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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhere Does Obama Rank In Your List of Best to Worst Presidents
I was reading about former presidents on wikipedia this evening and eventually got to the page on where each president ranks among the experts and general public from best to worst. I know he still has about 6 months left and its difficult to get historical prespective right now but where do you think Obama belongs on the scale of 1-43?
For me, its somewhere around the upper portion of the top 10.
MADem
(135,425 posts)His presence in the WH signaled a sea change in what constituted an "acceptable" politician.
FINALLY, we made the decision that our POTUS can look like America, and not like someone out of 1950s-era central casting as the Dad character in a sitcom.
pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)JustAnotherGen
(31,681 posts)GusBob
(7,286 posts)PBO hands down the best.
Long way to second place.
Fight for last place between Nixon and W.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font][hr]
PJMcK
(21,916 posts)Last edited Mon Jul 4, 2016, 08:54 AM - Edit history (1)
I'm with you, GusBob. President Obama has been the best president in my lifetime.
Dwight Eisenhower was in office when I was born, (I know, I'm old: there were only 48 stars on the flag back then!).
Ike did some pretty good things like the national highways and school desegregation. John F. Kennedy had more potential than accomplishments (because of his death) but he was an inspirational man who helped set the tone for social change. LBJ advanced Civil Rights and Voting Rights but escalated the Viet Nam war.
I agree with you that Richard Nixon was an evil, petty man but he did advance some tremendous issues for the environment and foreign affairs. But, you know, Watergate and that Viet Nam war thing again.
Gerald Ford was merely a placeholder till the good but ineffective Jimmy Carter (my first presidential vote!) had his single term.
Now we get to the second worst president, Ronald Reagan. His administration shredded our social compact, repeatedly violated the Constitution, nominated Antonin Scalia to the Supreme Court, destroyed the underpinnings of our economy and set our country on the path of hyper-partisanship that has resulted in our current morass. I yearn for the day when we can stop hearing how "St. Ronnie" was "the greatest."
George H.W. Bush was not much more than a third term for President Reagan's policies. There's one thing I'll give him credit for: in the First Gulf War, he built a truly international coalition, accomplished to UN-mandated goal of ousting Iraqi forces from Kuwait and mercifully ended the attacks after 100 hours when it was clear that we were not just winning the conflict but decimating Iraq's military. However, I believe he was guilty of treason regarding the American hostages held by Iran. And his economic policies were damaging to the middle class.
Bill Clinton is a mixed bag, I think we can all agree. Better that he was in office than George H.W. Bush or Bob Dole, though.
George W. Bush was undoubtably the worst as he was an incurious, lying moron who damaged our country in countless ways for years to come. It's been slightly cathartic that he's mostly stayed silent since leaving office. He was bad.
It was an amazing and thrilling night when Senator Obama won his first presidential election and I hope to have the same excitement this November.
brush
(53,467 posts)as Vietnam, unfortunately, sullied his legacy.
I think if it weren't for Vietnam, he rank right up there with FDR.
YoungDemCA
(5,714 posts)Course there have been some real stinkers (e.g. his disgraced predecessor ) but I think history will vindicate President Obama in many ways.
Hekate
(90,189 posts)I did, however, notice that he sent troops to integrate public schools in the South, which was my first lesson in the Civil Rights movement that rocked the nation the rest of my youth.
As for the rest, I do think Barack Obama is the best in my lifetime. No question.
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)And I'm not so sure it's close after that.
Hard to think of any president who'll leave a more positive legacy beyond FDR than Obama.
calimary
(80,693 posts)FDR, the greatest of the modern era, even though I wasn't born til long after he died. Then President Obama. I'd put JFK up there mainly because of how inspirational he was to me personally as a kid. What that meant. What it meant to know the President had kids not too much younger than I was, and he and his wife were about my parents' age. So they were relatable to me. For the first time. I had only vague memories of Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower, and they were my grandparents' age, so I didn't connect with them the way I did with the Kennedys. It really struck a chord with everyone in my generation. The 60s dawned - all about youth and vigor and vitality and newness and possibilities. Seemed like everything and anything was possible. The old gent who seemed to do nothing but play a lot of golf and have heart attacks had left the scene (this from my cloudy childhood memories). Literally there were new kids in town, and it meant a whole new world. It was short-lived and ended so joltingly, and it was downhill from there.
