1. Theodore Roosevelt (Would have handled WW1 and the Fed much better than Wilson)
2. John F. Kennedy (Nation before yourself, NASA, Vietnam, Cuban Missile Crisis, telling CIA/military to **** off with Operation Northwoods)
3. Richard Nixon (Opened China, Paris Peace Accords, both undone by leftists he literally did nothing wrong keeping tabs on them)
4. Ronald Reagan (first term was good)
5. Franklin D. Roosevelt (great mix of good and bad here)

LBJ, Carter, Wilson, Hoover, and HW Bush were the worst.

Reagan
Reagan
Reagan
Reagan
Reagan

Reagan
Nixon
Kennedy
FDR
Teddy Roosevelt

(11-03-2016 09:08 PM)HarmonOliphantOberlanderDevine Wrote:  Just Reagan and Eisenhower.

Nixon wasn't shabby. LBJ wrecked the War on Poverty. JFK is saved by his martyr status. Teddy was a progressive. The older Bush isn't bad. Clinton is not a scumbag. Young Bush blew it. Obama is top 2 in all time bad. Truman sacked General MacArthur. Coolidge actually was a good president. He understood that a president doesn't need to do something. Hoover deserved a second term to show the economy would naturally rebound.

FDR is easily one of the worst presidents in history. He prolonged the Depression and let Russia have Eastern Europe.

Please explain how he let them have Eastern Europe when they defeated the German army on the eastern front?

So much revisionist history. If you have a peace time president ahead of one that won a world war, you failed this exercise.

(11-04-2016 06:28 AM)firmbizzle Wrote:  one that won a world war

So, Truman and Eisenhower?

(11-03-2016 09:08 PM)HarmonOliphantOberlanderDevine Wrote:  Just Reagan and Eisenhower.

Nixon wasn't shabby. LBJ wrecked the War on Poverty. JFK is saved by his martyr status. Teddy was a progressive. The older Bush isn't bad. Clinton is not a scumbag. Young Bush blew it. Obama is top 2 in all time bad. Truman sacked General MacArthur. Coolidge actually was a good president. He understood that a president doesn't need to do something. Hoover deserved a second term to show the economy would naturally rebound.

FDR is easily one of the worst presidents in history. He prolonged the Depression and let Russia have Eastern Europe.

Please explain how he let them have Eastern Europe when they defeated the German army on the eastern front?

(11-03-2016 11:22 PM)Native Georgian Wrote:  

(11-03-2016 11:06 PM)BcatMatt13 Wrote:  

(11-03-2016 09:58 PM)john01992 Wrote:  1. FDR

2. Truman

3. LBJ

4. JFK

5. Teddy

JFK?

Um, no.

Kennedy's historical reputation is still closely intertwined with the shock/horror of his assassination, and the natural human sympathy that followed after that. Even into the 1980s I remember many people -- and not necessarily just liberals or Kennedy-type supporters -- would speak of him in rapturous tones. Criticism had to be phrased very carefully lest you be suspected of being a "hater" or some other sort of bad person.

That kind of hero-worship has obviously faded over the past 25-30 years as (1.) more detailed information about Kennedy has slowly emerged, and (2.) the generation that absorbed the trauma of his death has died off, replaced by people who mainly know him as a guy who did MM and lots of others. But the old view hasn't disappeared completely.

JFK most overrated president of all time. He wasn't ready for the job. Relied too much on family.

Lyndon Johnson......

wut

lol

stahp the madness

FDR was the 2nd most overrated. He stayed in too long and was physically weak and created the cold war. He probably extended the Great Depression and was very authoritarian, trying to stack the Supreme Court. But he did get us together for the war.

1. Reagan rebuilt the economy, made us safer, spent the USSR into bankruptcy, set the stage for the technological innovation with his economic policies.
2. Nixon Obviously Watergate, but his foreign policy successes with Russia and China outweigh that. He did enormous long term good.
3. Ike Underrated. Got us out of Korea and built the interstate highway system. Presided over "Happy Days."
4. George HW Bush Oversaw the fall of the Berlin Wall and the peaceful dissolution of the USSR. Drove Sadaam out of Kuwait with an international coalition and didn't overreach.
5. Woodrow Wilson Bit idealistic, but had the right ideas and had they listened might have prevented WWII. Guided us through WWI.

