And the best president is (was)...
My favorite is fellow Missourian Harry S. Truman, naturally.
I admire Truman, and not just because he was from Missouri. Yes, he rode into his first political office perched on a political machine, and he unleashed a horrible bomb, but he showed leadership and — much like another favorite of mine, Pres. Jimmy Carter — his popularity only increased after he left office. Why? Because both men were forward-looking enough to make decisions based on what they thought was right, rather than what was popular.
CBS News recently published a poll of worst-to-best presidents, and Truman ranked 9th (while Carter ranked 26th). The poll was a
sweeping survey of historians, political scientists and presidential scholars maintained by the Siena College Research Institute. Since 1982, the SCRI Survey of U.S. Presidents has been conducted during the second year of the first term of a new president, ranking presidents across 20 different categories, ranging from integrity to ability to compromise.Â
No. 1 was George Washington, No. 2 FDR, and No. 3, Abraham Lincoln — no big surprises there, but I spent an evening this weekend arguing with the rest of the results, including Barack Obama’s rank as Nov. 17 (too low), Teddy Roosevelt’s rank of No. 4 (too high) and TFG’s rank as No. 42 (way, way, way too high).
Reagan seeded the ground for the current day white supremacy movement with his Neshoba County Fair state’s rights speech, back when republicans thought they could control the racist Kraken until Trump came along and cut the leash. The two of them can take turns at the bottom of the list.
It would be interesting to see the 20 category scoresheets.
"TFG": ha, ha, ha! They also put TOFG: Reagan way too high. Although unlucky 13 does have a certain swing to it.