I'd put Bill Clinton up in the top five. reagan and nixon definitely in the bottom five with Coolidge and Hoover, with dubya in the absolute last position. dubya's dad and the hapless Jerry Ford would be somewhere in the bottom ten.
uponit7771
(90,225 posts)... promises were kept according to fact check which doesn't give him a break for trying.
brush
(53,467 posts)Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)Thing is, you can't just whitewash the war.
longship
(40,416 posts)He has conducted his two terms of office with a dignity and a sense of humor to make any rational person proud to be an American. Of the presidents in my life, which began during Harry Truman's presidency, he is the one who has made me most happy.
David__77
(23,214 posts)Unfortunately, both shared the trait of presiding over the loss of congress by the Democratic Party. I consider that they bore a level of responsibility for those losses.
Over the longer time period, I consider FDR a good president, and do not see that I can readily compare him with more recent presidents.
madokie
(51,076 posts)for me. Most proud of my three votes for the Man. He makes this old Vietnam Vet proud. Yes, yes he does
ETA: too stall the ttp he has to come out for it. Remember when the rage was all about changing SS up until he said he was for it. That died on the vine after that.
Yes he knows that the republiCONs are going to fall all over themselves to not be for something if he indicates he's for it even if its their very own idea to begin with
JustAnotherGen
(31,681 posts)Best one we've had in my lifetime - I'm 43. Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush the 1st, Clinton, Bush the 2nd, Obama . . .
Obama leads the pack. In 10 years I can assess where he sits with LBJ, Harding, Eisenhower, Truman and Madison. I would probably rank him 2nd to LBJ at this point because he took Madison's defining who was an American and what it means to be one to an entirely new level. Him brushing the dirt off his shoulder at the Birth Certificate nonsense probably had Madison fist pumping somewhere in the universe.
To some degree he legitimizes the actions of the other people he ranks with. Closes the circle and affirms daring actions, words, ideas, legislation, executive actions etc etc.
Doctor Jack
(3,072 posts)Ive never seen anyone praise him. I thought most people considered him to be a dud
Recursion
(56,582 posts)Below the Washingtons and Lincolns; with the Polks and LBJs.
rateyes
(17,438 posts)FDR, Lincoln, Jefferson, Washington, Truman, T. Roosevelt, Ike, and JFK in my opinion.
Lizzie Poppet
(10,164 posts)A good president...but could have been much better without the combination of GOP obstruction and too-great allegiance to the corporate status quo.
uponit7771
(90,225 posts)... the reThugs changed senate rules to allow blanket filibusters
safeinOhio
(32,527 posts)on Mt. Rushmore.
Zynx
(21,328 posts)smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)Possibly the top 5 since I don't think any president has ever had to deal with the obstructionism that he has endured.
Oneironaut
(5,461 posts)I can safely say, though, that George W. Bush will be generally regarded as one of the worst. He left the world an unstable mess. Obama may also be remembered for doing nothing to bring stability to the world.
Honestly, I don't think history will be too kind to either. I believe that this will be viewed as a new era in history. You can feel a definitive shift. Better leaders may come later, and the power structure of the world may be dramatically altered.
underpants
(182,273 posts)but his ranking will be watered down due to the inclusion of "conservative historians".
Even if he hadn't inherited the complete mess made by W he would still be top 10. RW heads will explode and many Dems will not believe it but that is because the media has purposely left the dots unconnected.
I'd say:
Lincoln
FDR
TEDDY
and LBJ has to be in here somewhere too. Maybe not 4th but clearly in the top 10. He's seen as just following JFK and our escalation in Vietnam doomed him politically and historically but in a short 5 years he was able to make massive structural changes. The Civil Rights Act, The Voting Rights Act, and the Great Society which comprised a breathtaking list of laws that we take for granted today.
LBJ was President when I was born so ranking the POTUS of my lifetime I'd have to say Obama is #1. He righted a ship that was very very close to sinking. With no support and open racism towards him from the opposition he was able to accomplish a great deal. There are lists available but they don't really do justice to what and how he has done what he has done.
I'm very glad that he will be the first POTUS my daughter remembers.
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)He had quote a mess to clean up coming in. We are still dealing with the epic fallout of a disastrous W Presidency, but overall, he helped fix an aeconomy newr ruin. It might be some time before the disaster W unleashed in the Middle East is fixed.
sofa king
(10,857 posts)As a former legislative analyst, I have been amazed at President Obama's ability to get what he wants in the teeth of total opposition. He's outfoxed the Republicans so much and so often that for the past four years they've resorted to a "no to everything" policy, which has actually helped the President, apparently because it makes Republican opposition easier to predict.
