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David N. Mayer

Rating the U.S. Presidents – 2009

Another annual tradition on MayerBlog is my mid-February “Presidents Day” essay discussing my rating of the U.S. presidents.  As I explained in my original post (“Rating the U.S. Presidents,” February 13, 2004), my rating system differs from others in deemphasizing “leadership” per se and instead emphasizing fidelity to the Constitution.  I do use the same six categories as other rating systems – “Great,” “Near-Great,” “Above-Average,” “Average,” “Below-Average,” and “Failures” – and then (with some exceptions) arrange the presidents chronologically within each category.  I revised the ratings slightly in 2005 and 2006, as follows:

• “Great” presidents:  Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln

• “Near-Great” presidents:  Madison, Monroe, Cleveland

• “Above-Average” presidents:  Jackson, Van Buren, Polk, Coolidge, Reagan

• “Average” presidents:  Adams (both), Harrison (both), Garfield, Arthur, Fillmore, Hayes, Pierce, Taylor, Tyler, Taft, Harding, Kennedy, Ford

• “Below-Average” presidents:  Buchanan, A. Johnson, Grant, Eisenhower, McKinley, Hoover, Truman, Carter, Bush (both)

• “Failures”:  Roosevelt (both), Wilson, L. Johnson, Nixon, Clinton

(For an explanation of each category, see “Rating the U.S. Presidents III” (Feb. 15, 2006), and for easier access to my individual summaries of each president, see “Rating the U.S. Presidents (Reprise) (Feb. 7, 2007).) 

As I’ve previously noted, my “Rating the U.S. Presidents” essays are also perhaps the most controversial pieces I post on this site.  Everyone seems to have an opinion about the best – and the worst – presidents in American history, and many people (including some libertarian friends who generally see eye-to-eye with me on most political matters) are not shy about e-mailing me to express their disagreement with my ratings.  In my 2006 essay, I defended my rating of Lincoln as “great,” in answer to some modern libertarian critics of Lincoln (see “Rating the U.S. Presidents III” (Feb. 15, 2006), discussing “Abraham Lincoln: Why He’s Great”), a topic on which I elaborated somewhat in my last entry, in honor of this year’s bicentennial of Lincoln’s birthday.  And last year, although I left my ratings still unchanged, I focused on the U.S. president whom I’ve put at the bottom of the list of “Failures,” the one I consider the worst U.S. president ever, Bill Clinton.  So many people of various political stripes (left-liberal, conservative, libertarian, etc.), both defenders and detractors of Clinton, disagreed with my rating that I felt it necessary to explain the reasons why I regard “Slick Willie” as the worst president – reasons I continue to give in justifying my conclusion that he’ll remain the worst president, ever.  See “The Worst U.S. President” (Feb. 15, 2008). 

This year, I’m making one important change to the ratings.  Although in past years I defended my rating of the former president, George W. Bush (or “Bush the Younger,” as I refer to the 43^rd President) as merely “below average” – again see “Rating the U.S. Presidents III” (Feb. 15, 2006), discussing “George W. Bush: A Great Disappointment, But Not a Failure” – I’ve decided, now that his two terms in office have passed, to downgrade his rating, to “failure,” for the reasons discussed below. 

            I also include a review of the recently-published book, Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty, by Ivan Eland (Oakland, California: The Independent Institute, 2009).   

You’ll notice that I have not included the new president, B.O., who was just inaugurated as few weeks ago, for the obvious reason that it’s too soon to fairly assess his presidency.  (This is the one and only time I’ll show generosity toward B.O., whom I regard as the worst sort of bullshit artist, a slick politician who has the audacity to call his reactionary policies – essentially, nothing but a massive increase in the federal regulatory/welfare state – “change.”  As a popular witticism says, the only “change” the new president will bring will be the few cents left in the value of the dollar when his policies are implemented.)  Perhaps next year I will include him.  I will note, however, how I anticipate rating him.  As arguably the least-qualified man ever elected president, I expect he will rate no better than “below average.”  And if the dire consequences that I fear from his presidency do come to pass (see my previous essays on “the tyranny of bullshit,” in “2009: Prospects for Liberty,” Part I (January 15) and Part II (January 26)), then I think he will join his two predecessors in being rated yet another “failure.”

