Atlas ranks the presidents -- week 9 (WORST OF THE WORST)

[NewYorkExpress]

1. George Washington (set a lot of Precendents, and being essentially the founder of the modern Presidency means a lot to America)

2. James Monroe (There's a reason Monroe won reelection unopposed in 1820)

3. John Quincy Adams (JQA gets the third spot based on his defense of the slaves of the Amistad. Sure, it didn't happen during his presidency, but it's a defining moment of his life. It should count)

4. James Madison (Madison really didn't need to be bullied by the War Hawks into the totally unnecessary War of 1812, and for that he drops a few spots)

5. Martin Van Buren (Van Buren was just mediocre)

6. Thomas Jefferson (Jefferson drops several spots based on his affair with Sally Hemmings, who happened to be his slave. If that had come out today, and it had happened while he was President, he might well have been impeached and removed from office for, as given the extreme power imbalance- President (or Ambassador, as Jefferson was at the time) to slave, this was akin to sexual assault.)

7. John Adams (The blatantly unconstitutional Alien and Sedition acts are what gets Adams this spot. It's surprising Trump (or any other Republican) hasn't thought of them as legislation to advance to Congress)

8. Andrew Jackson (The trail of tears, his blatantly racist behavior, appointing Taney as Chief Justice...that's enough for me to say that Andrew Jackson is the worst of the "founding era" Presidents.)

[NewYorkExpress]

My Week Two rankings:

1. Abraham Lincoln (Easy call here, he kept the Union together)

2. James K. Polk (He might be the only guy to say he kept all of his campaign promises)

3. Zachary Taylor (Agreeing to veto the Compromise of 1850, which really was a sop to the South wins some respect from me)

4. Ulysses S. Grant (He's only this high because of his service during the Civil War, and because quite frankly, a lot of the other Presidents were worse)

5. John Tyler. (He is a literal traitor...but he did set the precedent that the Vice President actually becomes President upon the death or resignation of the President)

6. Andrew Johnson (He may be have been impeached, but really, he was doing exactly what Lincoln wanted in regards to Reconstruction)

7. William Henry Harrison (It's hard to rank Harrison, since he was only in office for a month and did nothing)

8. Millard Fillmore (Signing the Compromise of 1850 might be one of the worst political blunders of all time)

9. Franklin Pierce (Bleeding Kansas was the nation's first Civil War, and it happened during his Presidency)

10. James Buchanan (Quite possibly the only President who is worse than Trump)

[NewYorkExpress]

What's with everyone ranking Millard Fillmore over Polk?

I didn't.

[NewYorkExpress]

1. Theodore Roosevelt (Roosevelt was the first President to envision a role for the United States on the World stage, and his mediation to end the Russo-Japanese war earns him extra bonus points)

2. William Howard Taft (Widely viewed as Roosevelt's heir, what's little known about Taft, is that he was more of a trustbuster than his protege)\

3. Chester Alan Arthur (Ending the Spoils System gets Arthur some credit in my book, even if Arthur's motives weren't really pure)

4. William McKinley (Winning the Spanish American War gets McKinley this spot- even if almost all of it was Teddy Roosevelt's doing)

5. Grover Cleveland (Cleveland's interesting, in that's he's the only President to serve two non-consecutive terms. His problem is he really didn't do anything in office.)

6. James Garfield (Like William Harrison, Garfield is hard to rate because his time in office is so short. At least he served longer than thirty one days)

7.  Benjamin Harrison (It takes a special kind of bad to lose to the guy who you beat four years earlier, right? Not necessarily. Like Cleveland, Harrison's problem is that he didn't do anything in office)

8. Rutherford Hayes (Hayes gets special vitriol from me for ending Reconstruction-as far as I'm concerned, the South never should have been let back into the Union.)

[NewYorkExpress]

Look, this is my very biased list

1. James Garfield

(big gap)

2. Unironically Rutherford Hayes

3. Theodore Roosevelt, although I am not able to like him as a person

4. Benjamin Harrison

5. Chester Arthur

6. Grover Cleveland. He is an interesting case.

7. William Howard Taft

8. William McKinley

Probably positions 4 to 7 are interchangeable.

8. Rutherford Hayes (Hayes gets special vitriol from me for ending Reconstruction-as far as I'm concerned, the South never should have been let back into the Union.)

