Dez's Presidential Rankings

I have been fortunate this year to teach AP U.S. History to a group of great students. This opportunity allowed me (or forced me) to delve deeper than ever before into presidential history. My students were always interested in comparing presidents and their respective administrations. We had many debates in class over whether this president was ultimately successful or not, or whether a president could even be judged based on grander events out of his complete control.

Since I love to list and rank things, Dez’s Presidential Rankings seemed a logical next project. Perhaps my readers are a bit tired of the music and film talk, so let’s focus on some history and politics for awhile. In fact, my political posts have traditionally received more comments than any other topics.

So, how to go about this in a consistent and fair way? Most of you probably are aware of the many presidential rankings that have already been conducted and released to much controversy and discussion. Wikipedia does a great job compiling these lists in an excellent chart here. (I completed my rankings before looking at these other rankings, by the way, so as not to be unduly swayed).

I divided the presidents into four quartiles, and then ranked within each quartile. Some of this is, frankly, not fair. If you are a gifted president in extraordinary times, you will probably be ranked highly. If you are a gifted president in more ordinary times, you will not be ranked as high. Is it your fault if you did not serve through an important war or other such crisis? No. The opposite is true as well. A bad president in times that demand great leadership gets the lowest of ratings, while a equally bad president who served through tranquil times and therefore didn’t really do much damage will not be ranked as poorly. So yes, the times will sometimes have a great deal of influence on the ranking of the man. Also, I have noticed that sometimes inaction is the correct action. We will discuss that as well when it comes up.

Each entry will try and list the pros and cons of what was done during the administration and then include an explanation of why I put that president where I did. Hopefully this can foster some debate and discussion.

Will my rankings surprise you? Probably not overall (feel assured that Washington and Lincoln aren’t in the bottom quartile, for instance), but there are going to be some surprises that are either higher or lower than conventional wisdom. The two presidents that I had the most difficulty with were Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. For that reason, they are two of my favorite presidents to study and discuss with my students (in fact, I make them write a “Defense of Richard Nixon” for me that is often illuminating for students who only associate Watergate with him). Both men aspired to greatness, and both accomplished it in some areas and spectacularly failed in other areas. So how do you rank that? I guess you will see.

There are four presidents who will not be ranked. This is either because their terms were too short to accurately judge them or their terms are too recent to assess them with the appropriate historical context. Therefore William Henry Harrison is not ranked (he only served for one month before dying. Ironically, he wanted to quell concerns that he was an intellectual lightweight and too old and feeble to be effective, so he ended up giving the longest inaugural address in history on a bitter cold day and in order to prove his vitality, he refused to wear a hat or overcoat. He died a month later from pneumonia). Likewise, James Garfield is not ranked because he was assassinated so early in his term (the assassin was an anarchist looking for a patronage position. Garfield’s death ushered in reforms in civil service that we still have today). I cannot judge Barack Obama yet, obviously. Although, I can say that when all is said and done his term will be quite significant. Whether that is good or bad remains to be seen. Same goes for George W. Bush. Some of his most important decisions have yet to play out completely (the Iraq War), so only time will tell whether they ended up being good or bad decisions.


ABOVE: George W. Bush will not be ranked

That leaves 39 other presidents that will be ranked and discussed. (I know that Barack Obama is officially the 44th presidential administration, but Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms and therefore will be considered in one entry and as one administration).

Stay tuned for the worst president we’ve ever had…