10 best US presidents: What's your opinion?

[Valley Oak]

President Obama's legacy as a great (not just good) president is sealed. Sure, he still has more than a year left in office but even if he has a ho-hum performance (lest more achievements like the Iran deals, etc), Obama has accomplished far more than most presidents in US history and has secured his spot as one of the greatest.

But where does Obama reside in your list of the 10 greatest presidents in American history? Is Obama at the very bottom of that list? Is he even in the top ten, according to your assessment? Or is he nudging the very top, rubbing shoulders with Lincoln and FDR?

Here is my list:

1. Abraham Lincoln.
2. Franklyn Roosevelt.
3. Barack Obama.
4. Theodore Roosevelt.
5. John F. Kennedy.
6. Bill Clinton.
7. Harry Truman.
8. Woodrow Wilson.
9. Andrew Jackson.
10. Thomas Jefferson.

[podfish]

President Obama's legacy as a great (not just good) president is sealed. Sure, he still has more than a year left in office but even if he has a ho-hum performance (lest more achievements like the Iran deals, etc), Obama has accomplished far more than most presidents in US history and has secured his spot as one of the greatest.

But where does Obama reside in your list of the 10 greatest presidents in American history? Is Obama at the very bottom of that list? Is he even in the top ten, according to your assessment? Or is he nudging the very top, rubbing shoulders with Lincoln and FDR?

Here is my list:

1. Abraham Lincoln.
2. Franklyn Roosevelt.
3. Barack Obama.
4. Theodore Roosevelt.
5. John F. Kennedy.
6. Bill Clinton.
7. Harry Truman.
8. Woodrow Wilson.
9. Andrew Jackson.
10. Thomas Jefferson.

ok, not the forum for deep historical discussions.. but anyway, I'm curious about Kennedy being up there. He was inspirational and all, did a good job being in front of the crowd at a time when the culture was beginning major shifts, but wouldn't you say Johnson (for good and bad) really was the one who was most responsible for most of the changes instigated by the president in the early 60's? Maybe give RFK credit too... but he's not eligible in this list.

[Scott McKeown]

...
Here is my list:

1. Abraham Lincoln.
2. Franklyn Roosevelt.
3. Barack Obama.
4. Theodore Roosevelt.
5. John F. Kennedy.
6. Bill Clinton.
7. Harry Truman.
8. Woodrow Wilson.
9. Andrew Jackson.
10. Thomas Jefferson.

I think # 1 and # 2 on your list are indisputable. Beyond that it's all arguable. Any list I make seems flawed. A lot of them did some very good things but also very bad things, and I can make a case they don't belong. For instance, I just can't put Andrew Jackson on the list for what he did with the "Trail of Tears". Or LBJ for the Vietnam War. And then there is the slave owning thing. Only three of the first 16 Presidents did not own slaves -- John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and Abraham Lincoln. I'm conflicted about Obama, and I think we need to see how things play out historically.

So I guess here is my (flawed) top ten list of dead white men Presidents:

1. Abraham Lincoln
2. Franklyn Roosevelt
3. Theodore Roosevelt
4. George Washington
5. Woodrow Wilson
6. Thomas Jefferson
7. James Monroe
8. John F Kennedy
9. John Adams
10. John Quincy Adams

[Jim Wilson]

Interesting list. Like Scott, I think 1 & 2 are nobrainers. I'm wondering why George Washington isn't on the list?

The one President you included that I would object to is Woodrow Wilson. Wilson tops my list for worst U.S. President in our history. Bigoted, self-righteous, authoritarian to the core. The greatest lapse of Wilson was taking the U.S. into W.W. 1. The precedent this set for a foreign policy of interventionism is, to my mind, horrendous. I can't think of a single thing he did that I admire. His deceitfulness is legendary; he actually campaigned using a slogan to keep the U.S. 'out of that European War' and then did everything he could to manipulate the U.S. into engaging in that apocalypse. The sole result of U.S. engagement was to extend the slaughter for another year, and then in the aftermath to set up the conditions for W.W. 2. Hideous. (Yup, I have strong feelings about the guy.)