George W. “Bailout” Bush:  Yup, He’s a Failure

             Just three years after I defended my earlier rating of “Bush the Younger” as merely “below average” (insisting, as I did then, that calling him a “failure” gave him too much credit), why am I now downgrading him to the “failure” class (ranking him as even more of a failure than Nixon but not quite as bad as Clinton)?   I could say that, now that all eight years of his two terms are over, it’s possible to evaluate the full record of his presidency.  But that answer raises another question:  What, if anything, did Bush do wrong during his last three years in office, that would justify classifying him as a “failure”?  There’s a simple, one-word answer to that question – one that some commentators have now fastened onto Bush as a kind of nickname:  Bailout.  As I observe in my summary of Bush’s presidency below, 

What ultimately made his presidency not merely “below average” but a true failure was his administration’s massive, $700 billion “bailout” of Wall Street, following the financial crisis in the fall of 2008 – a crisis precipitated by Bush’s own Treasury secretary’s dire Apocalyptic rhetoric.  In doing so, he not only practically destroyed limited-government conservatism in the modern Republican party but also set in motion a series of events that threatens to undermine American capitalism by converting our semi-socialist “mixed economy” into full-blown socialism, under Bush’s successor, the current occupant of the White House.  Finally, to “Bailout” Bush’s lasting infamy, he left a record of dangerous expansion of executive power and undermining the rule of law – a record that actually built upon the disastrous legacy of his predecessor, Clinton.

            Bush’s disastrous economic policy has been aptly described as “disaster socialism,” by the editors of Reason magazine, in the lead article in the January 2009 issue (“Exit, Stage Left: Bush’s disaster socialism”).  Like the apologists for FDR who claim that his New Deal programs “saved capitalism,” at the price of undermining the constitutional system of limited government upon which capitalism depends, George W. Bush himself – in a December interview on CNN – by his own admission “abandoned free-market principles” in order (he alleged) to “save the free-market system.”  That admission speaks volumes about Bush’s failings – his shameful lack of understanding about capitalism (perhaps not surprising, given Bush’s M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School), as well as the American system of limited government.  He didn’t merely abandon free-market principles; he failed to have them in the first place, because he had no idea what these principles are.   

            Bush’s comment also highlights the trait that marked both the strongest and weakest features of his presidency:  Bush’s supreme sense of self-confidence, bordering on cockiness.  To his credit, he was not at all swayed by public opinion – in this sense, he was almost the opposite of his predecessor, Clinton, whose constant craving to be popular meant that the policies of his administration were practically determined by opinion polls.  Bush never let poor popularity ratings dissuade him from policies he thought were right – which is fine, when he was right (in cutting taxes, for example), but was most unfortunate, when he was wrong (as he was in deciding to “bail out” Wall Street) and stubbornly continued to pursue failed policies.

Reviewing Recarving Rushmore:

Why I Disagree with Many of Ivan Eland’s Ratings

Like my ratings (fully set out, in revised form, below), the system of ratings used by Ivan Eland in his recently-published book, Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty (Oakland, California: The Independent Institute, 2009), challenges the conventional view of the U.S. presidents.  He too rejects the conventional view that equates presidential activism with greatness and instead emphasizes fidelity to constitutional limits on presidential power.  He emphasizes three values – peace, prosperity, and liberty – and rates the presidents according to how well they did in promoting those values.  The emphasis on prosperity (that is, on free markets) and liberty yield generally predictable results, but Eland’s ratings yield some surprising results overall because of his emphasis on the third factor, peace – a peculiarity of Eland’s analysis, explained by the facts that his think tank, the Independent Institute, is generally aligned with the pacifist, non-interventionist wing of the modern libertarian movement and that Eland himself is director of the Institute’s Center on Peace & Liberty. 

Eland ranks the presidents into five categories: “excellent,” “good,” “average,” “poor,” and “bad.”  Given his emphasis on peace, he rates highest those presidents who not only limited the powers of the federal government and the executive branch, staying within the limits the Framers intended (as viewed by Eland), but also those who kept the United States out of war and who pursued a foreign policy of isolationism.  Thus, his four highest-rated presidents – the only four he rates as “excellent” – were all 19^th-century presidents:  Tyler, Cleveland, Van Buren, and Hayes, in that order.  (Yes, that means that Eland’s No.1-ranked president was the relatively obscure John Tyler, the Whig who resided in the White House for one term, 1841-45.  Tyler also was the first vice president to succeed to the presidency, after the Whig elected president in 1840, the war hero William Henry Harrison, died only 31 days after his inaugural.)  These four men – Tyler, Cleveland, Van Buren, and Hayes – are the ones Eland would prefer to see honored at Mount Rushmore (hence the book’s title, Recarving Rushmore), precisely because they were so “bland.”  As Eland summarizes their achievements,  

“[T]hey largely respected the Constitution’s intention of limiting government and restraining executive power, especially in regard to making war.  They realized that America is great not because of its government’s activism at home and abroad, but because of the hard work and great ideas of private American citizens living in freedom.  In other words, they realized that peace, prosperity, and liberty are best achieved by the framer’s notion of restricting government power.”

