Rankings Of Presidents

Joe Biden Hits The Ground Running With COVID 19 Pandemic Task Force Of Physicians And Health Experts

President Elect Joe Biden is hitting the ground running, and less than two days after his winning the Presidency, he has formed a Task Force on the COVID 19 Pandemic, utilizing top physicians and health experts to work to solve this horrible tragedy as soon as possible.

And Pfizer has said its vaccine trials have been 90 percent effective, so hopefully it will lead to the ability to tackle the virus and shorten the time before America can say it has triumphed over this evil virus, and in the process, save tens of thousands of lives.

Meanwhile, the defeated President Trump is having nothing to say about the growing number of daily cases, now up to over 125,000 a day in the past few days, and the reality that nearly a quarter of a million have died on Trump’s watch, with him repudiating science and health experts.

This is the major cause of Donald Trump’s defeat, and he will pay in history for his lack of concern over the loss of human life, and he is guaranteed to be on the bottom of the list of Presidents, below James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson, and nothing will save his reputation among decent, sane, intelligent Americans!

Special Commemorative Issue Of Newsweek On “The 10 Best American Presidents” (Of The 20th Century And 21st Century)!

Newsweek Magazine this week came out with a special commemorative issue, dealing with the American Presidency since Theodore Roosevelt. It is well worth investigating and purchasing by all political junkies and Presidential followers!

Since the issue only deals with “modern” Presidents, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson and James K. Polk, usually rated the best Presidents before 1900 in that order, are not discussed.

Instead, there is a look at the 19 Presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to Barack Obama, and it is certain that most Republicans and conservatives will have “problems’ with the discussion and ranking that Newsweek provides!

The rankings of the top ten by historians are as follows:

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Lyndon B. Johnson
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Woodrow Wilson
Harry Truman
Bill Clinton
John F. Kennedy
Ronald Reagan
Barack Obama

Note that seven of the top ten are Democrats, and only three Republicans are listed! And only Eisenhower and Reagan would not be considered “liberal” or “progressive” Presidents!

There is plenty of room for debate by all scholars, and most ratings of the modern Presidents would not put Johnson, Eisenhower, Wilson and Clinton so high; and Truman, Kennedy and Reagan so low, and even having Obama in the top ten!

But notice that one does not see “conservative” Presidents Harding, Coolidge and Hoover mentioned, and only Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush are even picked in the “public’ poll, from the other nine Presidents who served since 1900, eliminating Johnson and Wilson altogether!

The “public” list of the top ten is as follows:

Ronald Reagan
Bill Clinton
Franklin D. Roosevelt
John F. Kennedy
Barack Obama
Harry Truman
Theodore Roosevelt
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Jimmy Carter
George H. W. Bush

The knowledge base and expertise of the “public” is obviously far less than the experts, as the ranking is very different!

The “public” poll, disagreeing in many ways with the historical experts, still shows that “conservative” Presidents other than Reagan do not make the list—not only Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover, but also Taft, Nixon, Ford, and the second Bush! And the case could be made that Eisenhower and the first Bush were not really “conservative”!

First Ladies are also surveyed, and specific elections are discussed, and David Frum, a conservative, gives thumbs up to a Democrat, Harry Truman, while Sean Wilentz, a liberal, gives justice to a Republican, George H. W. Bush.

This issue is great food for thought!