These polls come out about every year, and they change a little. Harry Truman seems to keep moving up, while Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan have slipped a little. And sometimes, time removed from the office seems to affect the person's position. George W. currently ranks below Herbert Hoover. While I certainly don't think W. was a great president, I have a feeling history will be a little kinder to him (maybe lower middle of the pack).
Right after Nixon resigned, he was ranked extremely low. Then through the years, he moved up some (he was a good foreign policy president). Now he is slipping again.
I wonder how much current political bias plays into these historians' views?
I personally like the Teddy Roosevelt-Harry Truman-Lyndon Johnson type presidents -- who make decisions, and then let the chips fall as they might. We saw some of that in Reagan, too.
So who is YOUR favorite?
By the way: I heard Michael Irvin talking about this on his radio show yesterday. His all time favorite president? Barrack Obama. Yes, sir -- they guy has been in office for 1 month, and he already ranks as the greatest president ever? I hope history proves that to be true -- but come on!
3 comments:
AHHHH! History questions. Now we're talking.
I think Reagan was the greatest president of all time. He fixed Carter's 4 years of idiocy and was instrumental in bringing down communism in Russia and East Germany.
Lincoln comes in second. Lincoln did a lot of things that the public / historians ignore. However, when the war was over, it was his decision to let the opposing soldiers "up easy". His assasination was the worst possible thing that could happen to the south - because it led to Reconstruction.
The worst president was probably Ulysses Grant. His cabinet was the most corrupt of any president in history. Maybe I shouldn't say that. The verdict is still out on the reigning commander.
1. Lincoln
2. Washington
3. FDR
4. Truman
5. Reagan
I'm not a good ranker because I'm not a good student of history but Reagan would be my favorite in my time and Teddy Roosevelt might be my second just because he seems like the rough-and-tumble kind of guy.
The fact that Michael Irvin is giving his ranking is about as useless as mine...he just has a microphone in front of him because he could catch footballs.
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