And, he adds, most of them – three of the top four (with Cleveland being the exception) – served only one term. 

What about the four presidents actually honored by the monument at Mount Rushmore?  Only one – George Washington – rates as “good,” according to Eland’s analysis.  Washington “grabbed more presidential power and made the federal government more active than most of the framers of the Constitution had envisioned,” and he set some bad precedents, including “unconstitutionally crushing the Whiskey Rebellion in 1793.”  Eland nevertheless ranks Washington “a respectable seventh” place because “he had republican intentions, shunning being a king or dictator, and set a most valuable precedent by leaving office after two terms.”  As for the other three on Mount Rushmore, Eland rates Teddy Roosevelt as “poor” (at No. 21 in his rankings), and both Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln as “bad” (at Nos. 26 and 29, respectively).   

Some other surprises found in Eland’s ratings:  Jimmy Carter ranks as “good,” among the top ten (at No. 8), whom Eland sees as “the best modern president.”  Rounding out Eland’s top ten, the other presidents in the “good” category, are Arthur, Harding, Eisenhower, and Coolidge.  He sees Bill Clinton as “average” (at No. 11), joining John Quincy Adams, Taylor, and Fillmore in that category.  Of the early presidents, John Adams ranks highest, rating as “poor” (and ranked at No. 22); both Madison and Monroe join their fellow Virginians, Washington and Jefferson, as falling into Eland’s lowest category, of “bad” presidents.  Dead last in his rankings – the worst U.S. president according to his analysis – is Woodrow Wilson.  Except for Carter, Clinton, Coolidge, and Eisenhower, all the 20^th-century presidents (along with George W. Bush) rank as either “poor” or “bad.”  “W” comes in at No. 36, with only four presidents – Polk, McKinley, Truman, and Wilson – ranked lower. 

            Eland’s analysis is at its best when discussing domestic policy – especially when he critiques those 20^th-century presidents who abused presidential powers and expanded the scope of federal powers, to create the modern regulatory/welfare state.  He ranks Woodrow Wilson as last – the worst of the “bad” presidents – because Wilson was “the most interventionist president in U.S. history,” not just in foreign policy (bringing the U.S. into World War I) but also in domestic policy, with his “New Freedom” legislative agenda of government intervention in the economy that “laid the groundwork” for FDR’s New Deal.  Eland goes relatively easy on Teddy Roosevelt, whom he calls “charismatic” but “overrated,” “a less consequential president than his dull predecessor, William McKinley”; nevertheless, he criticizes T.R. not only for his “excessively belligerent” foreign policy but also for championing “progressive” policies – such as his “trust-busting” campaign – that unconstitutionally expanded government and harmed the country.   

            Perhaps the best chapter in the book is the one on Franklin D. Roosevelt, whom Eland justly criticizes for his “Mussolini-style corporatism” that expanded the welfare state and abused executive power.  Eland excoriates FDR for bringing the U.S. into World War II – arguing that FDR “lied the United States into a massive war that he intentionally helped to provoke and allied himself with a dictator, Joseph Stalin, who killed more people than Adolph Hitler” – but his most solid criticisms of FDR concern his domestic program.  Eland concludes, “FDR’s New Deal had no coherent philosophy, wasted hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, and cemented the expectation of permanent big government in the minds of the American public.  He actually deepened and prolonged the Great Depression by pursuing such activist government policies rather than letting natural market forces correct the economic slowdown.”  All this is a valuable history lesson, especially for today’s policy-makers (President B.O. and the Democrat-controlled Congress) who seem hell-bent on repeating the mistakes of the 1930s.   

            Eland is also good in criticizing late-20^th-century presidents who further expanded the federal regulatory/welfare state:  especially Lyndon B. Johnson, whose “Great Society” and “War on Poverty” not only irresponsibly wasted trillions of dollars but also “created a permanent underclass, dependent on the government for its livelihood”; and Richard M. Nixon, whose bad domestic policies – including wage and price controls, inflationary monetary policy, Keynesian spending programs, the federal “war on drugs,” and the creation of new regulatory agencies like the EPA, OSHA, and CPSC – not only ruined the economy but also expanded government as much, or more, than his predecessor’s.  

