I'm Partial to #3...

Historians recently ranked our past presidents. Lincoln came in first. Unsurprisingly, W was toward the bottom of the list, but not #42. He ranked #36. He came in above Millard Fillmore, Warren Harding, William Harrison, Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson, and James Buchanan. Let’s see why:

Millard Fillmore: He only became vice-president because the presidential candidate of the hour (Zachary Taylor) was such a divisive character and the party wanted to ensure they won. And he only became president because that same guy died while in office. His beliefs differed greatly from those of President Taylor so it’s no surprise that he couldn’t get much done. Slavery was also a hot topic. While he might not have been such a successful president, he was one of the founders of the University of Buffalo, so he can’t have been all bad.

Warren Harding: Normalcy indeed. Another guy who got elected not because he was a stellar candidate, but because the party was deadlocked in nominating the people they really wanted. Also a potential explanation how a “dark horse” beat out a Cox/FDR ticket: his was the first election in which women could vote. He was not a bad looking man, and his wife was very involved in the spreading the word about her candidate. That said, things didn’t go so well for this guy: Teapot Dome, stacking the deck in his cabinet with “The Ohio Gang.” He was also rumored to be quite the playboy, allegedly fathering multiple illegitimate children. (See, John Edwards, that’s nothing new.)

William Henry Harrison: This isn’t even a fair one - he died 32 days into his term! How could he have done anything? Granted, it was probably his own fault he died. Rumor is that he gave a long-winded inauguration speech even though it was cold and wet outside and caught a nasty cold.

Franklin Pierce: Good lord, yet another guy who was nominated by his party because they couldn’t decide which of the candidates they actually liked they should pick. We had a habit of shooting ourselves in the foot, eh? Pierce was another president whose major downfall came because of slavery. First there was the Kansas-Nebraska Act which nullified the Missouri Compromise, thus alienating half the country. His support of slavery (and later, the Confederacy) lost him the support of his own party. The fact that he was a drunk probably didn’t help either. Perhaps we need to give the guy some credit though: two months before he was sworn in as president his family was in a train wreck and his 11-year-old son was crushed to death. That had to suck.

Andrew Johnson: Johnson became president when Lincoln was assassinated. It’s got to be tough, being the follow up act to such a great opener. I mean, Lincoln is #1. Historians even say so! That alone had to drop Johnson quite a few notches on this list. North vs South. Republicans vs Democrats, everyone was up in arms and slavery and civil rights were in turmoil. Johnson was also the first president to be impeached, although he avoided conviction and removal from office by one vote. He’s never seen in a very good light. Then again, he did purchase Alaska. Just think - without Andrew Johnson, the Palins would be Russian!

James Buchanan: This one didn’t even want to be president! He accepted the nomination anyway, but you have to think perhaps his heart wasn’t in it. He even promised he wouldn’t run again in his inaugural address. He followed Franklin Pierce, so he had to deal with all the screw-ups left in that wake. But he really made no attempt to stop what became the Civil War. He was followed by Lincoln so I’m sure that further darkened his reputation. Perhaps also relevant, Buchanan was the only president who never married and there were rumors surrounding his relationship with a senator from Alabama.

So, were these guys worse than W? It’s pretty much accepted that the perception of success and failure varies depending on what’s going on in the world at the time the list is made. I guess we’ll see where historians rank him in 10 or 15 years.

Here’s the whole list.

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