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Historians Rank Obama 12th Best President

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R

Rainy

Banned
Historians have ranked Barack Obama the 12th best president of all time, the highest rated since President Ronald Reagan, in a new C-SPAN survey released Friday.

Less than a month after exiting the White House, Obama received high marks from presidential historians for his pursuit of "equal justice for all" and for his commanding "moral authority," ranking third and seventh among all former presidents in each respective category. The 44th president also cracked a top 10 ranking for his "economic management" and public persuasion.

The former president's tenure earned its lowest marks for the relationship between the presidency and Congress, with bitter partisanship often stagnating the effectiveness between the two and Obama seeing his Democratic majority slip in both the House of Representatives and the Senate during his eight years in office.

Historians, however, remained mixed on whether Obama's standing so soon after leaving office was higher or lower than expected.

"Although 12th is a respectable overall ranking, one would have thought that former President Obama’s favorable rating when he left office would have translated into a higher ranking in this presidential survey," said Edna Greene Medford, a Howard University professor and member of C-SPAN's historical advisory board.

Others, though, felt the former president's performance fresh out of office was remarkable.

"That Obama came in at number 12 his first time out is quite impressive," Douglas Brinkley, a Rice University professor and C-SPAN adviser, said in a press release.

The final verdict on Obama's legacy may still take time to truly assess, though, as historical views are admittedly likely to season as time passes.
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Source

Full List
1. Abraham Lincoln
2. George Washington
3. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
4. Teddy Roosevelt
5. Dwight Eisenhower
6. Harry Truman
7. Thomas Jefferson
8. John F. Kennedy
9. Ronald Reagan
10. Lyndon Johnson
11. Woodrow Wilson
12. Barack Obama
13. James Monroe
14. James Polk
15. Bill Clinton
16. William McKinley
17. James Madison
18. Andrew Jackson
19. John Adams
20. George H.W. Bush
21. John Q. Adams
22. Ulysses Grant
23. Grover Cleveland
24. William Taft
25. Gerald Ford
26. Jimmy Carter
27. Calvin Coolidge
28. Richard Nixon
29. James Garfield
30. Benjamin Harrison
31. Zachary Taylor
32. Rutherford Hayes
33. George W. Bush
34. Martin Van Buren
35. Chester Arthur
36. Herbert Hoover
37. Millard Fillmore
38. William Harrison
39. John Tyler
40. Warren Harding
41. Franklin Pierce
42. Andrew Johnson
43. James Buchanan
 
G

guek

Banned
My bigger question is why would Reagan be so high on the list?

I suppose the disastrous effects of his policies weren't truly felt until years after he left office.
 
T

The Albatross

Member
I think that's fair. I've always felt like people who think Obama is in any top 5 list is just completely partisan and detatched from history. Glad Lincoln is #1.

I think that Kennedy is too high, though. Kennedy was a popular man at the time and is remembered well by Catholic (or former Catholic) Republican and Democrats, but his actual contributions to the country are either negative or poor. He started the Vietnam War, certainly the worst military involvement in American history, nearly brought the world to the brink of Nuclear disaster, and for some reason, he gets the credit for LBJ's social rights reform. LBJ is often the president that gets saddled with the Vietnam quagmire, and yet, Kennedy gets credit for LBJ's social justice. I think it's revisionist and seeking to justify America's obsession with the Kennedy chamelot.

For the questions about Trump.. Despite that this has been a historically terrible first 3 weeks, he's certainly not worse than Andrew Johnson and James Buchanan, who directly led the country to civil war.
 
B

brianmcdoogle

Member
Truman, Reagan, Wilson, and Johnson will probably always be too high for me. Bush below Nixon... I'm not sure. Probably, but, it's hard to see so close to history. I'm kind of surprised to see Polk fall as low has he has in recent years, since, unless I'm misremembering, he's considered usually higher.

wtf, Ford and Carter should not be next to each other and not in the middle. What a strange list.
 
S

SolarPowered

Member
Laughing at Obama being below Reagan. Can't take that seriously.
FZZ said:
Man then we've had some awful presidents

Obama was kinda mediocre
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Today's mediocre can be miles ahead of 18th and 19th century presidents.
Hasphat'sAnts said:
lmao.

love barry, but history will not be kind to his legacy.
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Republicans won't be kind to it. The harshest criticism history will have of him will probably be his naivety. The man tried way too hard to appease people who hated every fiber of his being. Otherwise he did the best job someone could do under his circumstances.
 
P

Permanently A

Junior Member
Under Ronald "we did not sell arms for hostages" Reagan, Lyndon "look at my dick" Johnson, and Woodrow fucking Wilson?

Seriously?
 
V

VendettaRed07

Member
No way should Reagan be higher than HW Bush. Don't care if he was only one term. He paid the price for his bad economic policies.

JFK way too high.

Other than that it's probably an ok list
 
A

Angelus Errare

Banned
How the fuck is Reagan above Obama when one of the categories is "justice for all"? Unless the fine print for "justice for all" was "only applies to white people"
 
M

MartyStu

Member
Reagan and JFK are both laughably high.

Real talk: Had the USSR not died when it did or had JFK not been assassinated, neither would be ranked that high.
 
T

TheWasTheJoke

Member
This list seems to be judged entirely on 'optics', there's no way Reagan and JFK would have been so high otherwise. I can't take it seriously
 
R

rjinaz

Member
Trump really thinks Obama was the worse. I hope he sees this list, ought to piss him off nicely. Though I'm sure in his mind he'll be #1 not realizing how infamous he'll end up being.

I think #12 is a good ranking. I suspect it will go up to number #10 eventually with the eventual consideration of the partisan climate he had to deal with that led to the Trump administration.
 
R

Rockin' Ranger

Member
Volimar said:
How did Reagan get so high?
Click to expand...

3xdLLzL.jpg
 
T

The Albatross

Member
Plywood said:
Reagan and Lyndon as 9 and 10?
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Most of the social programs we have today were started by Lyndon Johnson. He was also a master of working congress, and one of the only Democrats in 50 years to not sacrifice congress for his social program. He passed an aggressively liberal social agenda without losing congress, something no Democrat has done since World War II. Further, he inherited (though made worse) Kennedy's Vietnam mess.

And while I'm a liberal, Reagan deserves credit. Most liberals are unwilling to recognize the state of the US in 1979 versus the state of the US in 1988, and most of that has to do with Ronald Reagan. I feel like the liberal antagonism against Reagan, today, is similar to the Republican antagoism against Obama. Liberals will hold onto a few inconsequential issues and completely miss the bigger picture, for the sole sake of lambasting their opponent.
 
I

Iksenpets

Banned
I don't think Trump can take down Buchanan for worst, but I'd say he's got 50/50 odds to take down Johnson for second worst

Also JFK's high ranking is really weird
 
T

The Albatross

Member
leroidys said:
JFK at 8 seems weird. I feel like I'm on gaming side.
Click to expand...

Aye. JFK at 8 is fanboyism. He accomplished very little, and many of the achievements that are somehow tied to him were made possible by other presidents. For some reason, Kennedy gets credit for the civil rights act, a bill that would have never passed without Lyndon Johnson and landing a man on the moon, something that happened more than half a decade after his assassination and while Nixon was president.
 
E

Extra Sauce

Member
W cracking the Top 20... what sort of fuckery is this?

edit: I'm an idiot. Thought I was looking at George W Bush at the 20th position.
 
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