            Eland’s analysis suffers from serious flaws, however, when he discusses 19^th-century presidents.  He is most unfair in discussing Thomas Jefferson, whom he rates as a “bad” president because of the precedents he set with the Louisiana Purchase, his Indian policy, and the Embargo, calling Jefferson “a hypocrite on limited government.”  Here Eland repeats the false charge of hypocrisy that has been made by Jefferson’s critics, from his time to the present day: that the Louisiana Purchase contradicted Jefferson’s “strict constructionist” principles (that is, his strict reading of the power-granting clauses of the U.S. Constitution).  As I have shown in my book The Constitutional Thought of Thomas Jefferson (1994), Jefferson’s actions regarding the Louisiana Purchase confirm, rather than contradict, his constitutional scruples.  (It was Jefferson himself who urged a constitutional amendment to sanction the Purchase, to “set an example” against broad construction of federal powers, even though under Jefferson’s own theory of constitutional interpretation the power to acquire new territory clearly fell under the federal government’s treaty-making power.)  Eland’s real objection to the Purchase seems to be his absurd argument that Jefferson “violated” Indians’ rights by purchasing lands they (rather than France) “owned” and then pushing them westward as Americans settled the territories – an attempt to scapegoat Jefferson by indicting him for the U.S. government’s Indian policy over the entire 19^th century (including the actions taken by Andrew Jackson and other successors).  The Embargo on foreign trade in Jefferson’s second term did drastically curtail Americans’ economic freedom, but the draconian enforcement powers Jefferson exercised as president were authorized by Congress pursuant to its constitutional authority to regulate foreign commerce.  The Embargo was a failed experiment in economic coercion to help avert war – it failed because war eventually came, the War of 1812 during the administration of Jefferson’s successor, Madison – but it was not inconsistent with Jefferson’s constitutional principles, which included the exercise of federal power in “its whole constitutional vigor.”       

            Eland is similarly unfair in his criticisms of Jefferson’s two successors – his fellow Virginia Republicans, James Madison and James Monroe – whom he also rates as “bad” presidents chiefly because of their foreign policy.  He blames Madison for the War of 1812, which he calls “an unnecessary and avoidable war,” although it was authorized by a Congressional declaration.  And he excoriates Monroe for his foreign policy (his famed “Monroe Doctrine,” which advocated European non-interference with the Americas) as well as for his support of U.S. westward expansion (including his continuation of Jefferson’s policy of what Eland calls “ethnically cleansing” Indian lands).  Just as he holds Jefferson responsible for 19^th-century Indian policy, he holds Monroe’s Doctrine responsible for U.S. interventionist foreign policy in the 20^th century. 

            Eland’s criticisms of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe illustrate the fundamental flaw in his analysis:  his misunderstanding of the proper scope of presidential powers in the realm of foreign policy.  Eland is a pacifist who allows his preference for peace to bias his view of presidential war powers; he confuses pacifism with constitutionalism, ignoring the fact that war is a legitimate exercise of federal government powers (at least when properly initiated by Congressional action).  He also would deny to U.S. presidents their full constitutional authority over diplomacy with foreign governments, which is a legitimate part of the “executive power” granted to the president under Article II of the Constitution.  As a result, he’s unjustifiably harsh in his critique of presidents who lead the country into war, even when they followed the proper constitutional procedure of asking Congress for a declaration of war.  He does this not only with regard to “Mr. Madison’s War” (as his Federalist political enemies called the War of 1812) but also with regard to the Mexican-American War, for which he excoriates James K. Polk and his “aggressive land-grabbing policies.”  Given his pacifism, it’s not surprising that Eland views “Manifest Destiny” with nothing but contempt and thus negatively grades any U.S. president who contributed to American westward expansion. 

