Who is overrated in the Siena College survey of presidents?
There are a few ways of going about this. I'll start with an easy one: who rates significantly higher in the Siena study than in other, more or less similar, surveys of experts?
Start right at the top. Well, almost at the top: #2, Teddy Roosevelt. Sienna moves him from #3 to #2 this year, but every other recent survey has him 4th or 5th. Siena loves the last two Virginians, Madison (#6) and Monroe(#7); the 2009 C-SPAN survey was much more typical, placing Monroe at 14th and Madison 20th. I don't know why they do better in Siena, but for Madison especially that's consistent going back to the original Siena survey in 1982, when he ranked 9th. Moving down the list, Bill Clinton is at 13, which is a bit higher than he's placed in other such studies.
What do I think? I don't really get TR worship; successful president, yes, but top three material? I don't see it at all, although again I have more knowledge of Wilson on to the present than I do of TR. Top ten, fine, I think, but he's not close to the top three. I think there's a strong case for Madison, as the president who first had to deal with how to fight a war in a democracy -- and I think he acquitted himself reasonably well, if you take the fact of the war as a given. I'll go along with Monroe being overrated at #7.
The big overrating, however, is easy: John F. Kennedy, ranked 11th. I keep thinking that the Kennedy mystique will start to fade, but here we are fifty years down the road and there's no sign of Camelot's pull getting any weaker. Just to pick one thing...respondents rank Kennedy #6 at "executive appointments." Uh, McNamara? Bundy? Really? Nor was the Kennedy White House particularly distinguished, except for their loyalty to the president; I think there were some able people, but they hardly stand out from other presidents (well, except I suppose for Nixon) in the era of the Presidential Branch. I can imagine average, or even above average, but close to the top? No way. Calling his relationship with Congress well above average (#13) seems odd to me, too; Kennedy is much better known for failing to get things through Congress than he is for passing legislation. And given how short his presidency was, a 16th in "avoiding crucial mistakes" seems awfully generous, given the Bay of Pigs -- and that would be without taking a Kennedy-friendly view on Vietnam. I don't think Kennedy was a failed president at all, and one you get past the top few the bar gets surprisingly low surprisingly quickly, but a #11 for Kennedy seems far too high.
The other president who I think is seriously overrated here is Richard Nixon, at #30. Looking at the individual ratings, respondents place him higher than I would almost across the board. Nixon is mid-pack as a communicator (#26)? I don't see it -- I know that the (pre-presidential, of course) Checkers speech was a massive hit, but as president I think he must have been worse, unless you're just giving all the TV-era guys a break. 20th in party leadership? I'll spot you Tyler, but outside of that, Nixon has to be competitive for the bottom spot -- easily the worst, I'd say, in the 20th century. Relationship with Congress? They give him a very low 36th, but I think that's several spots too high. Similarly, are there really six presidents with worse executive appointments than Nixon? Granted, there are some solid choices, especially for those who like Kissinger, but Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Colson, Dean, Mitchell, Kleindienst, Stans, Gray, Spiro T. Agnew...that's quite a list. And the idea that Richard Nixon is the 11th greatest president in foreign policy accomplishments strikes me as missing the elephant in the room (that would be Vietnam), and at the same time overplaying Nixon's accomplishments. I'm not sure that Nixon is really a bottom five president, but I'm not sure he isn't, and I think he's easily a bottom ten president.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
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Lincoln is clearly overrated -- or rather, his failures aren't weighted as heavily as they should be. Even if we grant, for argument's sake, that had no choice but to fight the Civil War at a cost of over 600,000 lives and immense collateral damage, still: What was he doing (a) making Andrew Johnson vice-president, and then (b) going out to a theater without adequate protection and getting himself killed? I mean, he had to know how important continuity of policy was at that moment, and he also knew his life was under threat. Was catching the late show of "Our American Cousin" really THAT freakin' important? Granted, Lincoln paid for this mistake with his own life, which I guess is why it isn't routinely put down to his discredit. But it was hugely irresponsible and wound up harming the country pretty badly.
ReplyDeleteLincoln is clearly overrated -- or rather, his failures aren't weighted as heavily as they should be. Even if we grant, for argument's sake, that had no choice but to fight the Civil War at a cost of over 600,000 lives and immense collateral damage, still: What was he doing (a) making Andrew Johnson vice-president, and then (b) going out to a theater without adequate protection and getting himself killed? I mean, he had to know how important continuity of policy was at that moment, and he also knew his life was under threat. Was catching the late show of "Our American Cousin" really THAT freakin' important? Granted, Lincoln paid for this mistake with his own life, which I guess is why it isn't routinely put down to his discredit. But it was hugely irresponsible and wound up harming the country pretty badly.
ReplyDeleteNixon had the one thing, China, going for him, and then after GWB the Nixon Administration were a passel of pikers. A mere burglary and coverup? pshaw! Compare that to the rampant criminality in the Reagan Administration -- not only Iran Contra, which was bad enough to rate Reagan down there in the bottom 10, lower than Nixon, but then people conveniently forget about the other rampant crimes, and lets not forget the S&L debacle either. As for integrity and appointments, I recommend "Reagan's Ruling Class." Yes, yes, he had an easy grin, and the press loved him. That *does* count for something.
