On this Presidents' Day we feature a Harris poll of Americans which produced a ranking of the top ten presidents in American history. The list has some surprises. Seven of the ten are understandable, I suppose, but John Kennedy at #4, and Bill Clinton at #6 are hard to justify. What did either man do to rate so high? Kennedy served for less than three years, pretty much punted on civil rights, got us into Vietnam, and betrayed the Cubans at the Bay of Pigs.
It's true that he got the Soviets to remove their missiles from Cuba, but only by removing ours from Turkey. In other words, the Soviets actually won the showdown over the "Cuban Missile Crisis". It's hard to think of any accomplishments JFK may have had to offset these liabilities unless one counts managing to carry on an affair with Marilyn Monroe as an achievement worthy of placing him among America's greatest presidents.
Bill Clinton's rank is equally hard to fathom. His only accomplishment as president was to surf along on the crest of an economic boom that was really the result of Reagan's tax policy. He did sign welfare reform, but this was a GOP initiative, not his. Meanwhile, his laxity toward world terrorism, his refusal to support our soldiers in Mogudishu, and his reluctance to enforce the 1991 cease-fire agreement with Saddam Hussein set the stage for 9/11. Clinton served two terms, but will be remembered primarily for his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky and an administration that limped from one crisis of their own making to another, squandering the opportunity history offered him to achieve genuine greatness.
The third surprise is that George Bush is ranked #10. I'm surprised he made the list at all, given the popular perception of the man as an utter failure, but, as I've argued before on Viewpoint (Do a search for the phrase "50 million people" to find some of our previous posts), I think he deserves to be ranked even higher, certainly above Clinton and JFK. His administration has been filled with achievements of historical significance.
He has, for example, secured the liberation of 50 million people from oppression in Afghanistan and Iraq, induced several terrorist states to give up, or at least suspend, their plans to develop nuclear weapons, successfully (so far) prevented another terrorist attack on our soil, presided over an economic recovery in very difficult circumstances (inheriting a recession, 9/11, and several very costly natural disasters), and has appointed two extremely competent jurists to the Supreme Court.
He has also done more to relieve the suffering of the poor in Africa than any president in history and has done more to put minorities and women in positions of power than any president before him. He has accomplished all this despite constant, vicious calumnies from his political opponents without ever returning their fire in kind. He has shown far more grace, virtue and class than have the carping, vitriolic, ankle-biters who, out of sheer hatred, attack every move he has made.
Few presidents have accomplished even a fraction of what George Bush has achieved, especially in the face of such relentless and withering opposition, and surely his predecessor did not. I'm not a historian, but given what he has achieved, I believe he deserves to be ranked in the top three on the Harris list. I also believe that a couple of decades from now fair-minded historians who don't have an ideological axe to grind will put him there.
RLC
