Just in time for President’s Day, Jonathan Bernstein takes note of the most overrated and underrated presidents:
My list of overrated would include Kennedy, Reagan and Wilson, and perhaps Jackson, but I’d add Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon. For underrated, I usually say Grant, but I’ve also sometimes added Harding and Ford. I do wonder whether those suggesting that Ike and Truman are underrated are behind the curve by a few decades about how those presidents are viewed.
While I note that these lists are heavily colored by mythology and political affiliation, I think that certainly the most overrated president of my lifetime and probably one of the most overrated overall would have to be John Kennedy. I also a president who is conspicuous by his absence from the article. Where’s Lyndon Johnson?
When the glare of the Baby Boomers’ hatred of Lyndon Johnson (and their love for Kennedy) has passed, I think that flinty-eyed scrutiny will reveal that many of the worst aspects of the Kennedy-Johnson administration will be laid squarely at Jack Kennedy’s feet while some of the best of the period will be attributed to Johnson.
I found this interesting:
Barack Obama ranks mid-pack at 18th, just behind George H.W. Bush and ahead of James Polk. His average “overall greatness†rating, on a 0 to 100 scale, comes in at 58, just a bit above average. Obama scores well on “integrity,†but only a little above average on legislative, diplomatic and military skills. He’s also rated the second-most polarizing (behind George W. Bush).
IMO Obama’s star has already passed its zenith. He’ll always have his adherents but in 75 years when his strongest supporters have passed from the scene I strongly suspect that, right with George W. Bush, he’ll be considered a poor-to-mediocre president. I might be wrong but I won’t be around to see it.
I find this ratings puzzling and mostly a product of mood affiliation.
Reagan and Jackson are transformational Presidents that changed the public policy debate for at least a generation after them. You certainly don’t have to agree with them. Ask Obama.
Wilson is probably a bit overrated, but his historical legacy is polarizing and hard to rank. Perhaps he deserves a high – ranking with a strong dissent that he is overrated.
I don’t know how Carter and Nixon can be overated; they are not highly rated. Nixon might deserve the opposite of the Wilson treatment, a poorly rated President, that is also underrated.
I would rank the top four Presidents in this order: Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson and FDR. The next steps become difficult to rank.
I think JFK, Obama and Madison are overrated. (Obama has one poll taken at the beginning of his first term)
I think William Henry Harrison is greatly underrated by historians, but they don’t have much to go one, other than what a bright, leader would have done in the “Whig moment.” Would agree with U.S. Grant — almost a three-termer. He gets dogged with corruption (many of whom were from Lincoln’s administration), and the lack of success in admirable policies regarding Native Americans and Freedmen. Ultimately, I think those are largely American failures.
I suspect that historians will give this era an asterisk, just like baseball and the steroid era. Both Bush and Obama have had to deal with a 24/7 media, private and professional, that presidents have never had to deal with before. (Can you imagine Reagan surviving Iran-Contra today? Clinton would never have been elected if the online media had existed, given his history with scandalous affairs.) This accounts for more of the polarization than anything the either Bush or Obama have done.
Steve
Polk as middling seems odd to me.