The NEW 2021 presidential ranking from C-SPAN is out!

Mein Fuhrer.

Sorry, I did a search on "CSPAN," "C-SPAN," and "presidential ranking" and nothing came up.

Barack Obama ranked above LBJ? Puleeze. Are they even going by accomplishments and the leadership it took to achieve them?

I wondered about that too R3. I think LBJ's handling of the Vietnam War canceled out his achievements in domestic issues.

andrew johnson is by FAR the very worst president ever, ever.

John Tyler is a close second as after he left office he joined the confederacy and fought on their side, the only president to be an open (cough cough) traitor.

r4, both were very similar, great domestically, poor at war

this blogger reviews every president in sixty seconds each

Obana is rated way too high. Usually takes at least 20 years to judge more fairly. Grant used to be considered a dismal failure but his fight against the KKK has moved him up the list. I'm glad to see that. . NYC where he's buried should celebrate his birthday with more ceremony as well. Take a break from disrespecting TR (#4 on the list) and give Grant more props.

Grant was indeed better than uh granted. he fought seriously white supremacy and instituted the enfranchisement of freed slaves.

I think the slow, gradual slide of Woodrow Wilson is interesting.

he was one of the very much racist people ever to hold office. and was smart and powerful. I'd put him in the bottom ten.

that Reagan is so high is ridiculous. his domestic policies were disastrous, he or his cabinet committed treasonous acts by selling arms to Iran to fund Nicaragua

I’m always surprised by the high rank of Kennedy by scholars. When I see interviews or documentaries, such as on C-Span, they say something to the effect that he wasn’t in office long enough to properly assess him and that his assassination clouds popular judgment, yet there he is near the top of the list.

[quote]R4, both were very similar, great domestically, poor at war

"Very similar" is a profound overstatement.

Nothing during the Obama administration compares with the Vietnam War.

R8 i think you have it opposite. The reason he's rated higher is because people lived through his presidency and they remember it.

Time doesn't necessarily give perspective, it causes you to forget the details, which in many cases, are quite important to judge fairly.

If you mean 20 years is needed to forget the details so he can be judged on the same field as the other presidents, then yes. But that doesn't mean it's better.

tRump will always be on the bottom…feeding off the pond scum…

No way should Reagan be in the top ten. Clinton should be, in my opinion.

Oh, sure -- make the gay one last, why don't you?

R17, Clinton doesn’t age well. He was president during a HUGE boom in the economy, that did him well. Domestically his politics like “welfare reform” look quite bad now, they worked with the economy was strong, but were basically reaganomics-lite

R19 the economic boom was partly due to his policies. He also balanced the budget and the deficit, which got promptly blown to hell by George W. and his endless wars and tax cuts.

Always picking on the gays like Buchanan. AL was one of us too but not one in 50 of those bigoted biased historian turds would admit it.

Buchanan was right. Let the South destroy itself.

You can also see the class bias. Andrew Johnson was poor and Millard Fillmore led the campaign to stop imprisonment for debt.

to put Reagan above Obama shows how biased these criminals in academia are.

Andrew Jackson committed genocide and destroyed the financial system and they put him ahead of Carter?

Chester Arthur gave us the civil service and they put that criminal warmongering fraud who okayed an attack on the US in 2001 ahead of him? A man who stole office TWICE and stole every dime he ever made?

Well, now we see our historians don't know history.

Looks like they gave special weight to Liberty U and the military academies.

Reagan- way too high. Obama- too high for now. Though he saved the US economy, booming economy, saved the auto industry and finally gave us popular health care reform. That’s huge. Clinton- he helped set up that booming economy. His 1993 budget stayed in effect his entire administration. He was masterful with Congress and administratively. His compromises with the republicans in Congress saved his presidency but he approved some really, really shitty policy that helped the economy crash in ‘08. None of it was his idea nor shit he would have done himself but shit he let republicans pass and he signed. Former Guy- will only drop from his lowly position Kennedy- Cuban Missile Crisis alone makes him worthy. He cut taxes (when they actually needed cutting) and the economy boomed the entire 60s. Wilson- steadily falling. He is still considered a Great but he was a terrible human. W- should be way lower. He literally fucked everything up. LBJ- should be higher. Only that fucking war cost him.

