Presidential Sweepstakes

After going on about presidents the other night, I discovered today that last week's U.S. News & World Report had a cover package on the ten worst presidents. They've taken the average of five recent polls to come up with more of a consensus. A few of the choices were among those guys we talked about. James Buchanan, who sat on his hands while seven states decided they didn't want to be states anymore rules the roost at number 1. The others on this list that we mentioned are Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce, Millard Fillmore, John Tyler, Ulysses S. Grant, William Henry Harrison, and Zachary Taylor.

(Taylor shouldn't really be on this list, because he pushes the list up to 11 places. U.S. News lists a tie for ninth place, so instead of saying those two presidents--Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon--count as nine and ten, they say that they share the ninth position, leaving room for a tenth. They also have a tie for 13th place, so that means that if they ranked all the presidents from 1 to 42, they'd only get to 40. Of course, that's offset somewhat by the fact that Grover Cleveland would appear twice. We've had 43 presidents, but only 42 men have ever held that office. Since Cleveland gets counted twice, I suppose that if he'd had a horrible first term but a rocking second term, he could be in the bottom 10 and a top 10.)

One prominent name that might make such a list but doesn't make this one is George W. Bush. It's probably fair not to include a sitting president, because who knows, maybe he can pull some sort of miracle out of his sleeve and become one of the best presidents. Not likely, I agree. But we can't say it couldn't happen.

U.S. News has its own little mini site for the series. It comes with links to each of the presidents that has a blurb explaining why they made the list. The main quibble I have with the list is their placing of William Henry Harrison at number 8. Not to come to his defense or anything, but, come on, he was only president for a month. He didn't have time to be a good president or a bad president. Maybe that's why they've counted Taylor in the Top 10--they know the choice of Harrison is bogus.

It's too late and I need to go to bed, but I'll leave you with one quote from the explanatory blurb about Buchanan. He didn't believe he had the Constitutional power to keep states in the Union against their will, so he did nothing but watch as they left. "To his dying day, he felt that history would treat him favorably for having performed his constitutional duty. He was wrong."

That doesn't sound familiar, does it?