Woodrow Wilson is Top 5......worst of all-time.

(11-04-2016 07:08 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(11-03-2016 11:22 PM)Native Georgian Wrote:  

(11-03-2016 11:06 PM)BcatMatt13 Wrote:  

(11-03-2016 09:58 PM)john01992 Wrote:  1. FDR

2. Truman

3. LBJ

4. JFK

5. Teddy

JFK?

Um, no.

Kennedy's historical reputation is still closely intertwined with the shock/horror of his assassination, and the natural human sympathy that followed after that. Even into the 1980s I remember many people -- and not necessarily just liberals or Kennedy-type supporters -- would speak of him in rapturous tones. Criticism had to be phrased very carefully lest you be suspected of being a "hater" or some other sort of bad person.

That kind of hero-worship has obviously faded over the past 25-30 years as (1.) more detailed information about Kennedy has slowly emerged, and (2.) the generation that absorbed the trauma of his death has died off, replaced by people who mainly know him as a guy who did MM and lots of others. But the old view hasn't disappeared completely.

JFK most overrated president of all time. He wasn't ready for the job. Relied too much on family.

I lived in Miami during the Cuban missile crisis. JFK's iron clad stance against Nikita Khrushchev, making Him turn the ships carrying Nukes back around to Russia will always be a moment I'll never forget. Most of Us alive then felt We were very close to a Nuclear confrontation. Bay of Pigs though was a severe misstep for Him and Cuba might have been rid of Castro & Che had the planning been better.

(11-04-2016 07:24 AM)CardFan1 Wrote:  

(11-04-2016 07:08 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(11-03-2016 11:22 PM)Native Georgian Wrote:  

(11-03-2016 11:06 PM)BcatMatt13 Wrote:  

(11-03-2016 09:58 PM)john01992 Wrote:  1. FDR

2. Truman

3. LBJ

4. JFK

5. Teddy

JFK?

Um, no.

Kennedy's historical reputation is still closely intertwined with the shock/horror of his assassination, and the natural human sympathy that followed after that. Even into the 1980s I remember many people -- and not necessarily just liberals or Kennedy-type supporters -- would speak of him in rapturous tones. Criticism had to be phrased very carefully lest you be suspected of being a "hater" or some other sort of bad person.

That kind of hero-worship has obviously faded over the past 25-30 years as (1.) more detailed information about Kennedy has slowly emerged, and (2.) the generation that absorbed the trauma of his death has died off, replaced by people who mainly know him as a guy who did MM and lots of others. But the old view hasn't disappeared completely.

JFK most overrated president of all time. He wasn't ready for the job. Relied too much on family.

I lived in Miami during the Cuban missile crisis. JFK's iron clad stance against Nikita Khrushchev, making Him turn the ships carrying Nukes back around to Russia will always be a moment I'll never forget. Most of Us alive then felt We were very close to a Nuclear confrontation. Bay of Pigs though was a severe misstep for Him and Cuba might have been rid of Castro & Che had the planning been better.

The reason there was a confrontation in the first place was due to JFK. His weakness encouraged Khrushchev. The Cuban missile crisis should never have happened. And Khruschev didn't totally blink. He got JFK to agree to remove missiles from Turkey as part of the deal. As with Vietnam, he got us into bad situations.

(11-04-2016 07:24 AM)shiftyeagle Wrote:  Woodrow Wilson is Top 5......worst of all-time.

Buchanan
Pierce
Carter
Obama
Grant

Woodrow isn't close to that group. Besides, the rules said I had to include a Democrat. He was better than the rest.

(11-03-2016 09:42 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Best - Reagan, Clinton, Eisenhower, Coolidge, Truman. Fifth one was hard, but Barry Goldwater spoke highly of him.

