Like is he your 5th favorite President.
He is my 35th favorite.
Here are the top ones on my list:
1. Washington (defined what the Presidency is)
2. Lincoln
3. FDR
4. Jefferson
5. Theodore Roosevelt
6. Truman
7. Eisenhower
Bottom (W.H. Harrison ignored; Cleveland only once, Obama "incomplete"):
41. Buchanan
40. A. Johnson
39. Fillmore
38. Dubya
37. Harding
36. Coolidge
35. Grant
The first four are arguably impossible to outdo. Nobody will ever redefine the functions of the Presidency except to its harm. We may never go through the dangerous times associated with Lincoln of FDR again. There's no cheap land to buy anywhere that could expand America by the scale of the Louisiana Purchase. Obama would have to be a major reformer of American life to be the new TR. He would need to put America through a one-hand-tied-behind-its-back (by necessity) war not of its choosing to be Truman. Eisenhower gets credit for the Interstate Highway System, for enforcing Supreme Court decisions on civil rights, and letting Senator Joseph McCarthy implode. Obama may admire Lincoln, but he surely doesn't want the destructiveness and cost of a Civil War.
The bottom? It's hard to see how anyone could do the damage that Buchanan did unless one were a pathologically-corrupt and dishonest person. Andrew Johnson was singularly unfit to be President. Pierce and Fillmore were the definitive non-entities as President except that Fillmore did some really-bad stuff. In my book, Coolidge gets culpability for enforcing reparations harshly against Germany to the effect that his behavior may have contributed to the rise of the Antichrist in Germany, and for doing nothing to mitigate the effects of a corrupt bubble economy that imploded on Herbert Hoover.
Still, Coolidge was above-board in his dealings with power and wasn't corrupt; Dubya was corrupt and allowed a coterie of power-hungry people to exercise power often in ways contrary to the Constitution. Harding and Grant trusted the wrong people.
So far I see more strengths than weaknesses in the Obama Presidency. Most of the characteristics that mark better-than average Presidents apply to him. He has a legislative agenda of major reforms, and so far he has been successful in getting them enacted. Fault them if you wish, but he will have a memorable Presidency. His strength as a speaker is strong -- he is at least as effective as Ronald Reagan at that. Foreign policy? He has caused fewer problems than he has solved. He has been scrupulous in the exercise of power. TARP may have been counter-intuitive to many, but it seems to have worked.
