. "If there is a common denominator in presidential assessments," argues Princeton's Greenstein, "it is a bias toward activism, unless the activism is viewed as misplaced, as in the instances of Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam and Nixon and Watergate."


the following is US NEWS list of ten worst presidents

10.Zachary Taylor (too forgettable)
9. Herbert Hoover (a poor communicator who fueled trade wars and exacerbated the Depression)
9(tie). Richard Nixon (the Watergate Scandal)
8. William Harrison (President for only thirty days)
7. Ulysses S. Grant (presided over an outbreak of graft and corruption)
6.Jon Tyler (defended slavery and abandoned his political platform)
5.Millard Fillmore(1850 compromise, allowed slavery to spread)
4.Franklin Pierce(expanded the borders, added slave states)
3.Andrew Johnson (opposed 14th amendment)
2.Warren G. Harding (played poker while treasurey was plundered)
1.James Buchanan (refused to challenge either the spread of slavery or the growing bloc of states that became the Confederacy)


Ok, that being posted(merely because I find it interesting). I will qualify my position in not putting an abundance of stock in peoples opinions(i.e polls) but I think historians probably have a differing standard of presidential greatness that is determined more on the LONG TERM affect than any current popular issues,,,,thus the absence of Bush from the list.

How surprising ... NOWHERE in the list do we see FDR, LBj, or ... (wait for it) ... 'The ONE' ... 'US News' (the Mort Zuckerman rag) is, btw, a Leftist rag, so this is no surprise ...

Harrison is actually my favorite-he died before he could do any significant damage!

my point exactly,,, as entertaining as the topic is,, it comes down to everyone having an OPINION. but nothing that can be tangibly agreed upon.

No reason for Obama to be there,, yet

as far as other publishings,,,here is a comparison

C-Span rankings(from worst of the worst to best of the worst)
Buchanan, Johnson, Pierce,Harding, Harrison, Tyler , Filmore,Hoover, Grant and Arthur

Wall Street Journal Rankings (from worst of worst to best of worst)
Buchanan, Harding, Pierce, Johnson, Filmore, Tyler, Carter, Taylor,Nixon, and Hoover

The Sienna Poll of 2002 (from worst of worst to best of worst)
Johnson, Buchanan, Harding, Pierce, Filmore, Tyler, Harrison, Grant, Taylor, and Garfield

Mmm-hmm ... all subjective, all agenda-driven ... if they were the least objective, THIS 'president' would be in there if for no other reason than his failed '14 Points' and 'League Of Nations' which leads directly to today's 'world-class' oxymoron, the 'United Nations' ... with that, I present Woodrow Wilson:

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1918wilson.html

'The ONE' will need to be added after we defeat the Communist Insurrection currently in power ...

talk of fascism is rarely from an 'objective'point of view.

in any case,,,,of 500 'promises' listed at politifact.com

he has broken 16, and although we would hope a president could keep EVERY SINGLE 'promise' , this still leaves him with a potential for 484/500, which is a pretty solid A by any standard. His true impact, though, wont be known until he is able to complete the full TERM he was elected to. There was no condition on any president to accomplish everything within their first year.

I vote for FDR as the best president this country ever had . congress may of perverted some of the things he acieved but even though HE WAS THE BEST ..

How could any list of the worst presidents not include Martin Van Buren? After all, he was a one-termer widely known as "Martin Van Ruin."

Van Buren sucked so bad, he got rolled by the Whigs.

Told you that Harding was terrible.