Worst - Zero, Carter, Shrub, Wilson, LBJ.

Definitely agree with your top 5 (and for that matter your bottom five). Calvin Coolidge may be one of the most underrated presidents ever. Under Coolidge, the top income tax rate came down by half, to 25 percent and the federal budget was always in surplus. Unemployment during his presidency remained 3-5%. During his presidency Americans wired their homes for electricity and bought their first cars or household appliances on credit. Under his watch the economy grew strongly, even as the federal government shrank.

(11-04-2016 07:36 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(11-04-2016 07:24 AM)shiftyeagle Wrote:  Woodrow Wilson is Top 5......worst of all-time.

Buchanan
Pierce
Carter
Obama
Grant

Woodrow isn't close to that group. Besides, the rules said I had to include a Democrat. He was better than the rest.

Wilson was worse than Obama. He was awful. One of the original giant-government progressive scumbags.

(11-04-2016 06:23 AM)firmbizzle Wrote:  Please explain how he let them have Eastern Europe when they defeated the German army on the eastern front?

Basically, and semi-understandable at the time, FDR's instructions were to go no further than they did on the Western Front, as so many lives were lost and there were concerns.

But even according to the generals at the time, the allies in the West could have kept going even further east faster than the Russians came through the Eastern front faster than they did, with a lot less casualties than anticipated, but FDR basically stopped them himself.

1) Reagan (particularly the first term)
2) Eisenhower
3) Nixon (although I didn't agree with some of his ideas like wage/price freezes on a national level, but he did have some major advances as already noted.)
4) T Roosevelt
5) Truman

Bush Sr., Clinton, and Coolidge almost cracked my top 5 (almost opposites - Bush's foreign policy and Coolidges US economic policies with Clinton an improvement on Bush's economic policies.)

I even thought about giving Jr. a nod in there, but just too many negatives to outweigh the positives.

I had to think about whether or not JFK would sneak into my top 5 best or worst, but his willingness to be 'stared down' by Kruschev outweighed his steps that helped push our space program and his willingness to work on bringing down disasterous tax rates in this country)

As for worsts? FDR is definitely on the top of my list. Yes, he was involved in WW2, but his authoritarianism (the threat to stack the Supreme Court in particular) was as close to despotism as I can imagine.
LBJ would clearly be my second (again, the stories (dont know if they were true or not) about his "micro-managing" of the Vietnam
war...would give me nightmares if I were in the military)
Carter slips to third, simply for bumbling and incompetence,and if I were to give LBj a pass for the Civil Rights bill, Carter would move to second.

(11-04-2016 07:07 AM)firmbizzle Wrote:  

(11-03-2016 09:08 PM)HarmonOliphantOberlanderDevine Wrote:  Just Reagan and Eisenhower.

Nixon wasn't shabby. LBJ wrecked the War on Poverty. JFK is saved by his martyr status. Teddy was a progressive. The older Bush isn't bad. Clinton is not a scumbag. Young Bush blew it. Obama is top 2 in all time bad. Truman sacked General MacArthur. Coolidge actually was a good president. He understood that a president doesn't need to do something. Hoover deserved a second term to show the economy would naturally rebound.

FDR is easily one of the worst presidents in history. He prolonged the Depression and let Russia have Eastern Europe.

Please explain how he let them have Eastern Europe when they defeated the German army on the eastern front?

The Russian army was depleted while ours was strong. We could have forced them back but old man FDR didn't have the guts to do so.

(11-04-2016 07:53 AM)shiftyeagle Wrote:  

(11-04-2016 07:36 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(11-04-2016 07:24 AM)shiftyeagle Wrote:  Woodrow Wilson is Top 5......worst of all-time.

Buchanan
Pierce
Carter
Obama
Grant

Woodrow isn't close to that group. Besides, the rules said I had to include a Democrat. He was better than the rest.

Wilson was worse than Obama. He was awful. One of the original giant-government progressive scumbags.

This.

Not to mention extremely racist.