As I discussed in my previous entry (“A Bicentennial Defense of Abraham Lincoln,” Feb. 5), Eland also shares with some other libertarian scholars an unfortunate agenda to demonize Abraham Lincoln – failing to understand the extraordinary nature of the secession crisis (a crisis that threatened not only the American Union but also the future of the republican form of government) and exaggerating the effects of Lincoln’s assertion of executive powers in putting down the Southern Rebellion.  Eland concludes his chapter on Lincoln with this extraordinary assertion:  “Instead of choosing war, Lincoln should have let the South go in peace, as the abolitionists advocated, or prior to the conflict, offered southerners compensated emancipation of slaves.  Under the first option, industrialization and rising moral objections likely would have peaceably eliminated slavery in the South – as they did in most other places in the world – helped out by a slave haven in the free North.”  That huge bit of speculative “alternative history” is totally unsupported by historical facts:  As the Confederate Constitution shows, Southern slave-owning secessionists didn’t simply want to be let alone; they demanded their “right” to expand their ownership of slaves into the western territories and even into free states they visited.  If the Civil War had not been fought, war between the United States and the Confederate States probably would have been inevitable – and Eland probably would have criticized Lincoln (or his successors) just as severely for getting the U.S. involved in that hypothetical war, too. 

Overall, Eland’s book is a provocative reassessment of the American presidency.  Like other ratings of the U.S. presidents (including my own, I admit), unfortunately it suffers from the author’s bias – in Eland’s case, his bias toward pacifism, which is (as I’ve noted above) so strong that he confuses constitutionalism with presidential weakness on matters of foreign policy and national security.  As Justice Robert Jackson once famously wrote, “The Constitution is not a suicide pact”:  it does not oblige U.S. presidents to refrain from exercising their legitimate powers (including presidential diplomatic and war powers) to safeguard the nation.

Rating the U.S. Presidents IV (3^rd Revised Version)

And so, with no further ado, here are my revised ratings of the U.S. Presidents. 

The “Great” Presidents

• George Washington:  He carefully exercised his powers as president, aware that he was setting precedents, the most important of which was the precedent of stepping down after two terms.

• Thomas Jefferson:  As I have argued in my book The Constitutional Thought of Thomas Jefferson and in various articles (see especially my essay on Jefferson in The Presidency: Then and Now, edited by Phillip Henderson), more than any other president since Washington, Jefferson took seriously constitutional limits, particularly the separation of powers.  Thus, as president, he respected Congress’s war power (in waging the Barbary War, the first U.S. foreign war).  He replaced the State-of-the-Union address to Congress with a written annual message (a tradition that lasted until Wilson’s presidency in the early 20^th century); he also refused to issue presidential proclamations declaring days of prayer or thanksgiving, because he viewed the First Amendment religion clause as (in his famous words) “a wall of separation between church and state” (a constitutional scruple which, unfortunately, few of his successors have shared).  And he even came close to jeopardizing his greatest success as president – the addition of the Louisiana Purchase territory to the U.S. – because he proposed a constitutional amendment (although an amendment was not necessary, even under Jefferson’s strict theory) “to set an example” against broad interpretation of federal powers under the Constitution.  (I know of no other president who so valued constitutional fidelity.) 

• Abraham Lincoln:  He not only saved the Union – the peculiar status of the United States as a nation comprised of states – but also republican government, by enforcing the rule that the minority must acquiesce in the legitimate decisions made by the majority, a rule necessary for republican government to survive.  Although he did so at horrible costs – the bloodiest war in American history, accompanied by expanded governmental powers and curtailed civil liberties – Lincoln did not violate the Constitution lightly.  (Indeed, given the extraordinary crisis faced by the nation during his presidency, what was remarkable was the degree to which he generally adhered to the limits imposed by the Constitution on his office and national powers generally.)

The “Near-Great” Presidents

• James Madison and James Monroe (tie):   Jefferson’s successors – and fellow Virginia Republicans – they each earned kudos for using the veto power to kill unconstitutional legislation, particularly “internal improvements” bills (bills to build roads or canals, the paradigm “porkbarrel” projects of the time).  Madison’s additional claim to greatness as president was his leadership during the War of 1812, arguably the American war that did least damage to the Constitution; but detracting from his greatness was his decision to sign into law the bill chartering the Second Bank of the United States – a position contradicting his opposition to the First Bank in the 1790s – because (he rationalized) the American people had tacitly consented to the broadening of Congressional powers.  Monroe shared with Jefferson a stricter interpretation of federal powers, requiring explicit amendment (not mere tacit consent) to go beyond those enumerated in the Constitution – the correct interpretation.

• Grover Cleveland:  The last Jeffersonian president (and the last good Democrat to hold the office), he aggressively used the veto power against private bills and other unconstitutional legislation.  In vetoing a bill in 1887 that would have appropriated $10,000 to aid drought-stricken farmers in Texas, he uttered the memorable words, “though the people support the Government; the Government should not support the people.”  He cut taxes as well as spending, he supported the gold standard, and he opposed protective tariffs.

