Oct

20

Here is a nice article on the "greatest president of the past 100 years." He shows the value of restraint. Just what we need today.

Scott Brooks writes:

When ranking the greatest American presidents, I believe one has to use separate categories.

One for the Founders who became president and one for everyone else.

Coolidge, in my opinion is at the top of the "everyone else" list.

Now as to the bottom of that list…the worst presidents ever (in descending order):

7. (a tie) Bush 1, Bush 2,

6. Clinton

5. Carter 

4. (a tie) Nixon, TR, Wilson, Hoover

3. LBJ

2. FDR

1. Lincoln

Stefan has laid out a well thought out argument as to why I am wrong on Lincoln, but I still stand by my assessment. And BTW, I believe Lincoln ranks at the bottom because of acts of "omission" and not acts of "commission". The rest are there because of acts of "commission"

And as a future prediction: If Obama keeps going the way he's going…well, let's just say he is fighting for the top spot (at least #2).

Stefan Jovanovich replies:

The only reason it is safe for me to argue with Scott (who is decades younger, in much better shape and a much, much better shot) is that his fierce opinions are always tempered by his piety (yet another argument in favor of that bizarre practice known as faith). So, here goes:

I think ranking Lincoln is like assessing the performance of a captain of a ship in a typhoon when someone else decided how much ballast the vessel should take before it left port. Susan and I are doing the ancestry hunt for the Lipscombs, Austins, Gayles, Turners and Gaudelocks from whom she is descended by searching the graveyards of South Carolina and Virginia. Among the sites we have seen on the way have been Appomattox, Blacksburg Junction (the logistical Gordian knot that Grant, with his usual genius, cut within a month of taking effective command of the Union Armies in the East) and Limestone College (largely funded by Jefferson Davis' daughter). The Civil War (War Between the States, whatever) was the greatest single disaster in American history; it dwarfs everything else, and we still live with the legacies of its idiocies and nobly mistaken loyalties. Whatever anyone says about it is going to fall far short of telling the truth.


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6 Comments so far

  1. Mark Johnson on October 20, 2010 2:13 pm

    One of the things i admire most about Lincoln is the follwing.

    •Failed in business (22)

    •Ran for legislature - defeated (23)

    •Failed in business, again (24)

    •Elected to the legislature (25)

    •Sweetheart died (26)

    •Had a nervous breakdown (27)

    •Defeated for Speaker of the House (29)

    •Defeated for Elector (31)

    •Defeated for Congress (34)

    •Elected to Congress (37)

    •Defeated for Congress (39)

    •Defeated for Senate (46)

    •Defeated for Vice President (47)

    •Defeated for Senate (49)

    •Elected President of United States (51)

    That’s the record of Abraham Lincoln!

    Whether you agree with his policies or not, one must admire anyone who rises after many defeats.

  2. Alaric Investments on October 20, 2010 3:14 pm

    I would be very interested to know why Coolidge is at the top of your list….perhaps more for what he did not do than what he did do?

  3. Scott Brooks on October 20, 2010 4:35 pm

    Lincoln is at the bottom of my list because, in saving the republic, he destroyed it. He may have saved it in the short term, but in the long term, he placed power in the executive branch that has been and will continue to be our downfall. He basically showed that the president has the right to ignore the Bill of Rights when he feels it’s necessary.

    Coolidge is my favorite simply because he did the best thing a politician can do for the economy. He got the heck out of the way and let entreprenuers drive the economy.

    I want to throw up everytime I hear about politicians “creating jobs”, or passing “jobs bills”. Anyone who thinks that George Bush created any jobs is seriously naive. And the worst, by far, is listening to our current president talk about jobs “saved or created”.

    America must be dumber than I thought to fall for that line of BS.

    Anyway, back to Coolidge. He just got out of the way and didn’t see his role as being that of an activist to right wrongs and set the world straight or level the playing field.

    He simply let people succeed, rise and fall on their own.

    That’s what made him great!

  4. john Donaldson on October 20, 2010 10:04 pm

    FDR was the worst President in the history of this country ! Ronald Wilson Reagan was the greatest President this county has ever had ! The current President ranks a very close second to FDR in fact it could be a dead heat

  5. steve on October 21, 2010 7:39 am

    MY friend Scott Brooks wrote his comments in a sort of stream of consciencious therefore it was very difficult to follow. I think he is saying that the most admirable thing he finds about coolidge is he got out of the way and let business flourish and prosper. Which is of course a good thing. Whereas Obama looks at the glass entirely differently. He and his administration along with the suppport of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are committed to a socialistic agenda whichas we know is a destructive path to take.

    I also agree with him that Government does not create jobs because it does not produce a product Therefore Coolidge is being evaluated on one issue alone. Of course things back then were much simpler. Coolidge governed after WW when the US. was benefiting greatly from the aftermath of the great War. And there were no foreign threats to deter this growth. The Laissez Faire policy was easier to enact. Contrast George Bush on one issue alone and this is the terrorist attacks. No President in history wants to have to face this event. It is one of the great challenges, with only the bombing of Pearl Harbor to compare it to. Of course Japan waged war against the the US. thus making FDR desicion to go to war much easier. Bush on the other hand, had to decide who the actual enemy was who was waging war against us. He decided that it was Al Qaeda which was seeking refuge under the Taliban in Afghanistan. Thus he initiated his right and power of the presidency to send the military to Afghanistan to battle the enemy there. To fault him for the ecomony seems a stretch. It could be argued that employment was high and the economy was rolling smoothly.

    Now as to who created the recession do you blame the republicans up to 2006 or the democratic led Congress from 2006 and beyond. Arguments can be made to support both sides.

    Finally, to rank Presidents is of course an interesting gymnastic exercise but entirely subjective and in all probablility a great wast of time. A more interesting subject is will we see a Giants Texas World Series where the victor will get their first World Championship ever?

  6. Daniel Sanders on October 21, 2010 5:40 pm

    You might check out the C-Span presentation of presidential rankings. The list appears inversely organized relative to yours, that is, most of the worst in your list are, with few exceptions, ranked very high by C-Spans contributors.
    http://www.c-span.org/PresidentialSurvey/Overall-Ranking.aspx

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