Couple of quick examples: Every year now, the Republican Congress refuses to do its primary job, which is to appropriate funds for running the government. Instead, they pass a continuing resolution, year after year, allowing the 2012 budget to remain in effect (with thousands of pages of amendments). But the 2012 budget is really the President's own budget, because despite his talk, Paul Ryan has been unable to craft a functional competing budget proposal. So every year, the Republicans pass some variant of President Obama's 2012 budget request. The 2012 budget was built with some minimal-funding requirements, so Congresscritters can only add to the NASA budget, for example, rather than raid it for pork funds.
Another fine example is the Republican refusal to hold hearings on the President's Supreme Court nominee. Now, President Obama, who should be a lame duck on the outside of this election, gets to campaign against nearly two dozen Republican Senators, making the Senate elections a mandate on his Supreme Court choice. President Obama is so damned good that he's on the verge of making Hillary Clinton a more effective President.
President Obama led Republicans into those traps because his knowledge of policy and process exceeds the wisdom of the entire Republican establishment. He's smarter and more effective than all of them, individually and collectively. He didn't get everything he wanted, but he got something of everything he wanted.
President Obama's policy successes will be studied by future great politicians for decades, if not centuries and millenia. He's the Teddy Roosevelt of our time. But even that comparison does not do President Obama justice, because he is succeeding in a much more complex and dangerous era against total opposition.
Demonaut
(8,909 posts)pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)First Speaker
(4,858 posts)...had he not handled that as he did, nothing else would have mattered...
Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II. Nixon
ghostsinthemachine
(3,569 posts)Some things not so great, but the advancements during his presidency he been incredible.
Response to Doctor Jack (Original post)
Name removed Message auto-removed
First Speaker
(4,858 posts)...my list: Kennedy (for the Cuban Missile Crisis--had he failed, nothing else would have mattered), Lincoln, Washington, FDR, Teddy, Jefferson, Truman, Jackson, Eisenhower, Reagan (effective, though I didn't like him), Grant (most underrated President ever). Obama would be about here. He was effective in bringing the country out of the Great Recession, in the teeth of overwhelming and spiteful partisan opposition. But I also think he was too much a creature of the Washington Consensus--for example, his enthusiasm for TPP. I think he could have gotten more, if he had asked for more and mounted the Bully Pulpit a bit more. But a good President? Certainly...I'll miss him...
AntiBank
(1,339 posts)he was one of the worst ever
insanely corrupt, tanked the economy, gave huge breaks to the rich
The Young Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant's Administration Plagued by Scandals
Grant named incompetent or corrupt associates and friends to key posts in his government.
http://www.usnews.com/news/history/articles/2009/12/10/the-young-presidents-ulysses-s-grants-administration-plagued-by-scandals
Grant, age 46 when he took office on March 4, 1869, was the youngest man to hold the office up to that time. He served two terms. "But his military background was not enough to equip him for the complexities of governing a huge and swiftly growing nation, and historians have judged him a failure as a president," historian David C. Whitney writes in The American Presidents.
Adds Stefan Lorant in The Glorious Burden: "A general commands by giving orders, the president functions by tact, diplomacy, and persuasion. Orders have to be obeyed, good soldiers can easily be spotted. But politicians cannot be ordered around, and it is not so easy to find out which one is trustworthy, which one is reliable; thus Grant had a hard time in the presidency. He had no critical judgment. He was attracted by the suave, the polished, the rich, and the well-mannered; if they were also crooks, he did not notice it. He was a naive soul."
Grant named incompetent or corrupt friends and associates to key jobs. His lax policies allowed businessmen to make millions. For example, investor Jay Gould was able to corner the gold market and amass a fortune under Grant's lax administration. Grant was unable to tame a resurgent Congress. His administration was plagued by embarrassing scandals, including allegations of bribery, fraud, and cronyism. Several cabinet members got into trouble for ineptitude or corruption, and Grant's personal assistant, Orville Babcock, was accused of being a member of the Whiskey Ring, which defrauded the government of millions of dollars in excise taxes. The economy deteriorated after a financial panic in 1873, souring much of the nation on the former hero of the Civil War.