“Above Average” Presidents

• Andrew Jackson:  Although he pushed the envelope in his exercise of presidential powers (earning the nickname “King Andrew” to his Whig opponents), he deserves great credit for vetoing the bill rechartering the Bank of the United States on constitutional grounds, thereby not permitting Chief Justice John Marshall’s over-broad interpretation of federal powers (in McCulloch v. Maryland) to constrain the president’s exercise of his duties under the Constitution.

• Martin Van Buren:  Notwithstanding the fact he was the first professional politician to serve as president, he was remarkably consistent in his adherence to limited-government Jeffersonian principles.

• James Polk:  He realized the United States’ “Manifest Destiny” by waging war against Mexico, after Congress officially declared it; and believing a two-term presidency promoted corruption, he served only one, as he had pledged he would.

• Calvin Coolidge:  The greatest president of the 20^th century because he did the least damage to the Constitution. “Silent Cal” earns bonus points for being a man of few words (although they include another one of the most profound truths uttered by an American president: “The business of America is business”), and for his lack of political ambition in declining to seek an additional term.

• Ronald Reagan:  Although his rhetoric was splendid (“Government is not the solution; government is the problem,” he declared in his first Inaugural Address on January 20, 1981) and promised a conservative revolution, Reagan’s administration disappointed those of us who hoped for real reforms actually cutting the size of the federal government.  Rather, he succeeded only in reducing the rate of growth in domestic spending.  But he did get Congress to significantly cut income tax rates, resulting in greater freedom for productive Americans (the freedom to keep the wealth we earn) and the economic boom of the 1990s.  And (his greatest legacy) by rebuilding U.S. military strength and by standing up to the Soviet Union, he won the Cold War – bringing about the collapse of Soviet communism and ending the greatest threat to national security (and world peace) of the 20^th century.

“Average” Presidents

• John Adams and John Quincy Adams:  The first father-son team to serve (in single terms, 25 years apart) in the White House, each had a mixed record as president.  The elder Adams, on the negative side, signed into law the blatantly unconstitutional Sedition Act of 1798; but on the positive side, he eventually stood up to the Hamiltonian Federalists and avoided war with France, leaving eight years of peace and prosperity to his successor, Jefferson.  The younger Adams began his presidency under a cloud which never fully dissipated: the 1824 election was decided by the House of Representatives, under circumstances that led to the charge of a “corrupt bargain” with Henry Clay, which helped contribute to Andrew Jackson’s success in 1828.  On the positive side, his administration coincided with one of the greatest “feel-good” moments in American history:  the 50^th anniversary of American independence (and, significantly, the day both his father and Jefferson died).

• William Harrison and James Garfield:  One died of pneumonia a few weeks after his inaugural, the other murdered by an assassin, both had very brief terms – and thus did very little damage to the Constitution.

• Chester Arthur, Millard Fillmore, Benjamin Harrison, Rutherford Hayes, Franklin Pierce, Zachary Taylor, and John Tyler (tie, in alphabetical order):  These unremarkable, unmemorable mediocrities typify the “average” American president.

• William Taft:  The heftiest president, his chief contribution to the presidency (presiding over a comparatively conservative interlude between the two “Progressive” presidencies of TR and Wilson) was overshadowed by his post-presidency service as Chief Justice of the United States.

• Warren Harding:  As my friend Brad Smith pointed out in a August 2, 1993 article in the Columbus Dispatch, Harding does not deserve the bum rap he’s been given by historians who associate him only with corruption and scandals (Teapot Dome pales in comparison to Watergate or “Clintongate”).  His administration returned the U.S. to “normalcy” – among other things, greater economic freedom and prosperity, civil rights protections, and lower taxes – after the draconian wartime presidency of Wilson.

• John Kennedy:  On the plus side, he got Congress to cut income tax rates (thereby reducing somewhat the injustice of steeply progressive taxation) and he led the U.S. through the Cuban missile crisis without starting World War III.  But on the negative side, he committed thousands of American military advisers to South Vietnam – and thus got us sucked into that conflict.  Were it not for the premature end of his presidency due to his assassination, he would be remembered as an unremarkable one-term president, the last president before the “Goldwater Revolution.”  (OK, OK – can’t I indulge in some wishful thinking?)