Thanks,

Jim

[Valley Oak]

I apologize to everyone:

I misspelled FDR's name. The correct spelling is, Franklin, with an 'i,' not a 'y,' as I had originally posted it.

[podfish]

I apologize to everyone:

I misspelled FDR's name. The correct spelling is, Franklin, with an 'i,' not a 'y,' as I had originally posted it.

yeah, I wondered who you meant ...

[Valley Oak]

The Young Turks, internet newscaster, opines that Obama is only a "good president" but certainly "not a great president."

Now, I listened to the TYT commentator's reasons and I found some of them to be compelling, such as labeling Obama as an incrementalist. TYT criticizes Obama for not going after the much bigger prizes on healthcare reform (universal or socialized system) . The commentator, Cenk Uygur (pronounced jenk you-ger) asserted that a great president must be a "transformative" president. And I happen to think that this is not a bad criterion.

However, I also think that the reason why Obama went only as far as he did was because that was the only thing anyone could have done in his position. Obama was fighting with strong majorities of recalcitrant Republicans in both Houses of Congress for 6 of his 8 years in office. After Obama's 2nd year in office, he was governing with one arm tied behind his back. I believe the system held him back because most Americans were not ready for those big changes; that's why voters elected and maintained large Republican majorities in Congress. If the American people had not abandoned their support of Obama, then the big reforms would have come. That's one of my observations, anyhow.

It's interesting to see that the debate (not just here on Wacco) is not on whether Obama is a good or bad president, it is whether or not he is a good or great president. Sure, there are a lot of Republicans, Christians, Libertarian lunatics, rednecks, hillbillies, KKK, racists, uneducated, misogynists, religious fundamentalists and fanatics, Climate Change denialists, ignorant, confederate flag waving, business 'leaders' (e.g. Jamie Dimon), homophobes, warmongers, most rural and Southern people, etc, who will scream and wail from the top of their lungs that Obama "destroyed" this country, that Obama is a Socialist Muslim, bla, bla, bla. But the majority of Americans know better.

Here is the 4 minute commentary from TYT:

[Scott McKeown]

Interesting list. Like Scott, I think 1 & 2 are nobrainers. I'm wondering why George Washington isn't on the list?

The one President you included that I would object to is Woodrow Wilson. Wilson tops my list for worst U.S. President in our history. ...

Like I said, my list is flawed. I was going to criticize a couple of Edward's choices and then I realized how it's easy to criticize a list but difficult to come up with an alternative list of my own.

Regarding Wilson, I guess it depends on one's politics. As one of the Progressive Era Presidents there is a reason Glenn Beck and conservatives hate him so much. Wilson's "League of Nations" vision was a precursor to the United Nations. Like I say, it depends on one's politics.

I should break out my copy of "A People's History of the United States" and see what Howard Zinn has to say about Wilson. That is a history book I trust. Maybe you are right. But below is some information.

Scott

https://www.apstudynotes.org/us-history/topics/the-progressive-presidents/
Wilson’s New Freedom

Upon taking office, Woodrow Wilson became only the second Democratic president since 1861. Wilson was a trim figure with clean-cut features and pince-nez glasses clipped to the bridge of his nose, giving him an academic look. Partly due to his academic background and limited political experience, Wilson was very much an idealist. He was intelligent and calculating, but the public perception was that he was emotionally cold and distant. Wilson arrived in the White House with a clear agenda and the drive to achieve all of his goals. In addition, the Democratic majority in both houses of Congress was eager to show the public that their support was not misdirected.

Wilson’s platform called for an assault on “the triple wall of privilege,” which consisted of tariffs, banks, and trusts, and rarely has a president set to work so quickly. His first objective was to reduce the prohibitive tariffs that hurt American businesses and consumers. In an unprecedented move, Wilson personally appeared before Congress to call a special session to discuss tariffs in early 1913. Moved and stunned by Wilson’s eloquence and force of character, Congress immediately designed the Underwood Tariff Bill, which significantly reduced import fees.

The Underwood Tariff Bill brought the first significant reduction of duties since before the Civil War. In order to make up for the loss in revenues caused by the lower tariffs, the Underwood Bill introduced a graduated income tax. This new tax was introduced under the authority of the recently ratified Sixteenth Amendment. Initially, the tax was levied on incomes over $3,000, which was significantly higher than the national average. However, by 1917 the revenue from income taxes greatly exceeded receipts from the tariff. This margin has continued to grow exponentially over the years.