Grant was vilified in the South, not only because he had waged total war against the Confederacy as the top Union general but because as president he tried to protect the rights of former slaves, including the right to vote. Responding to requests from various governors, he sent federal forces to support state militias in supervising elections. He took aim at the Ku Klux Klan, formed in 1866, when it waged a campaign of terror to suppress black votes and insure black subservience. His administration "brought the worst offenders to trial, often before all-black juries," political scientist Alvin Felzenberg writes in The Leaders We Deserved (and a Few We Didn't). "In the face of often brutal intimidation of witnesses and jurors, federal officials won six hundred convictions." Adds Felzenberg: "Most accounts conclude that Grant had, through these actions, effectively broken the Klan's back," at least for the time being. This won him everlasting enmity from the conservative white leaders of the South.
Grant had a simple explanation for his problems. "It was my fortune, or misfortune, to be called to the office of Chief Executive without any previous political training," he wrote apologetically in his last annual message to Congress. ". . . Under such circumstances, it is but reasonable to suppose that errors of judgment must have occurred."
First Speaker
(4,858 posts)...he was the only President, except for Lincoln, to support equal rights for blacks until Eisenhower sent troops into Little Rock in 1957. He defeated the Ku Klux Klan in their first incarnation. He supported the 14th and 15th amendments. That makes up for a lot.
AntiBank
(1,339 posts)In terms of Reconstruction.
Person 2713
(3,263 posts)Time to pull the plug on that sick party . They have really hurt this country. No good can come from them at this point
GOTV!
Obama has done greats
people need to admit it
lpbk2713
(42,696 posts)And Smirky Bush made stupid acceptable.
Person 2713
(3,263 posts)Motley13
(3,867 posts)Obama definitely in top 10
Along with both Roosevelts , JFK, Truman, LBJ
Washington, Jefferson,
AntiBank
(1,339 posts)Abraham Lincoln Republican
Franklin D. Roosevelt Democratic
George Washington Independent
Thomas Jefferson Dem-Repub
John F. Kennedy Democratic
John Adams Federalist
Theodore Roosevelt Republican
James K. Polk Democratic
Dwight D. Eisenhower Republican
James Madison Dem-Repub
Grover Cleveland Democratic
Barack Obama Democratic
Andrew Jackson Democratic
James Monroe Dem-Repub
Lyndon B. Johnson Democratic
Harry S. Truman Democratic
Ronald Reagan Republican
Woodrow Wilson Democratic
William McKinley Republican
Bill Clinton Democratic
John Quincy Adams Dem-Repub
William Howard Taft Republican
Martin Van Buren Democratic
Rutherford B. Hayes Republican
Jimmy Carter Democratic
Gerald Ford Republican
Chester A. Arthur Republican
Benjamin Harrison Republican
Calvin Coolidge Republican
James A. Garfield Republican
Herbert Hoover Republican
Richard Nixon Republican
George H. W. Bush Republican
Zachary Taylor Whig
John Tyler Whig
William Henry Harrison Whig
Millard Fillmore Whig
Franklin Pierce Democratic
Ulysses S. Grant Republican
George W. Bush Republican
Andrew Johnson Democratic
Warren G. Harding Republican
James Buchanan Democratic
treestar
(82,383 posts)different things are happening in each term and there are different challenges. The media is a very different thing now than in was in earlier times.
When it comes to handling the office with grace and class and intelligence, President Obama ranks very high. Though I am of similar age and profession and outlook and mind set, and therefore biased.
The worst are the figurehead types - why Republicans can't find smart people to actually handle the office rather than rely on advisors is beyond me. Or why they prefer it that way. Those examples would be Reagan and Dubya.
jalan48
(13,797 posts)uponit7771
(90,225 posts)worstexever
(265 posts)As I looked at the photographs of past presidents, I thought most of them were criminals. I would not think that about Obama.
Gothmog
(143,999 posts)Retrograde
(10,068 posts)I don't think one can objectively rate a president's performance until about a generation after he (or perhaps she) leaves office and the effects of his/her policies have had time to percolate through society (I'll make an exception for GWB, who is very close to the bottom
I'd say in the top half, won't commit to top quarter.
Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)PowerToThePeople
(9,610 posts)Bettie
(15,998 posts)he's done some good, moved some things forward and also done some things I've not liked and not agreed with.
