1. Coolidge
2. Harding
3. Reagan
4. Kennedy
5. Eisenhower
6. Ford
7. Hoover
8. Carter
9. Nixon
10. GHW Bush
11. Clinton
12. Truman
13. GW Bush
14. Johnson
15. Obama
16. Roosevelt
17. Wilson

Truman ranks much higher, based on his handling of the close of WW2 and the beginning of the Cold War. He was a good man, and a good President.

Thucy, Wilson's utter political and moral ineptitude set the cause of internationalism back decades. A more capable politician would have been able to get the USA involved in the League of Nations. The presidents that followed him took part in considerable arms reductions treaties. Wilson posed and complained and screwed everything up.

You know when the Iraq and Afghanistan War went wrong? When hard-minded Jacksonian realism (we need to kill our enemies and break their stuff) was replaced by fuzzy-headed Wilsonian ideals (evangelizing Democracy to the benighted of the world!)

...sigh...

Coolidge as the top President of the last 100 years?
Really?
O.o

I mean, granted you two seem to despise Obama and Wilson...and I think you both rate them far too low (Obama is NOT the worst president of the last 100 years, the same way Dubya Bush wasn't, and frankly you come across as knee-jerk and overly-partisan in your placing him there) but even then--

Not FDR, hm?
Well, Syv's anti-FDR, "The Great Depression actually ended in 1934" lunacy is on record there, and CM is CM, so that doesn't surprise me I suppose...

But STILL--

You BOTH ranked Kennedy, Reagan, AND Eisenhower in your Top 5's...

None of THEM could beat out Coolidge, eh?
Or your #2, slot...
Warren "I Was a Corrupt Gambler and Died Early" Harding?

Really?

Defend them!
Defend them again!
I dare ya,
I double dare ya, motherfucker,
Defend Coolidge/Harding one more goddamn time! (Er, for the first time!)

I GUARANTEE YOU neither of those men, if they reached into a bag of wallets to find one fitting their personality, would pull one out reading Bad Motherfucker... ;)

But really--JFK/Reagan/Ike all fall short of...Warren G. Harding?
And Coolidge WAS a competent President, for sure...
But how does he beat out any of those three?

That list FIXED:

1. Reagan/Roosevelt (tie, I'd give it to FDR solo, but I'll be perfectly non-partisan here)
3. Wilson (brilliant man, WWI win, Nobel Peace Prize, Thucy knows, help me, man!) ;)
4. Eisenhower (I could flip-flop 4/5 either way, both were great, both had significant issues)
5. JFK (see above, I admire both men, poor Jack just had less time in office, sadly...) :/
6. Truman (you claim to like accountability, what better than The Buck Stops Here?)
7. Clinton (Very flawed...but we had a surplus...and I'd take him and the 1990s again...)
8. GHW Bush (a decent one-term President, beat Saddam, lost to Bill, so just below)
9. Nixon (opened relations with China, ended Vietnam...if only...well, you know...)
10. Obama (ended Iraq, rescinded Don't Ask, Don't Tell...weak so far, hopefully that'll change)
11. GW Bush (dislike his policies post-2003, but he stood strong on 9/11 and faced A LOT)
12. Johnson (Civil Rights Act, but that was finishing JFK's work, and Vietnam tanks him)
13. Carter (sorry, Putin, your hero had great intentions, but besides the Peace Accord...)
14. Ford (pardoned Nixon, made for a good joke on The Simpsons...and yeah...)
15. Hoover (yeah..."Hooverville" says it all as to how much this Hoover sucked)
16. Harding (drunk corrupt gambler who died with a miserable image left behind, perennial Bottom 10 candidate in polls with all the presidents)

Oops, I seem to have forgotten your hero, Calvin Coolidge! xD

Hmmm...I'd put him around the 6-8 range, letting you pick who gets bumped.

lol @ the idea that the misapplication of wilsonianism discredits the entire idea

look, again, the man was not perfect, but he was a pioneer. not every us president would have used the end of WWI to create the league of nations, regardless of its failures. it is not at all clear to me that liberalism would have taken hold without him

"Wilsonianism" is a bad thing, a twisted version of internationalism that was neither workable nor desirable. Look at Wilson's behavior in Mexico.

Obi has convinced me to make some amendments to the list because he made some really good cases for Dick, HW and FDR. However applying the logic that used me to bump HW and FDR up the list could be used, in my opinion, to put BO further down the list. Carter remains on the bottom of the list, and for good reason. I will also admit that W would probably be pushed down the list if we only looked at his second term, but if we looked only at his first term I would place him between Dick and Harry.
Ike
Ron
Bill
JFK
Harry
Dick
Ford
FDR
HW
Johnson
W
Hoover
BO
Carter

You're all doing it wrong.