After tackling the tariff, Wilson turned his attention to the nation’s banks. The country’s financial structure was woefully outdated, and its inefficiencies had been exposed by the Republican’s economic expansion and the Panic of 1907. The currency system was very inelastic, with most reserves concentrated in New York and a few other large cities. These resources could not be mobilized quickly in the event of a financial crisis in a different area. Wilson considered two proposals: one calling for a third Bank of the United States, the other seeking a decentralized bank under government control.

Siding with public opinion, Wilson called another special session of Congress in June of 1913. He overwhelmingly endorsed the idea of a decentralized bank, and asked Congress to radically change the banking system. Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act, which was arguably the greatest piece of legislation between the Civil War and Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. The Act created a Federal Reserve Board, which oversaw a system of 12 regional reserve districts, each with its own central bank. This new system also issued Federal Reserve Notes, paper currency that quickly allowed the government to adjust the flow of money, which are still in use today. The Federal Reserve Act was instrumental in allowing America to meet the financial challenges of World War I and emerge from the war as one of the world’s financial powers.

Emboldened by his successes, President Wilson turned his attention to the trusts. Although legislation designed to address the issue of trusts had existed for many years, they were still very much a problem. Again, Wilson appeared before Congress and delivered an emotional and dramatic address. He asked Congress to create legislation that would finally address trusts and tame the rampant monopolies. After several months of discussion, Congress presented Wilson with the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914. This act allowed the government to closely inspect companies engaged in interstate commerce, such as meatpackers and railroads. The Commission investigated unfair trading practices such as false advertising, monopolistic practices, bribery, and misrepresentation.

Following closely behind the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914, was the Clayton Act of 1914. It served to strengthen the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890 (the first measure passed by the U.S. Congress to prohibit trusts) and redefine the practices that were considered monopolistic and illegal. The Clayton Act provided support for labor unions by exempting labor from antitrust prosecution and legalizing strikes and peaceful picketing, which were not part of the Sherman Act. Renowned American Federation of Labor union leader, Samuel Gompers, declared the Clayton Act the “Magna Carta” of labor. Unfortunately, labor’s triumph was short-lived, as conservative judges continued to curtail union power in controversial decisions.

The era of the Progressive presidents produced a number of notable achievements. Trust-busting forced industrialists and monopolistic corporations to consider public opinion when making business decisions. This benefited the consumer and helped grow the economy. The Progressive presidents also increased consumers’ rights by limiting corporate abuses and trying to ensure the safe labeling of food and drugs. The creation of a federal income tax system lowered tariffs and increased America’s presence as a global trading partner. It also raised additional revenues, some of which were used for beneficial programs such as conservation. The Progressive presidents served to strengthen the office of the president and the public began to expect more from the executive branch. Progressivism as a concept helped challenge traditional thinking about government’s relationship to the people and sparked new ideas that stimulated thought for decades to come.


.

[podfish]

The Young Turks, internet newscaster, opines that Obama is only a "good president" but certainly "not a great president." .....

i don't know about that... I'm not so sure your list doesn't encompass damn near a "majority of Americans". There seem to be a lot of people whose primary characteristics don't really put them in your list - not that their hearts don't have some of that in them, but who of us doesn't have some of that atavistic stuff behind our 'reason' anyway. These are staunch 'realists' in their own eyes, who find liberals to be full of wishful thinking about human nature, too willing to forgive and too unsuspicious of evildoers. In their writings and posts they seem pretty convinced that Obama is feckless and unwilling to confront his opponents (including themselves! which many Obama supporters might agree with). They seem to honestly believe that the public institutions used to support right-thinking and well-behaved citizens while punishing those of bad morals, and that now those same institutions ignore at best, or hinder at worst, good people going about their business with good intent and tolerate or even enable those who are undeserving or even evil. They definitely hold Obama, and for that matter both Clintons, responsible, along with Hollywood, the media, and the parents of spoiled millennials...