Let me format that better.

Reagan- way too high.

Obama- too high for now. Though he saved the US economy, booming economy, saved the auto industry and finally gave us popular health care reform. That’s huge.

Clinton- he helped set up that booming economy. His 1993 budget stayed in effect his entire administration. He was masterful with Congress and administratively. His compromises with the republicans in Congress saved his presidency but he approved some really, really shitty policy that helped the economy crash in ‘08. None of it was his idea nor shit he would have done himself but shit he let republicans pass and he signed.

Former Guy- will only drop from his lowly position

Kennedy- Cuban Missile Crisis alone makes him worthy. He cut taxes (when they actually needed cutting) and the economy boomed the entire 60s.

Wilson- steadily falling. He is still considered a Great but he was a terrible human.

W- should be way lower. He literally fucked everything up.

LBJ- should be higher. Only that fucking war cost him.

Bush sr should actually be higher, he got the soviets behind his war, that is a coup in diplomacy, raised taxes as “voodoo economics” wasn’t working. Actually looked at the AIDS epidemic, which is a fuck lot more than his doddering predecessor did. He had worked in every branch of government, i didn’t like him, but he deserves a spot above Wilson

He didn't look at the AIDS epidemic, that was Dole who got ADA passed and that was during Clinton's presidency. Let's not forget that as head of the CIA he had good reason to know Saddam Hussein had taken money from the CIA when he told April Glaspie to pretend the US would look the other way on Kuwait.

Let's also not forget Bush did turn the way on Tiananmen Square. No surprise, as he had been taking money from China since 1966 to do their bidding.

Bush II was a pure psychopath, with that same superficial charm they are often noted for.

Bush II was a born again christian………….

I'd move up Jefferson to 4th.

Then I'd move Teddy down to 7th.

I'd flip LBJ and JFK.

Other than that? I think the top 15 is pretty spot on. (I hate Reagan, for a million reasons, but he begrudgingly belongs in the top 10 if one looks at the totality of his tenure - ie the Cold War ending, etc.)

A lot of the Clinton era economic boom was because HW Bush raised taxes. Sometimes it is necessary to do so to PAY FOR SHIT!!!!

Clinton not in the top ten? Fuck off. He was a better president than anyone in recent memory.

Nope, he wasn’t. He created a gutting of welfare that was disastrous when times got bad, he stuck with the “dont ask, dont tell” bullshit. This legacy ages very badly

R36, teddy deserves a very high spot. Likely one of the most progressive presidents ever. Jefferson was smart, and perspicaciously bought the Louisiana territory, but was weak-willed and venal about slavery when he knew he shouldn’t be. He gets a C at best

Clinton saved the US from collapsing. He’s the only reason there was anything there for Obama to work with

I'm not going to second guess presidential scholars who understand these people a lot better than I do. Trump somewhere between Warren G. Harding and Andrew Johnson--that sounds about right.

[quote]Clinton saved the US from collapsing.

collapsing? from what?

HW did NOT cause the 90s boom. He helped but Clinton’s landmark 1993 budget did it.

I see Clinton overseeing the economic boom, not creating it. The welfare reform was a complete disaster and a win for the GOP. Not a huge Clinton fan

The economy didn’t really start accelerating until well after his 1993. He helped create it. Yes, some of what he did was terrible but that tends to happen during a full 8 years.

Oh you’re not a Clinton fan? Who could tell?

The fall of Wilson is quite something. As a baby boomer, I grew up with Wilson consistently rated by historians as among the greatest of our presidents, right up with Lincoln, Washington & FDR.

wilson was consistently the most racist of all presidents. if the confederacy would have survived you can see him easily becoming it's savior emperor

[quote] Clinton saved the US from collapsing.

[quote] collapsing? from what?

Collapsing from the weight of Monica Lewinsky's bosoms.

Forgive my impertinence, but I have to ask: were Pierce, Johnson and Buchanan actually discovered selling the United States back to the United Kingdom? Or setting fire to an orphanage? Or erasing inconvenient phrases from the Constitution? Or cancelling the Golden Girls?

What on earth did these people do that made them even worse than the Orange-faced Ogre?

R50, read this article for reasons for why those presidents are ranked so low.

[quote] becoming it's savior emperor

Oh, dear!