ReplyDeleteSo I'm good with Lincoln, but Reagan is the most seriously overrated president, in my book. Perhaps someday there will be a reality check, but probably not any time soon.
I think it's too easy in hindsight to blame Nixon (et al) for expecting Viet Nam to end in US victory eventually. Korea was a success, the military was largely successful in its battles in 'Nam, and the North Vietnamese were just so obviously over-matched that even a rampant paranoiac like Tricky Dick didn't expect them to put up much resistance. Sure, a wiser or less cynical President would have ended the war earlier, but would it really be so much earlier that that should disqualify Nixon from the top quartile in foreign policy accomplishments?
ReplyDeleteJefferson has to rate as the most overrated president in US history and may stand as such until the end of the Republic. He is given far too much credit as things he did outside of his presidency are inseparable, to these historians, to what he actually did as president. Aside from the Louisiana Purchase, is there much there there? And like most presidents, his second term lurched toward disaster, and the Embargo Act was one of the worst presidential-stamped pieces of legislation of the era. He also paved the way for James Madison, a brilliant legislator and shrewd tactician who never should have been president. Madison's War of 1812 leadership left a lot to be desired, even if Jefferson's policies had likely made that war inevitable. Jefferson also waged a not-so private war on the judiciary and considered measures that even FDR in 1937 would have found extreme.
ReplyDeleteOne category that never seems to come up in these presidential rating scores is that of per day. Specifically, we tend to award major status to most presidents who served the better part of eight years, but is that truly fair to others? For example, W. H. Harrison is usually lampooned for his infamous inaugural address, but shouldn't it matter, at least somewhat, that Daniel Webster was his Secretary of State? And liberals were not going to do better than that for 1841. In that sense, Harrison's death was very unfortunate. Same, possibly, for the talented Garfield in 1881.
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ReplyDeleteI think there's a strong case for Madison, as the president who first had to deal with how to fight a war in a democracy -- and I think he acquitted himself reasonably well, if you take the fact of the war as a given.
ReplyDeleteThat's a big if, seeing as how the war was a major miscalculation by Madison with regards to possible UK response.
The big overrating, however, is easy: John F. Kennedy, ranked 11th. I keep thinking that the Kennedy mystique will start to fade, but here we are fifty years down the road and there's no sign of Camelot's pull getting any weaker.
He symbolizes idealism to a whole bunch of democratic boomers, and he died before they could sour on him. Plus, the Kennedys are massive self-promoters.
Just to pick one thing...respondents rank Kennedy #6 at "executive appointments." Uh, McNamara? Bundy? Really?
I agree. His Defense appointments, in particular, were incredibly awful - McNamara was probably the worst Secretary of Defense in the twentieth century.
a 16th in "avoiding crucial mistakes" seems awfully generous,
It is. Aside from Bay of Pigs, there's his policies on Vietnam, the fact that the whole Cuban Missile Crisis occurred because he botched his first meeting with Kruschev (who left thinking he was weak and foolish) - the list goes on.
And the idea that Richard Nixon is the 11th greatest president in foreign policy accomplishments strikes me as missing the elephant in the room (that would be Vietnam)
It's not. Nixon did very well when you consider the absolutely shitty position that Johnson left him in with Vietnam. We fault him for the Linebacker bombing runs, but they actually brought North Vietnam to the table when they were still trying to recover from the Tet Offensive debacle.
That's impressive when you consider that the North Vietnamese govt. had refused to even begin negotiating with the US without a complete withdrawal of US forces first during Johnson's Presidency. It also gave Nixon space to begin the withdrawal of US forces, which was more or less imperative with the complete collapse of public support for the War back home.
South Vietnam still fell in 1975, but that's actually Congress's fault. They cut off all supplies and aid to the South Vietnamese govt in spite of Ford's efforts otherwise.
Even if we grant, for argument's sake, that had no choice but to fight the Civil War at a cost of over 600,000 lives and immense collateral damage,
He didn't have a choice, since the southern stats had begun seceding even before his inauguration. Aside from putting down the rebellion, it was either let them get away, or bring them back with an awful compromise that would have enshrined slavery among other things right into the Constitution forever.
I have to figure that Adams, Jefferson, and Madison are all getting "overrated" because of their rather important contributions to the existence of a presidency at all. I'm not sure if that's fair, but you have to expect it to exist in a poll like this.
ReplyDeleteJames,
ReplyDeleteYou severely underestimate how serious a crime Watergate was.
Anon 9:58 and Wise Bass,
I think the best I most generous I'd be willing to go is to say that (1) it's understandable that JFK and LBJ believed there would be political danger in losing Vietnam, and to a lesser extent that there would be negative foreign policy ramifications, and (2) it's somewhat understandable that for a while, up through, oh, sometime in 1967, that LBJ could have believed that just a little more time and effort would yield a real victory. Understandable, but still basically wrong, and they should have known it was wrong, and should have known that the costs were far higher than the benefits. Nixon is even more awful, in a way, because he never believed that the war was winnable, and because had he pulled out quickly there's no reason to believe that he would have paid a political price back home.