Up to now, The Scrapbook has looked skeptically at rankings of presidents by historians. They tend to be biased, trendy, superficial, and based on no little myth. The only thing worse than getting historians—liberals, for the most part—to do the ordering would be to ask sociologists. Yet we couldn’t resist C-SPAN’s newest version of its “Historians Survey of Presidential Leadership,” as it marks the first time Barack Obama is included in the rankings.
He arrives as the twelfth-best president, right behind Woodrow Wilson and just ahead of James Monroe. That’s a mite high. But it’s just right so long as you think Obama was a better president than James Polk (14), William McKinley (16), James Madison (17), Andrew Jackson (18), John Adams (19), George H. W. Bush (20), John Quincy Adams (21), Calvin Coolidge (27), and Martin Van Buren (34). After all, historians say so.
Obama achieved this by scoring extremely high in three of the categories: third among our 44 former presidents on “pursued equal justice for all”; seventh on “moral authority”; and eighth on “economic management.” One could quibble on justice and moral standing. But eighth-best on the economy? That puts him ahead of Ronald Reagan on that measure—the historians rank the Gipper 16th on handling the economy.
The Scrapbook has long suspected historians of economic illiteracy. And now we have proof. They must believe the fairy tale about Obama having kept us out of a second Great Depression. In truth, he delivered the weakest recovery from a recession since World War II—perhaps ever. Americans quit the job market in droves or settled for part-time jobs. Compare that with the surging economy and “morning in America” that Reaganomics produced.
The biggest loser in C-SPAN’s third listing of executive greatness was Andrew Jackson, who dropped from thirteenth in the 2009 rankings to eighteenth this year. He used to be The Founder of the Democratic Party. Now he’s The Pariah of the Democratic Party. Jackson was a slaveholder, but the 91 historians in the survey didn’t seem to hold that against him before. Thomas Jefferson remained seventh (notwithstanding his own slaveholding and the beating he took in the musical Hamilton).
Lincoln and Washington remain first and second. As for the Roosevelts, Franklin was third and Teddy fourth. The years are proving kind to Dwight Eisenhower—No. 9 in 2000, he is No. 5 now—and LBJ, who went from No. 11 to No. 10. Less so to Harry Truman, who slipped from an overrated No. 5 to a still-overrated No. 6. JFK fell from No. 6 to No. 8. George W. Bush jumped from No. 36 in 2009 to No. 33 in the new rankings. That still leaves him behind bumbling Jimmy Carter, who declined from 22nd place in 2000 to 26th now.
Reagan, who was at No. 11 in 2000, has since risen, in historians’ estimation, to No. 9. Like Ike, he has the momentum.