Then again, any president is going to be a mixed bag for most of us.
chillfactor
(7,566 posts)the best president in my lifetime and I am 74..
lovemydog
(11,833 posts)dilby
(2,273 posts)Sorry Clinton and Carter but Obama has taken the top spot of Presidents I admire and respect.
Squinch
(50,773 posts)a good number of really terrible things.
For me, PBO is #7. Though in my lifetime, #1.
liberalmuse
(18,670 posts)Kennedy was shot a few months after I was born. Considering the unbelievable asshattery of the Republicans during his entire two terms, he hands down beats Clinton. Clinton had it rough, but back then some Republicans could be semi-sane. Now they're just batshit.
He's in my top 5.
LyndaG
(683 posts)Clinton second. He was a good President, but I could've lived without the Lewinsky drama.
Doctor Jack
(3,072 posts)No one in the general public needed to know anything about that. It was a personal matter between Bill and Hillary but we had a once in a century trial over it. Fucking Republicans
LyndaG
(683 posts)WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)Exilednight
(9,359 posts)1. Lincoln
2. LBJ
3. FDR
4. Jefferson
5. Washington
6. Teddy Roosevelt
7. Woodrow Wilson
8. John Adams
9. Ulysses S Grant
10. James Madison
11. Truman
12. Obama
BumRushDaShow
(127,297 posts)and not only due to his long list of ground-breaking accomplishments that are oft forgotten here on DU, many done against unprecedented odds, but because his entire family were exemplary in their partnership with him as ambassadors to the people of this nation. They are the quintessential American family that one would want to present to the rest of the world.
Jitter65
(3,089 posts)yurbud
(39,405 posts)instead, he did a more competent rerun of the Bill Clinton administration, which would have been impressive in 1990's.
The new income sensitive student loan repayment plan and broader public service student loan forgiveness after ten years of payment was a dramatic improvement, as was a couple of aspects of Obamacare.
On the other hand, he has continued the Republican policy of letting Wall Street dictate K-12 public education policy, including privatization, redundant standardized testing, school closings, union busting, and the like.
He also didn't break up any of the Wall Street banks that caused the 2008 collapse or put any of their top execs in prison.
In foreign policy, he destroyed Libya and seemingly is trying to do the same to Syria, but at least he resisted the neocon push to put ground troops in Syria.
He seems to be holding back just a bit from going full neocon on Russia and starting a new war with them, but not enough of the behind the scenes stuff is in the public record yet to make it clear whether he is holding back the wolves or this is just the pace of the plan.
When he was campaigning, I hope he would govern like an FDR.
When he started pursuing a variation of Bush's foreign policy in the Middle East and Central America, I hoped he would end up at least an LBJ: excellent on domestic policy but a business tool on foreign policy.
Instead, he wasn't as aggressively bad on foreign policy as Bush, but was a bit worse on domestic than I hoped for, so kind of a half LBJ on both fronts.
Algernon Moncrieff
(5,780 posts)Based on what I know now, in terms of Presidents in my lifetime, I'd rank them as follows:
1) Clinton
2) Obama
3) Ford
4) Johnson
5) HW Bush
6) Carter
7) Nixon
8) Reagan
9) W Bush
I give Ford credit for proving the Constitution works and not doing further damage. I give Johnson major demerits for Vietnam despite getting the Great Society and the civil rights legislation passed. Jimmy Carter was (and remains) a very good man but was a very ineffective President.
E.t.a.
My top 5 Presidents all time:
1) FDR - got us through the depression and WW2
2) Lincoln - got us through the Civil War
3) Jefferson - if nothing else, the Louisiana Purchase
4) TR - if nothing else, the National Parks
5) Washington -- if for no other reason than he resisted the urge to be President for life and/or King
Other honorable mention: Truman, Eisenhower, Monroe, Cleveland
I have a soft spot in my heart for James K. Polk because he admitted Texas and California to the Union.
Worst 5:
5) W Bush - his ineffective handling of Katrina, dragging us into war in Iraq, and fiddling while the housing market burned
4) Andrew Johnson - just an all around epic fail
3) & 2) Harding & Coolidge set the stage for the Great Depression. The administrations represent a combination of inaction and corruption that has been unequaled. Herbert Hoover takes a lot of blame for want these two did.
1) US grant was a great general and an all around good whiskey drinking guy, but his administration was corrupt and his administration helped orchestrate the slaughter of the plains Indians.
dishonorable mention to Reagan, Nixon, Fillmore, and Pierce