[Valley Oak]

Here is an interesting post that I believe is relevant about history's judgment of the Obama presidency. I don't normally go to Politico.com as a news source because it oftentimes publishes rightwing dribble but this article seems to be an exception.

I cut off the article at the paragraph where it says the Republicans are not the only problem that Obama has. You can finish reading the whole article in the links provided here.

---------------------------------------------------

Barack Obama’s Long Game
A month of victories has transformed the president’s second term.
TODD S. PURDUM, July 16, 2015

Barack Obama is not a modest man, but when it comes to assessing his or any president’s place in the long American story, he has been heard to say, “We just try to get our paragraph right.” Yet the way a raft of recent events have broken sharply in his favor, Obama suddenly seems well on his way to writing a whole page—or at least a big, fat passage—in the history books

From the Supreme Court decisions upholding his signature health care plan and the right of gay Americans to marry, to contested passage of fast track trade authority, the opening of normal diplomatic relations with Cuba and an international agreement to curtail Iran’s nuclear weapons program, Obama is on a policy and political roll that would have seem unimaginable to many in Washington only a few months ago.

“Obama may be singular as a president, not only because of his striking background,” says Kenneth Adelman, who was Ronald Reagan’s arms control negotiator with the Soviets three decades ago, and who has his doubts about the Iran deal. “It may turn out that unlike virtually any other president, his second term is actually better than his first.”

Rallying his cabinet in January in the wake of the Democratic Party’s decisive defeat in last fall’s midterm elections, Obama himself maintained, “Interesting stuff happens in the fourth quarter.” This president has always been something of a clutch player, but his command of recent events—from his soaring eulogy for the victims of the Charleston church massacre, to his commutation of more sentences for non-violent criminal offenders than any president since Franklin Roosevelt—goes a good way toward proving the prescience of his words.

For much of the last five years, it had seemed Obama’s peculiar misfortune that the biggest achievement of his time in office—the adoption of his health care plan—might also prove his biggest defeat, because of the bitter and unyielding political and legal backlash unleashed by its narrow passage on a strict partisan vote.

Simultaneously, Obama’s ability to take decisive unilateral action on foreign policy—often a source of succor and satisfaction to second-term presidents—seemed highly limited, if only because he remained saddled with the ugly aftermath of the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the rise of the ISIL threat.

Not so long ago, much of the chattering class was reading the last rites over the Obama administration, and turning to the 2016 election as a test of whether anything would be left of the president’s legacy if a Republican succeeded him. That’s still an open question, of course. But the Court’s recent rulings and Obama’s own seemingly unplugged and swing-for-the-fences attitude on questions from race to criminal justice has given his presidency a sharply re-invigorated viability and relevance.

“It’s an unfinished chapter,” says presidential historian Richard Norton Smith, who is writing a new biography of Gerald Ford. “But he has already defied the second-term curse and the wisdom of just six months ago. ‘What can a president do if he doesn’t have either house of Congress?’ Well, guess what, he can reverse a 50, 60-year-old policy toward Cuba. But, more than that, he can still, even without the traditional televised Oval Office version of the bully pulpit, to a large degree set the terms of the national debate.”

The president’s very demeanor in his White House news conference on Thursday bespoke a renewed intensity and determination to make the most of the time he has left. Much of the time, he fielded questions in a relaxed posture, leaning on the lectern with one elbow, but some of his answers were emphatic bordering on brusque. As the session wound down, he canvassed the East Room for more questions about the Iran agreement with a kind of “Hit-me-with-your-best-shot” bravado, as if to show how important he believes it to be. With a blithe air that belied the seriousness of the issue, he quoted that noted diplomat Ricky Ricardo to say that if Iran mined more uranium than it was supposed to, “They got some ‘splainin’ to do.”

“It is a measure of the times in which we live that we start the legacy discussion a year and a half before the end of a presidency,” says David Axelrod, Obama’s former longtime strategist. “But he’s had the most productive period he’s enjoyed since the first two years: Cuba, the climate agreement with China, action on immigration, fast track on trade, the SCOTUS decisions on health care and marriage and now this agreement on Iran. These are big, historically significant developments, in most cases the culmination of years of commitment on his part.”