Then I suggest you to direct special vitriol to President Lincoln (who wanted to readmit Southern states into the Union) and to President Grant (during whose term Reconstruction ended in most Southern states).

By the way, what do you think should have happened to the South? Have it returned to territory status?

Treat them as lower than territory status. They wouldn't be worth the dirt off my shoes.

[NewYorkExpress]

Fighting the Civil War to then not keep the Union together ... riiiiight lol.  I’ll edit this with my ranking in a bit.

No, it's fight the Civil War to punish the South. There's no reason they should be allowed to remain states, but there's no reason they should be allowed to leave.

[NewYorkExpress]

Fighting the Civil War to then not keep the Union together ... riiiiight lol.  I’ll edit this with my ranking in a bit.

No, it's fight the Civil War to punish the South. There's no reason they should be allowed to remain states, but there's no reason they should be allowed to leave.

Do you have knowledge of any contemporary of the Civil War who thought in this way about the South?

The way the Radical Reconstructionists treated the South makes me think at least some of them felt that way... 

[NewYorkExpress]

1. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Between pulling America out of the Great Depression and essentially winning World War II, there's a strong argument that Roosevelt is our greatest President. He's the greatest Democratic President, that's for sure)

2. Dwight Eisenhower (Successfully got us out of the Korean War, and generally did no real harm as President. The only real flaw was picking Nixon as Vice President)

3. John F. Kennedy (Kennedy gets dinged for the Cuban Missile Crisis, but I suspect that if he had survived and defeated Barry Goldwater in 1964, we would not be involved in Vietnam)

4. Herbert Hoover (Hoover isn't really to blame for the Great Depression, and his skills at foreign aid in World War I put him higher on this list)

5. Lyndon Baines Johnson (While the Great Society and the Voting Rights Act getting passed is admirable, both cost Democrats the South, and Johnson got thousands of Americans killed in Vietnam for no reason at all.

6. Harry Truman (See Lyndon Johnson, just with less accomplishments. About the only big thing he did was desegregating the army)

7. Woodrow Wilson (While Wilson's Presidency was the most racist in American history, he is slightly better than the last two Presidents of this period. Still, not getting the Treaty of Versailles ratified stings.)

8. Calvin Coolidge (I personally hold Coolidge's economic policy responsible for the Great Depression)

9. Warren Harding (One of the most corrupt administrations in American history-only Grant and Trump have more corrupt to this point)

[NewYorkExpress]

3. John F. Kennedy (Kennedy gets dinged for the Cuban Missile Crisis, but I suspect that if he had survived and defeated Barry Goldwater in 1964, we would not be involved in Vietnam)

I dispute that take heavily.

LBJ literally went to war in Vietnam to secure his image as a wartime President. I don't think Kennedy cared that much about whether or not he was a wartime President or not.

[NewYorkExpress]

3. John F. Kennedy (Kennedy gets dinged for the Cuban Missile Crisis, but I suspect that if he had survived and defeated Barry Goldwater in 1964, we would not be involved in Vietnam)

I dispute that take heavily.

LBJ literally went to war in Vietnam to secure his image as a wartime President. I don't think Kennedy cared that much about whether or not he was a wartime President or not.

Oh bullsh**t. Both presidents had the same administration! Dean Rusk - Secretary of State for Kennedy and Johnson. Robert McNamara - Secretary of Defense for Kennedy and Johnson. You think Kennedy died and Rusk and McNamara suddenly became "we need war!"?

He was president for two and a half years and in his time had the Bay of Pigs (total disaster), the Cuban Missile Crisis (success), and started Vietnam. Being objective about it, he had the foreign policy of George W. Bush. Throw on top of it long-rumored mob ties which may or may not have influenced the result of the 1960 election, and he had the sexual proclivities of Clinton. His backers don't want to think about all that, so they talk about Jackie and JFK Jr. As far as playing on the media and his personal image, John Fitzgerald Kennedy is an absolute A+. His performance as president, it's something else.

I think the difference is Johnson, because of his desire to be seen as a wartime President was more inclined to listen to Rusk and Macnamara.

Also, the Bay of Pigs plan was born in the Eisenhower Administration. Kennedy removed the vital air support needed for the plan to succeed. If Castro had been overthrown, the Soviets almost certainly would have retaliated in West Berlin.

