step which I think is unavoidable long term and he reduced the consumption of foreign oil of the US by 50% not to mention that he moved towards green energy back in late 70s. Certainly the US would be as a country much better off had his policies remained in place. But then Reagan, the anti-intellectual president, removed all these policies, increased the US's consumption of foreign oil by 400% and took the US back to the imperial system. Reagan crashed the US economy. By the time Bush was president, the US was in a recession. I also think it says a lot about a president what they do after their job is done. Clinton & Carter are highly active to aid people, the Bush-presidents and Reagan go to a ranch and do nothing really. Reagan to me is the primary example that we grade politicians the wrong way. A successful politician in our society is a popular politician these days. I think we should look at who was the most forward thinking and who made changes in the right direction long before everyone else instead of damn popularity figures.
If that's your reasoning I'd like to see you go further down the list. That will reveal if your reasoning is consistent and also give evidence of political bias. Everyone at the top of my list down to Hayes was forward-thinking. With that qualification, their level of success relative to their plans becomes the biggest divider.
I don't know if I'm able to do that since I don't know the history of the US presidents that well unless they are very recent and to some degree were covered in my history degree. But I did study in Europe so the focus was on Europe not the US... I will do my best though. Lyndon B. Johnson would in my mind be considered a bad president because he started a war without probable cause. The Gulf of Tonkin incident never happened as it was admitted by the NSA in 2004. In the end, the result of that was over 57.000 Americans dying in battle and (in some estimates up to) 2 million deaths in south east Asia. This also created internal problems for the US and eventually showed US weakness and their willingness to use napalm. I don't think it made the US popular internationally... George W. Bush to me was bad, because he didn't work hard enough. I think he took his office far too lightly and took far too many vacations, hence people like Chaney got to run his office and various department-heads didn't get enough presidential oversight. Without proper leadership they tend to fall apart. I don't think Bush was stupid or his policies were necessarily that bad, but I think he just worked too little to have the positive effect as he I'm sure wanted to have. I think there were two low points in his presidency in terms of policies for the US people: The "patriot act" and "no child left behind". The first restricted the rights of US citizens and the second made a high school degree worthless by allowing everyone to graduate. If I think of very good presidents, Clinton comes to mind, primarily because of his economic success. He also increased the US's internal stability and worked very closely with other leaders. I think the years of his presidency can be considered one of the golden years of US history. His low-points I feel are Bosnia and Rwanda, which were bad internationally but had little negative effects on the American people or on America in general. And in the end it is first the American people the US president should be concerned about. I wish I'd know more about past presidents to give more comments about that, but my knowledge in that regard is very limited I'm afraid. I'm for example not convinced Lincoln was a good president. During his presidency most Americans died in battle, and half of his country went bankrupt. I would love to question somebody who really studied his case in order to figure out more about him. But if you look at just the presidency, I don't know if he can be considered a good president. He managed to pull of a very important amendment that's for sure. I think there is as much bad as there is good about him.
Thank you for that. The liberal media has been doing everything it possibly can to make Lyndon Johnson look good but he was a bad man in every possible way and his presidency was a disaster. I suspected your admiration for Carter was from a Democratic bias. Democrats like his Presidency less than Lyndon Johnson's these days, but no one ever disliked the man. The liberal media hates Reagan for doing a good job, thus allowing other lesser Republicans to come to prominence. Republicans revere him far too much. I've never met anyone neutral enough to assess him as I do (18th between Chester A. Arthur, known for one great law during a quiet era and Calvin Coolidge-just like Reagan but followed by a Great Depression instead of a mild recession). George H. W. Bush moderated that recession or Reagan would fall much lower. The way Reagan handled the recession that ended Carter's term was brilliant.
I'd like to point out that I'm not in favor of one party over the other. I'm in favor of who ever does a good job while in office. And I look at things not from a liberal point of view, but rather from a forward thinking point of view. I don't think there were to many people more charismatic I can recall than Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Obama is certainly not as charismatic neither are the other presidents I mentioned. To me Lyndon Johnson is neither charismatic nor did he do much good for the people of his country he was supposed to be serving. Reagan was primarily charismatic but did a lot of crap for his people long term. If you lower taxes the way Reagan did, you're going to stimulate the economy short term. But only short term! Taking off the solar panels when he got into office Carter let install in 1979 is just stupid. Increasing the consumption of foreign oil is just stupid. The "star wars" program was playing with the devil. The soviets now knew, that the US could fire at them and take down some of the missiles from the counter attack. Basically making the cold war, which had cooled off, really hot again. Although it worked out for Reagan, this move could have started WW3 if the counterpart in the SU had an itchy trigger finger. To me a big time hero on the other side of the coin is Boris Yeltsin. Not necessarily because he was a good leader, but because he had a very tough decision to make. The story might be a little off now, but basically this is what we heard back in the early 90s: The cold war ending didn't necessarily mean that everybody became friends over night. And at the beginning of his term a NASA rocket malfunctioned (or flew over airspace it wasn't supposed to or something like that) and flew directly over Moscow. From a Russian point of view, it looked like the US, noticing the momentary weakness of Russia, launched a massive attack missile aiming at Moscow. The radars were certainly saying so. Yeltsin had 60 seconds to decide to order a nuklear counter attack. Sometimes these little things tend to get forgotten. Personally Clinton had the most negative effect on my life because he didn't intervene in Bosnia. I lived in Croatia at that time, and we (as in civilians) were hoping that the Americans would fly in and stop the war. However, I still consider him a great president. Bush's "patriot act" and "no child left behind" had absolutely no impact on my life on any level what so ever, yet I consider these measures very bad policies for the American people. I still feel the same way about Carter though. He may have looked weak, but his policies were terrific long term, if they'd been established back in the 70s. Imagine if the US didn't need to import oil today, was metric and was the leading nation on green-energy policies. I think you'd see a healthier economy. I think you can tell Reagan was stupid if you read comments of intelligent people around him. For example Henry Kissinger writes how uneducated Reagan was and how often basic diplomatic things needed to be explained to him and how often he made poor decisions.
I would love to read about what it was like to live in Croatia over the past 40 years. I'm also very curious about the difference between Serbs, Croats, Slovenes and the other ethnic groups in the region. The situation at the start of the 1910s is also difficult to understand from here. If you have any insight in what they were trying to achieve by killing Francis Ferdinand, that would be wonderful.