Obama himself said he hoped Congress would debate the Iran agreement on the facts and the merits, but added, “We live in Washington and politics do intrude.” The sharp and instantaneous denunciation of the president’s comments by Republicans was a sure sign of the parallel universes that constitute American politics these days. Former Gov. Rick Perry of Texas said on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show that Obama was a “very, very naïve man,” who “cannot put the dots together,” while Glenn Beck’s daily email newsletter subject line was, “Obama continues to destroy the country.”

The Republicans are not the only obstacle that Obama faces. He won his fast track Asian trade authority with largely Republican support, and the Iran agreement has stirred significant Democratic skepticism, among even the party’s leaders in Congress. If the Greek financial crisis engulfs Europe and spreads to Wall Street, there is no telling what the American economy might look like when Obama leaves office in 18 months.

Finish reading the article by clicking here

[Valley Oak]

(I have edited this post so please re-read)

I'm not 100% sure of what you are saying but since your posts are usually razor sharp commentary I'm certain that I'm missing something and probably more. In any case, I'm going to take a shot in the dark and try to address some aspect of what you are saying.

For starters, before Obama was elected, I would tell people, including here on the Wacco List (and you can find my posts on this from 2008), that Obama cannot do all of the things that the left/progressive/liberal community wanted or expected him to do for two fundamentally important reasons:

1. Obama is not nearly as left/progressive/liberal as many of the people who voted for him in the 2008 elections and, therefore, would not have been elected in the first place. In other words, Obama is not a radical; he is a moderate left/progressive/liberal. (Although millions of conservatives beg to differ.)

To elaborate: if Obama was a radical lefty, he never would have been elected in the first place because he would have alienated too many "centrist" voters in the general election in November 2008 and McCain would have won. As a matter of fact, Obama would not have even gotten that far because he would have, with absolute certainty, lost to Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primaries. Additionally, the unrealistic expectations that many on the far left had of Obama when he entered office were so disappointed (and inevitably so, of course) that they refused to vote for him again in 2012.

2. Even if Obama was a true radical (which he very clearly is not and I knew this both times I voted for him), then the political and social institutions (Congress, SCOTUS, two-party system, the Constitution, first-past-the-post, the American people themselves, big money interests, the media, the church, etc, etc.) would not have allowed Obama to enact his radical public policies, both foreign and domestic. Just look at how the opposition, institutionally (e.g. SCOTUS), the Republicans, and the wealthy, etc, have unfurled themselves against Obama up to this point (and this effective, sabotaging opposition will continue until January 2017).

To give an example of this: FDR truly transformed America with his New Deal and other reforms but he had the mandate (huge Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress for 12 consecutive years). And that mandate came as a product of the enormous desperation (the Great Depression and WWII) of a strong majority of American voters, who went and consistently returned to the polls in much larger numbers than usual.

To elaborate: Obama didn't have that strong majority, even in 2008! Sure, people were scared enough to elect the first African-American president, who was clearly a liberal, etc, back in 2008, but that support did not even come close to the support that FDR received from the American electorate. If Obama had had (yes, that is 2 'hads' in a row) the same popular, consistently strong, unyielding support that FDR enjoyed, then everything that Obama has accomplished so far in his 6.5 years in office, he would have accomplished in only his first, maybe second year in the White House. No doubt about it! And he would have accomplished roughly as much as FDR had. (Then and only then, many more on the far left would have been satisfied with Obama's performance than there are today.)

On previous note, I know that I may have completely missed your points. So you can either address that or address what I have posted here (or not). I'll leave that up to you. If I understand your points then I will answer them as best as I can.

i don't know about that... I'm not so sure your list doesn't encompass damn near a "majority of Americans". There seem to be a lot of people whose primary characteristics don't really put them in your list - not that their hearts don't have some of that in them, but who of us doesn't have some of that atavistic stuff behind our 'reason' anyway. These are staunch 'realists' in their own eyes, who find liberals to be full of wishful thinking about human nature, too willing to forgive and too unsuspicious of evildoers. In their writings and posts they seem pretty convinced that Obama is feckless and unwilling to confront his opponents (including themselves! which many Obama supporters might agree with). They seem to honestly believe that the public institutions used to support right-thinking and well-behaved citizens while punishing those of bad morals, and that now those same institutions ignore at best, or hinder at worst, good people going about their business with good intent and tolerate or even enable those who are undeserving or even evil. They definitely hold Obama, and for that matter both Clintons, responsible, along with Hollywood, the media, and the parents of spoiled millennials...