1. FDR
2. Wilson
3. Clinton
4. Eisenhower
5. Truman
6. Kennedy
7. Coolidge
8. Reagan
9. Nixon
10. Obama
11. George H. W. Bush
12. Johnson
13. Carter
14. Ford
15. Bush
16. Harding
16. Hoover

"We all have strong opinions of them, and it would be very difficult to get a real analysis of them"

You say this as if your other analyses were bipartisan, objective, or even at all accurate.

My critiques, besides what I've already parodied (too easily, I may add). Coolidge basically took a two-term long dump and somehow comes out on top. Kennedy gets a bit glorified, IMO, but he was still a very good President who could have been great. Meanwhile, FDR revolutionizes the role of government, guides us through the biggest global conflict in history, and leaves a lasting stamp on the history of our country yet was somehow worse than a peanut farmer from Georgia whose low point in politics came during his Presidency?

I'm not even going to bother ranking these guys since there are too many on this thread already. It's not even worth mentioning that Harding and Hoover were both complete taints in terms of Presidents. I give W. credit for having to deal with the aftermath of 9/11, but Iraq ruined any good will he may have earned. Wilson need not be debated any further, ditto with Truman, both were great Presidents who will always be argued over due to the circumstances of their respective terms. Obama is a much greater President than we realize but I don't think we'll be able to appreciate it for several more decades.

@2wl: "President Obama is half African American"

why is he only half? His father was African, and his mother was American. I'd say that he's pretty much full-on African-American.

If you meant, he's half black, you should have said so. Black != African American, Just ask any black person from England or Australia.

Now you could have just said he's half African - because that's true, and that would have made your mugabe comment fit as well.

I'm just sayin.

why r ppl callin intellectual diarrhea "analysis"

All of your lists suck. Obi's and ghug's somewhat less than the rest. See the best version below.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Ronald Reagan
Bill Clinton
John F. Kennedy
Harry S Truman
Woodrow Wilson
George Bush
Lyndon B. Johnson
Calvin Coolidge
Gerald Ford
Herbert Hoover
George W. Bush
Warren G. Harding
Jimmy Carter
Richard Nixon



I left Obama out because don't think I can paint a real picture yet. He's definitely above HW - definitely below Clinton.

I think I overrated Bill and underrated Wilson though, after checking the below link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States

Scroll to the bottom of this page... if I had time I'd compile our scoring and see who did best compared to the aggregate. Maybe one of you enterprising lads would like to do the same - just penalize a point for every rank away from "truth" for each president scored.

YJ, Obi, I don't see why you all think so highly of Reagan. From a liberal (i.e. mine and yours) prospective, he's really not that great. Care to explain? (Conservatives, I already know your reasons, no need to answer)

I haven't looked at most of your lists. But here is mine.

Reagan
Truman
Eisenhower
GHW Bush
Kennedy
Clinton
GW Bush
Wilson
Roosevelt
Johnson
Carter
Hoover
Ford
Nixon
Harding

youre confusing wilsonianism with the presidency of woodrow wilson

wilsonianism was founded by and references the ideas of woodrow wilson but goes far beyond the man

This is the aggregate "truth."

1- FDR
2 - Wilson
3 - Truman
4 - Eisenhower
5 -Kennedy
6- LBJ
7 - Barack Obama
8 - Ronald Reagan
9 - Bill Clinton
10 - GHW Bush
11 - Ford
12 - Carter
13 - Hoover
14 - Coolidge
15 - Nixon
16 - GW Bush
17 - Harding



YJ score:

5 ww
3 tr
2 ike
5 lbj
5 rr
1 bo
5 bc
1 hw
1 ford
4 jc
3 cc
2 rn
2 gw
2 hard



So YJ scored 41 (I put Obama at spot #9 retrospectively), I did well with who was crappy.

You want to score FEWER, can you top YJ?

Correction, YJ scored 36 (can't count apparently)

ghug, honestly, I think it was listening to Hannity for so long. It was just for laughs but he must have rubbed off on me :P

double correction, it was 41, it's late and I'm retarded.

triple correction, I got 40 (penalized one too many for LBJ), one should not try to do this quickly :P

Can anybody rise to the challenge?

How did you calculate those Aggs? I can guarentee that either RR or DE wins on aggregate because everyone has rated them in the top 3. Meanwhile some of us rated RR near the bottom.

correction, Ghug is the only one that didn't.

aggregates were taken as the mean of 17 independent polls (see link provided, look for the color coded table), and you've been watching too much fox news if you think "everybody" ranks RR and DE in the top 3.

Just glancing, I think ghug kicked my ass.

"Meanwhile some of us rated RR near the bottom."
Rated FDR

Yeah, but popular oppinion isn't right oppinion, liberals point to the fact that we reelected Bush as proof of that.