Oh, those historians are at it again! It's time to rank the Presidents! This has been one of my favorite games ever since childhood!
Some Presidents tend to gravitate to the same approximate level - Lincoln, Washington, FDR near the top: Harding, Buchanan, and Pierce near the bottom.
Nevertheless, as time passes, the estimations of historians of certain Presidents changes dramatically.
When I was young, Ulysses S. Grant was considered the all-time worst President - EVER! EVER! Even worse than Harding and Buchanan! (It was all that Gilded Age corruption, plus Reconstruction). Nevertheless, Grant's reputation is simply zooming these days. People have since taken a fresh look at the 19th Century and Grant just wasn't that bad. In this tabulation, Grant comes out 26th. As time goes by, Grant's liable to end up tenth, or so. Because, in truth, he wasn't such a bad egg.
Truman is also another mover. He was near the bottom when I was a kid. Now he's ninth! Amazing! I read somewhere that both Grant's and Truman's bad ratings can be attributed to their unpopularity among a school of Southern historians, then active, that have now passed from the scene. Plus, it can be very hard to appropriately pigeonhole someone recently out-of-office, such as Truman then was.
What else.... Teddy Roosevelt 2nd and Woodrow Wilson 8th: too high for both. Clinton 13th, above Andrew Jackson? too high. Ronald Reagan 18th: way too high! Hoover 36th: too low. George W. Bush 39th: too high - he should be on a par with Buchanan as the worst dolt ever to occupy the office! Andrew Johnson, dead last at 43rd?: too low - wrong guy at the wrong time, of course, but nowhere near Buchanan's league of douchebaggery. Interestingly, Polk remains stable at 12th - when I was a kid, he was tenth.
There will never be true consensus on this list, but that's all right - it's a fun game!
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