• Gerald Ford:  Although he restored honor to the presidential office in the wake of Nixon’s resignation, as well as acted wisely in refusing to bail New York City out of bankruptcy (“Ford to N.Y.: Drop Dead,” as the New York Post headline sourly announced), his administration continued the disastrous fiscal policies of his predecessor – resulting in a significant inflation problem, which Ford thought he could solve by having Americans wear buttons reading “W.I.N.” (“Whip Inflation Now”).  On the positive side, his administration coincided with another landmark “feel-good” event:  the American Revolution Bicentennial celebrations of 1976.  (And disco!)

“Below Average” Presidents

• James Buchanan:  His acquiescence to the secession of Southern states left his successor, Lincoln, with the greatest crisis ever faced by an American President – a crisis that Buchanan helped precipitate by his inappropriate reference, in his inaugural address, to the Supreme Court’s upcoming Dred Scott decision.  His presidency was marked by his utter failure to take responsibility for his actions, or inactions – and his too-ready tendency to pass the buck to others.

• Andrew Johnson:  Politically inept and dominated by his biases (including racial prejudice and class-envy), he openly defied Congressional Reconstruction policies through unprecedented use of the “bully pulpit” and aggressive use of the presidential veto power – prompting Congress to impeach him and almost remove him from office.

• Ulysses Grant and Dwight Eisenhower (tie):  Great generals in wartime, mediocre presidents in peacetime.  Grant presided over an administration in which corruption was rampant; Eisenhower’s main claim to fame was the Interstate Highway System, which continues to be one of the biggest pieces of “pork” in American history.

• William McKinley:  By getting the U.S. involved in the Spanish-American War, he transformed American foreign policy – ending American exceptionalism and turning the U.S. into yet another imperial power.

• Herbert Hoover:  Conventional wisdom blames him for the Great Depression because of inaction; but in reality he did contribute to the Depression, for the opposite reason – as Murray Rothbard has shown in his book America’s Great Depression, the disastrous government policies of the New Deal actually begun under Hoover, a so-called “Progressive” Republican who believed in government/business “partnership,” not laissez-faire.  The principal differences between Hoover’s New Deal and FDR’s was that Hoover’s relied on cooperation rather than coercion of business, and Hoover did not blatantly disregard the Constitution – which saves him from being a failure, like FDR.

• Harry Truman:  Although he successfully ended World War II (and saved thousands of American lives through his courageous decision to use the atomic bomb on Japan), he acted unilaterally in getting the U.S. involved in the Korean war, the first of a series of U.N.-sanctioned “police actions” to which presidents have committed U.S. troops without prior authorization by Congress, thus eviscerating Congress’s war power.  And by attempting to seize steel mills to forestall a national strike during the war, he blatantly acted outside the law – an action that the Supreme Court thankfully declared unconstitutional.

• Jimmy Carter:  His disastrous regulatory policies resulted in the energy crisis of the late 1970s; his disastrous foreign policies resulted in the resurrection of draft registration and the Iranian hostage crisis.  One of the most incompetent presidents in U.S. history, his principal achievement was making possible Reagan’s election in 1980.

• George H.W. Bush:  George Bush “the Elder” (as I like to call him) was the elder member of the second father-and-son team to serve in the White House.  His was at best a mixed record.  The elder Bush doomed his own presidency by reneging on his “No new taxes” pledge and by repudiating his predecessor, Reagan, with his promise of a “kinder, gentler” nation (which fed Democrat propaganda about cold, cruel “Reaganism”).  Sadly, his most popular action as president was also his most unconstitutional, committing U.S. troops to the Persian Gulf region, and warring upon Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, without prior Congressional authorization.  He also signed into law the unconstitutional Americans with Disabilities Act, which pushed federal government regulation of the workplace to ridiculous lengths.  Not surprisingly, Bush the Elder’s transitional presidency led the way from the “above average” presidency of Ronald Reagan to the failed presidencies of his two successors, Bill “Slick Willy” Clinton and the younger Bush, George W. “Bailout” Bush.

“Failures” as President

• Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson (tie):  These so-called “Progressive” politicians, one a Republican and the other a Democrat, were political rivals whose policies (in terms of their disastrous impacts on the Constitution) were virtually indistinguishable.  They supported significant expansion of federal regulatory powers through the creation of such agencies as the FDA, FTC, and Federal Reserve System; and they demagogued against “big business” by abusing antitrust laws.   TR espoused a theory of unbridled presidential power as “steward of the people” that turned on its head the Constitution.  Wilson led the U.S. into a European war that did not concern the U.S. and during wartime exercised virtually dictatorial powers.

