Grading the Presidents

After President Obama's first 100 days, pundits were already grading his performance and trying to predict his place in history. All of this strikes me as a bit premature, but it got me thinking about how we measure the presidents. CSPAN recently conducted a survey of 65 presidential historians asking them to rank the presidents. In an effort to make it look scientific, they came up with ten categories such as crisis leadership, moral authority and pursuing equal justice for all. While this approach produces a numerical rank which can be used to state that George W. Bush ranked 27 points below Herbert Hoover, I think that it creates an illusion of precision where none exists. For example, one category is relations with Congress. If a president was blessed with a boneheaded Congress, does that mean that the president gets a low score? Then there's "performance within context of times." What does that mean? Also, how do you compare JFK's 2 1/2 years in office to Ike's eight year term? If a president served just one day, but that was a pretty good one, do you give him the same points as someone who served out a full term?

Instead, I would propose a four category approach which looks at the big picture. What major accomplishments did the president achieve? What obstacles did he overcome? What blunders did he make?

The Great Presidents

A great president is one whose accomplishments permanently changed America for the better or who overcame a crisis which threatened to destroy it. A sub-category of great, would be the good presidents, those who accomplished something noteworthy even if it did not permanently change the country.

Some of the great presidents were (in no particular order):

George Washington. By becoming the first president instead of the first king, he laid the foundation for democracy in this country.

Thomas Jefferson. The Louisiana Purchase made it possible for the United States to become a continental power rather than a few struggling states hemmed in by European outposts.

Abraham Lincoln. Had the courage to fight to keep the nation together.

Frankin Delano Roosevelt. While it can be debated whether his policies helped or hindered the Great Depression, he clearly mobilized and motivated the nation for World War II. Without decisive action by FDR, democracy could have become an endangered species.

The Terrible Presidents

The terrible presidents are those whose blunders permanently damaged the country or who failed to act when action was necessary to save the country. You could argue that this category should be relatively empty since nothing has happened in our relatively short history to permanently mar the nation. As a result, it is necessary to go to the lower level of bad presidents, those whose blunders could have led to permanent damage or whose failure to step up could have led to disaster if someone greater hadn't followed them.

The bad presidents include (in no particular order):

James Buchanan. Although he was a northerner, he championed the rights of slaveowners to move into the Western territories. When the election of Abraham Lincoln prompted southern states to secede, he stated that secession was illegal, but that it was also illegal for the United States to prevent secession. He stood by idly while federal garrison were seized by the Confederates. The Civil War might have been inevitable. However, by failing to act, he laid a bigger burden at the feet of his successor Abraham Lincoln.

Andrew Johnson. He tried to follow Lincoln's path for reuniting the country but screwed it up. While he sought to accelerate the return of the Southern states into the union, he was willing to tolerate the Black Codes which laid the foundation for segregation and denial of civil rights. His mishandling of a delicate situation paved the way for the Radical Republicans to impose military discipline upon the South, which caused the South to become more reactionary when it regained control over its territory. The next century was one when former slaves in the South were free in name but not in right.

Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter was a simple man who promised to bring an outsider's innocence to clean up Washington. However, he was woefully unprepared for the job. He talked about malaise while inflation and unemployment skyrocketed. He watched helplessly as Iranian revolutionaries took over our embassy and then botched the rescue mission.


The Insignificant

There should be a third category for presidents who occupied their post without leaving the country any better or worse off than when they took the oath of office. The obvious contenders for this designation are the presidents who died shortly after taking office. What else can you do with William Henry Harrison, who served for just one month? Zachary Taylor who served just 16 months falls into this category as well. I would also tend to place Rutherford B. Hayes, Chester A. Arthur and William Howard Taft into this category because I am not really sure what they did. George H.W. Bush and William Jefferson Clinton will probably fall into this group as well, although it will take history a while to make its judgment.

The Tragic

Finally, there should be a fourth category for presidents who would have been great were it not for a failure which clouded their legacy. There are two obvious presidents who fall within this category.

Lyndon B. Johnson. It took a Southerner pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964. President Johnson presided over what was arguably the second Civil War, laying the legal foundation for civil rights and enforcing it with federal might. Lyndon B. Johnson accomplished what the first President Johnson failed miserably at. Unfortunately, his legacy was clouded by Vietnam. While he inherited this mess from JFK, his policy of throwing hundreds of thousands of troops into a jungle to try to achieve a stalemate turned the nation against him.

Richard Nixon. Richard Nixon changed the landscape of the Cold War era. He ended the Vietnam War (although it took him four years to do so), established relations with China and negotiated detente with the Soviet Union. By reducing the tensions of the Cold War, he ensured that there was not a sequel to the Korean War and Vietnam as well as reducing the risk of nuclear annihilation. While Nixon had his faults, he would have been remembered as a great president except for one thing: Watergate.

Honorable Mention

Unfortunately, my system of four categories doesn't adequately account for one president who deserves recognition. As the nation's first unelected president, Gerald Ford was doomed to fail. Following Richard Nixon and a constitutional crisis made it nearly inevitable that he would be a one-term president. However, this decent man took one for the team. He showed up and he held things together, which is what history demands from a transitional leader. While he would otherwise fall into the category of insignificant presidents, not making things worse during a time of profound crisis is an achievement worth recognizing.