Academic poll ranks George Bush as one of the worst presidents in US history. But was he really as bad as all that?

It's time for another one of those pseudo-serious polls rating the US presidents. This one, from Siena College's research institute, asked 238 presidential scholars to rank the 43 presidents [pdf], and judged that George Bush was among the worst of all time.

According to the survey:

Today, just one year after leaving office, the former president has found himself in the bottom five at 39th rated especially poorly in handling the economy, communication, ability to compromise, foreign policy accomplishments and intelligence. Rounding out the bottom five are four presidents that have held that dubious distinction each time the survey has been conducted: Andrew Johnson, James Buchanan, Warren G Harding, and Franklin Pierce.

To no one's surprise, FDR was ranked as the number one best president, followed by Teddy Roosevelt at number two (he's on the rise, it seems) and Abraham Lincoln and George Washington at three and four.

Let's admit straight away that these sorts of polls, while fun, are silly and pointless, and that no real comparison can be made by politicians of different eras.

With that out of the way, let me say that George Bush does not deserve this calumny – although he does deserve some criticism, as most US presidents do. But this just isn't fair or reasonable.



For example, Richard Nixon is ranked 30th, while Bush junior is 39th. Now it seems plain to me at least that by resigning in disgrace, ahead of certain impeachment, as well as his foreign policy in Laos and Cambodia, Nixon should sit below GWB in any ranking. Both men had fairly disastrous economic policies, but Nixon's did far more damage to America, although I'd be open to arguments on that.

The absurdity of these sorts of polls is highlighted by the position of William Henry Harrison, who I have sometimes argued should be counted as the worst US president of all time. If you haven't heard of Harrison, that's because he took office on 4 March 1841 and left it on 4 April 1841. He died of pneumonia and pleurisy, and may have been weakened by insisting on reading the longest presidential inauguration address in history, standing for several hours outdoors in the freezing Washington winter but refusing to wear a coat or hat to reinforce his macho image as a warrior.

So there's real stupidity for you: all he had to do was wear a coat and he couldn't even manage that.

Worse, Harrison's death caused his vice president, John Tyler, to move into the White House, and Tyler was a fool of world-class proportions, one of the string of idiots who held the presidency in the awful years leading up to the Civil War. (Tyler later joined the Confederate government after the war began, so that tells you where he was coming from.) Notably, the others of that era – Filmore, Pierce, Buchanan and Andrew Johnson – are rightly down at the bottom of the pile in these ratings.

While we're on the subject, it's an amazement that Lincoln isn't the automatic number one choice in lists such as this, since he faced challenges like no other president, including FDR. Teddy Roosevelt in second place? Good grief. And what exactly did Bill Clinton do to justify being as high as 13th? And Grant as low as 26th? Bah.

The thing about these lists, once they get you hooked... anyway, here's the full list (and you can see the full rankings here [pdf]:

F. Roosevelt 1

T. Roosevelt 2

Lincoln 3

Washington 4

Jefferson 5

Madison 6

Monroe 7

Wilson 8

Truman 9

Eisenhower 10

Kennedy 11

Polk 12

Clinton 13

Jackson 14

Obama 15

L.B. Johnson 16

J. Adams 17

Reagan 18

J.Q. Adams 19

Cleveland 20

McKinley 21

G.H. Bush 22

Van Buren 23

Taft 24

Arthur 25

Grant 26

Garfield 27

Ford 28

Coolidge 29

Nixon 30

Hayes 31

Carter 32

Taylor 33

B. Harrison 34

W.H. Harrison 35

Hoover 36

Tyler 37

Fillmore 38

G.W. Bush 39

Pierce 40

Harding 41

Buchanan 42

A. Johnson 43

[Geek note: There have been 44 presidencies, but only 43 presidents are ranked here. Why? Grover Cleveland was the 22nd and 24th presidents, since his two non-consecutive terms were interrupted by losing the 1892 election to Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd president. No, it doesn't really make sense but that's how they do it.]