[podfish]

.....I'm not 100% sure of what you are saying but since your posts are usually razor sharp commentary I'm certain that I'm missing something and probably more.

1. Obama is not nearly as left/progressive/liberal as many of the people who voted for him in the 2008 elections and, therefore, would not have been elected in the first place. In other words, Obama is not a radical; he is a moderate left/progressive/liberal. (Although millions of conservatives beg to differ.)

2. Even if Obama was a true radical (which he very clearly is not and I knew this both times I voted for him), then the political and social institutions (Congress, SCOTUS, two-party system, the Constitution, first-past-the-post, the American people themselves, big money interests, the media, the church, etc, etc.) would not have allowed Obama to enact his radical public policies, both foreign and domestic. Just look at how the opposition, institutionally (e.g. SCOTUS), the Republicans, and the wealthy, etc, have unfurled themselves against Obama up to this point (and this effective, sabotaging opposition will continue until January 2017)....

On previous note, I know that I may have completely missed your points. So you can either address that or address what I have posted here (or not). I'll leave that up to you. If I understand your points then I will answer them as best as I can.

that's very kind of you to say, but I know that I often write with some serious fuzziness. I missed the lessons about writing with brevity and clarity, which honestly doesn't suit my personality anyway...

I completely agree with your take on Obama - he's a law professor and community organizer from Chicago, for god's sake. Not hallmarks of radicalism, either one. Yeah, I remember the Chicago 7, but they were outside agitators. He's dealt with machine politics forever, where everything is give & take.

To clarify my tangent: you implied that the majority of Americans evaluated him as either good or great, except for a minority who fell in one of several categories of crazies - and Republicans, who may or may not be crazy. So my rejoinder was that people falling those categories may well be a majority after all. Also, they may not see themselves as lunatics or rednecks or warmongers, though if you dig deep into their motivation you may well find that hell yeah, they're lunatics. Finally, I said that I believe most would say the change Obama represents is a change away from a society that rewarded virtue to one that not only rewards the undeserving but actually penalizes the upright and honest citizens such as themselves.

Thus the claims that immigrants come here and get free housing and health care, to rob and rape, while the good folk are denied the guns it will take to defend themselves and the police are having their hands tied in dealing with people who are clearly criminals. Damn liberals keep denying that you can tell a criminal when you see one. We all know they look nothing like Jamie Dimon.

[Valley Oak]

LOL!

Thank you and I agree with you 100%.

Che Guevara once said, "El revolucionario verdadero está guiado por grandes sentimientos de amor."
Approximate translation: "The true revolutionary is guided by great sentiments of love."

By quoting Che, I'm not saying that Obama is a revolutionary, but I am saying that Obama is guided by great sentiments of love and most of his policies reflect this. Where Obama has not been able to do the right thing is because reactionaries and reactionary institutional agents have not allowed him to do better. Obama has had to, bitterly, compromise on MANY issues, and with great consequences to many human beings. That's politics.

Can you argue this point? Of course you can. You could say, "Well, what about all of those people, noncombatants, children, and so on, killed by the drones, etc, etc, etc. Sure, you can make that argument if you wish to but life, reality, and leadership of the empire don't allow for easy solutions. I'm not defending bombing innocents into oblivion. I'm not defending the empire. I am saying that in an immensely complex world, grossly contradictory public policies are inevitable. Someone who cannot comprehend this and cannot integrate this overwhelming fact into his or her public administration as the president, cannot be someone who has been as successful as Obama has demonstrated so far.

Has Obama made mistakes? You better believe it. Would Obama change many important decisions he made, in both content and delivery, if he could go back to January 2009? You better believe he would. We all have regrets.

that's very kind of you to say, but I know that I often write with some serious fuzziness. I missed the lessons about writing with brevity and clarity, which honestly doesn't suit my personality anyway...

I completely agree with your take on Obama - ...