C-SPAN’s Presidential rankings

[Midnight Mike]

C-SPAN’s Presidential rankings
Top 10

Abraham Lincoln
George Washington
FDR
Teddy Roosevelt
Harry Truman
JFK
Thomas Jefferson
Dwight Eisenhower
Woodrow Wilson
Ronald Reagan

http://www.c-span.org/PresidentialSurve ... arter.aspx (http://www.c-span.org/PresidentialSurvey/president/Jimmy_Carter.aspx)

For me, I have a couple of comments:

Why was JFK ranked so high?

While I understand why President W Bush rankings were as low as they since he just left office, I wonder why his crisis leadership ranking was not much higher?

President Clinton's economic score seemed a little on the high side?

Gerald Ford's crisis leader ranking seemed very generous?

[Matt Molnar]

All the recent presidents seem to skew higher than they should. Bill Clinton, George HW Bush, John Adams and John Quincy Adams all neck and neck? Only thing I can figure is a lot of the historians surveyed may have worked for one or more of the administrations in question and might be biased.

I tend to think history will frown upon Bill Clinton at some point. He rode a wave of prosperity he had little to do with creating, he promoted a utopian vision of the post-cold war world that was destroyed on 9/11, and if not for his issues with keeping it in his pants, he might have been among the most boring presidents ever. He simply did very little that will have any long term influence on the country or the office of the president.