Sweet 15
Barack Obama has been ranked the 15h greatest President by leading presidential scholars. That's below Clinton, who's at 13, but above Reagan, who's at 18. It looks like Obama would actually be top ten if it weren't for his weak background.
Who's number 1?
FDR. Number 2 is TR, above Lincoln, Washington and Jefferson.How about George W. Bush? He's 39th, near the bottom, well below Richard Nixon at 30. In fact, he's the worst President in living memory.
What do these numbers mean? Well, at the very least, they suggest that quite a few professors are not fit to teach American history. This sort of poll shows, if nothing else, how hopelessly shortsighted and biased academics are.
I only hope the smarter scholars didn't participate. Meanwhile, those who did should feel shame, but if they were capable of feeling that, they wouldn't have these beliefs to begin with.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:01 AM
3 Comments:
They should at least refuse to put Obama on the poll. The idea that anyone has any idea how he rates just yet is absurd. Really they shouldn't rate any President who's still alive. Maybe they shouldn't rate any President who was in office while they were alive.
The trouble with these kinds of polls is they take the political programs and ideas they like best today and apply them to historic situations where they no longer fit. Everyone does this to some extent, but historians should be most immune. I guess they're not.
One of my history professors at UCLA told the class that the best president was Franklin Roosevelt, but the best-looking president was John F. Kennedy.
The class obediently wrote this down in their notebooks.
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