• Franklin Roosevelt:  His unbridled political ambition led him to seek reelection not once, nor even twice, but an unprecedented three times, thus destroying Washington’s two-term tradition until it was restored by constitutional amendment after FDR’s death.  His blatant disregard for the Constitution led him to expand government even further than TR and Wilson, with his so-called “New Deal” programs which destroyed American capitalism in the name of saving it (and which, as shown by Jim Powell’s splendid book, FDR’s Folly, actually worsened the Great Depression).  And when the Supreme Court stood in his way by declaring his programs unconstitutional, he proposed a “court-packing” scheme that shocked even his fellow New Dealers.  

• Lyndon Johnson:  His misnamed “Great Society” program (which should have been called “Huge Government”) resulted in the greatest expansion of the welfare/regulatory state since FDR’s New Deal.  He signed into law the unconstitutional Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the legislation creating the Medicare program.  And he turned the American military presence in South Vietnam into a full-fledged war that eventually resulted in the useless deaths of tens of thousands of young American men.

• Richard Nixon:  He escalated the Vietnam war, imposed wage and price controls without any constitutional authority to do so, and expanded the welfare/regulatory state as much as LBJ – and all this before Watergate.  With Watergate, he abused the powers of his office to cover up a third-rate burglary, which was done by his subordinates as political dirty tricks to further his reelection.  Two bright spots prevent his presidency from being a complete failure:  he did end the military draft (as the Vietnam war wound down); and by resigning before impeachment, he demonstrated not only a sense of shame (unlike Slick Willy) but also duty to the office he held (again, unlike Clinton). 

• Bill Clinton:  Hands down (or perhaps I should say, “Pants down”), the worst president – and the worst man to hold the office of president.  Before his first term ended, he already was presiding over the most corrupt and scandal-ridden presidency in American history (see my 1996 essay, “Clinton Presidency: The Most Corrupt”).  With “Monica-gate,” the scandal that led to his impeachment and trial during his second term, he abused the powers of his office to cover up his use of the presidency for sexual gratification; and he personally committed the felonies of perjury and obstruction of justice to cover up that affair in order to avoid liability in a sexual-harassment suit brought against him because of his prior abuse of the office of Arkansas governor, also for sexual gratification.   His legacy has been not only the growth and abuse of government power but also the virtual destruction of the rule of law in America.  (See James Bovard’s “Feeling Your Pain”: The Explosion and Abuse of Government Power in the Clinton-Gore Years and The Rule of Law in the Wake of Clinton, edited by Roger Pilon.)

• George W. Bush (Bush the Younger):  Like his father, the younger Bush had, at best, a mixed record as president.  To his credit, he showed courageous leadership in the wake of the September 11, 2001 Islamic terrorist attacks, by abandoning the policies of his predecessors, who either ignored or appeased the threat of militant Islamic terrorism.  Unfortunately, with bipartisan support in Congress, Bush overreacted to the threat:  in foreign policy, he committed the U.S. military not only to overthrow the lawless regimes of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq but also to help rebuild Iraq; and in domestic policy, he supported policies that needlessly curtailed Americans’ civil liberties, expanded the federal bureaucracy, and practically ruined air travel.  His other positive accomplishments – tax reduction and a proposal to reform Social Security through partial privatization – were undercut by his negatives:  failure to follow through on either tax reform or Social Security reform, expansion of the federal welfare state by adding prescription-drug coverage to Medicare, and expansion of the federal government’s unconstitutional role in education.  And, like his father, he signed into law a major piece of legislation that he knew to be unconstitutional:  the McCain-Feingold campaign finance regulatory law, which abridges First Amendment freedom of political speech.  What ultimately made his presidency not merely “below average” but a true failure was his administration’s massive, $700 billion “bailout” of Wall Street, following the financial crisis in the fall of 2008 – a crisis precipitated by Bush’s own Treasury secretary’s dire Apocalyptic rhetoric.  In doing so, he not only practically destroyed limited-government conservatism in the modern Republican party but also set in motion a series of events that threatens to undermine American capitalism by converting our semi-socialist “mixed economy” into full-blown socialism, under Bush’s successor, the current occupant of the White House.  Finally, to “Bailout” Bush’s lasting infamy, he left a record of dangerous expansion of executive power and undermining the rule of law – a record that actually built upon the disastrous legacy of his predecessor, Clinton.

  | Link to this Entry | Posted Monday,  February 16, 2009 | Copyright © David N. Mayer