On Presidents, Ranked

I'm a sports fan, which means I like ranking things. Best quarterbacks of all time. Best NBA big men. Best places to watch a Browns game (in an empty bar, preferably face down). And I particularly like categorizing those rankings: sure, Tom Brady might be the best overall quarterback ever, but no doubt Michael Vick was the best scrambler, or that Randall Cunningham had the best leg.

So let's apply that to presidents. If we were to rank all the...oh, huh, well, how about this?

The above Wikipedia page showing a number of different rankings of US presidents was a lot of fun to go through. While there are certainly empirical ways of determining a leader's success - did the economy grow? did the country acquire new territory or win/lose any wars? did he have sex with that woman? - it's hard to judge a president until they've been out of office for several years, so that any long-term effects of the prior leader(s) can be fully realized. (Just ask Martin Van Buren or Barack Obama) Plus, not everyone considers winning a war or passing a new healthcare bill to be a rousing success; it's a subjective matter. In short, it would be a fool's errand to try to rank every U.S. president in any sort of fair and accurate way.

But let's do it anyway! Some highlights from these lists:

1. James Buchanan was the only president ever from my home state of Pennsylvania, so naturally, he's almost universally considered the worst president in U.S. history. Of course, when you basically say "d'owell!" to the prospect of half the country seceding, people are going to remember that. He was basically Neville Chamberlain Lite. But also, he was a lifelong bachelor, so...niiiiiiiiice.
   
2. Not coincidentally, Lincoln is a near unanimous choice for best president ever across different polls and different time periods. This could've been you, James!
   
3. A 1982 survey of historians showed that liberals and conservatives had nearly identical Top Five's (some combination of Lincoln, Washington, FDR, Jefferson, and Ted Roosevelt) I'd love to hear a debate moderator ask the GOP nominees this year if they thought FDR was one of the five best presidents of all time. It'd be like asking a room full of Beyonce fans what they thought about the new queen of pop music, Ariana Grande.
   
4. I am genuinely surprised that George W. Bush isn't ranked lower. Granted, his term ended less than eight years ago, but considering conservatives hated his economic policies and liberals/most everyone else basically consider him a war criminal, the fact that the "Notable Scholar Surveys" section aggregates him at only 34 out of 43 presidents is a bit shocking - though the fact that nearly every president ranked lower than him are there because they didn't prevent the Civil War from happening should tell you something.
   
5. Siena College also ranked each president by individual categories (handling of economy, foreign policy accomplishments, integrity), which is great because there's a category for "Intelligence." Jefferson ranked No. 1. Dead last was....not Dubya! It was Warren Harding, possibly because he didn't know that all this was against the law.

That's all. I thought this was pretty cool - hope you do too.