Presidential Rankings

[Wakie]

Here's my list ... I used the same criteria and assigned each item a 5 point value.  I also only paid attention to what each individual did while President (Eisenhower & Grant get no points for military service, Jefferson gets no points for the Constituition).  Here's how my totals came down ... the higher the #, the better the rating (note, William Henry Harrison & James Garfield received even 30's because they really didn't have time to do anything).  Additionally I left George W Bush off the list as I don't think you can rate a President until they've been out of office for at least 2 years.

Harding - 20
Van Buren - 22
Grant - 22
Fillmore - 23
B. Harrison - 23
Ford - 23
Coolidge - 25
Carter - 25
Buchanan - 26
Pierce - 27
Hoover - 27
Adams - 29
Tyler - 29
LBJ - 29
Nixon - 29
H. Harrison - 30
Garfield - 30
Taft - 30
Reagan - 30 -> High in some areas, low in others, he balances out at a 30
Jackson - 31
Hayes - 31
Arthur - 31
McKinley - 31
Wilson - 31
Truman - 31
Eisenhower - 31
HW Bush - 31
Taylor - 32
A. Johnson - 32
Clinton - 32
Quincy Adams - 34
Cleveland - 34
Monroe - 35
Jefferson - 36 -> hurt by moral authority score
JFK - 37 -> helped by charisma score
Madison - 38 -> War of 1812
Polk - 38 -> high morality score & Mexican American war
Washington - 39
T. Roosevelt - 42
Lincoln - 43
FDR - 44

[Wakie]

Draft Dodger, adulteror, lied through his teeth and directly to the American people many times.

Can we agree to drop this myth of Clinton as a draft dodger?  Say what you want about the guy, but he was in school (as a Rhodes Scholar I believe) at the time of the war.

It would be more accurate to call George W a draft dodger (I'm not so don't get fired up).  Bush was in the same National Guardsman unit as Lloyd Bentsen's son and the son's of several other prominent Washington politicians.  I doubt that happened by chance and I sure as heck doubt that unit was EVER getting called to do ANYTHING.

[Wakie]

There's certainly a major problem in evaluating Presidents for which the ranking party had the opportunity to vote.  No one ever likes to admit that they were wrong.  So the rankings of any President from JFK through GW Bush are going to be skewed.  Long after either Jefferson or Lincoln were in office you could find people who called them the worst thing that had happened to America.

Reagan and Clinton are the perfect examples of what I'm talking about.  It seems rather rare to find someone who loves them both.  I think both men did some excellent work while President ... I also think they both made some horrendous mistakes.  At the end of the day the good and the bad balance them out in my opinion.

[Wakie]

JNB, your list looks good except for Madison.  Why is he there?  He didn't do anything that monumental, unless I am seriously mistaken.

Not necessarily true.  As JNB pointed out, he was a major contributor to the Constituition.  He held the nation together while it was getting slammed in the War of 1812 (imagine how a modern Pres would be cheered if he held things together after Washington was burned).  Madison served as Sec. of State during the Jefferson years and helped to engineer the Louisiana Purchase.