[NewYorkExpress]

Ah, the modern era.

1. Barack Obama (Didn't have any massive accomplishments as Presidents, but being the first Black President is a huge accomplishment in and of itself. Also didn't have any huge scandals)
2. Ronald Reagan (They say, George H.W Bush ended the Cold War. Really the credit for that goes to Reagan. It's only Iran-Contra which keeps him out of the top slot)
3. Bill Clinton (Plenty of Accomplishments as President, but the number of affairs he had were appalling. He really should have been removed from office for perjury during the Lewinsky affair)
4. George H.W Bush (Did what his son should have done when taking on Saddam Hussein)
5. George W. Bush (Bungled Iraq and Katrina response, let Osama Bin Laden escape. He's only this high because he isn't personally corrupt)
6. Gerald Ford (I'm convinced there was a quid pro quo between Ford and Nixon to secure Nixon's resignation, and Ford's Pardon of Nixon. Why Congress didn't have the backbone to impeach and remove Ford over it, I'll never understand)
7. Jimmy Carter (Quite honestly the most incompetent President we've had in recent memory, but much of it isn't his fault. Still, his response to the Iranian hostage crisis was quite unhelpful, and the malaise speech didn't really help his cause)
8. Richard Nixon (Allowing China to become part of the international community again seems like a bad idea in hindsight, and I'm convinced that he not only helped cover up Watergate but knew about it in advance and may have ordered the break-in)
9. Donald Trump (The only reason Trump is worse than Nixon on this list, is that Nixon has never openly been in thrall to a foreign government.)

[NewYorkExpress]

Ah, the modern era.

1. Barack Obama (Didn't have any massive accomplishments as Presidents, but being the first Black President is a huge accomplishment in and of itself.)

What a burial of the man.

"Hey man, you didn't do anything. But because of the color of the skin you were born as, thumbs up to you." - like I said, you need time to be more historical and less emotional about grading presidencies.

By the way, the press previously told me that Bill Clinton was "the first black president". That was pre-2008 of course.

6. Gerald Ford (I'm convinced there was a quid pro quo between Ford and Nixon to secure Nixon's resignation, and Ford's Pardon of Nixon. Why Congress didn't have the backbone to impeach and remove Ford over it, I'll never understand)

Ted Kennedy in 2001 presented Gerald Ford with a Profile in Courage Award:

https://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/2009/08/sen_ted_kennedy_crossed_politi.html

"I'm honored to be here today with President Gerald R. Ford, the winner of this year's Profile in Courage Award.

"At a time of national turmoil, America was fortunate that it was Gerald Ford who took the helm of the storm-tossed ship of state. Unlike many of us at the time, President Ford recognized that the nation had to move forward, and could not do so if there was a continuing effort to prosecute former President Nixon. So President Ford made a courageous decision, one that historians now say cost him his office, and he pardoned Richard Nixon.

"I was one of those who spoke out against his action then. But time has a way of clarifying past events, and now we see that President Ford was right. His courage and dedication to our country made it possible for us to begin the process of healing and put the tragedy of Watergate behind us. He eminently deserves this award, and we are proud of his achievement."

Obama was better in the sense that he provided steady leadership that Americans had been lacking since roughly the Eisenhower Administration, and he did no harm to America, period in any way shape or form, whereas every other President did some form of harm.

There was a quid pro quo between Ford and Nixon in my opinion, or Nixon wouldn't have picked Ford as his VP. He would have picked someone else.

[NewYorkExpress]

1. Abraham Lincoln
2. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
3. George Washington
4. Barack Obama
5. Ronald Reagan
6. Dwight Eisenhower
7. Theodore Roosevelt
8. James K. Polk
9. Lyndon B. Johnson
10. Harry S. Truman

[NewYorkExpress]

1. Ronald Reagan
2. James K. Polk
3. John Quincy Adams
4. George H.W Bush
5. John F. Kennedy
6. Bill Clinton
7. George H.W Bush
8. James Monroe
9. James Madison
10. Bill Clinton

[NewYorkExpress]

You did George HW Bush and Bill Clinton twice.

Whoops.

That might say more about how I feel about the middle tier of Presidents than about H.W Bush or Clinton though.