While suffering through these desolation days on TV when everyone is on vacation and just about every show is pre-recorded, I did stumble upon a Newsmax segment in which a new presidential greatness poll by Praeger University was discussed.
I grant you, just given the sponsorship of Praeger University, you figure the results are going to lean right, and they did, but not extremely so in my opinion.
Fortunately, the rankings begin with George Washington as our greatest president, followed by Abraham Lincoln. To my way of thinking, if you pick anyone other than one of those two as number one, your judgment is being ruled by your politics.
I can imagine leftists saying FDR was the greatest, with LBJ right behind him (if you exclude the Vietnam War). Rightists would lean naturally toward Ronald Reagan, which indeed this survey does, ranking him third – too high in my opinion. (Trump, as a sitting president, isn’t included.)
I think Ronald Reagan is the greatest politician I’ve witnessed in my lifetime, and I also think he was a phenomenal president who boldly dealt with issues the Establishment wouldn’t. For instance, he challenged the Soviet Union on several fronts and won on each. But third?
Praeger University, on its website, describes the polling process for presidential rankings in this way:
“We reached out to scholars and experts from fields such as history, law, government, media, and politics; 155 took part in the survey. Instead of using rigid formulas or preset category weights, participants rated each president on a 0-10 scale, judging them within the unique circumstances of their time. Respondents were asked to keep in mind key principles: adherence to the Constitution, national prosperity, sound foreign policy, and the difficulty of the challenges faced. The final rankings come from the average of all those individual scores.”
The question, then, is: Did anyone from other than the conservative side of things participate? I scanned the list and no “famous” leftist names stuck out, but they say the participants were of mixed leanings (right and far right? LOL).
Anyway, here’s the poll’s top five: Washington, Lincoln, Reagan, Calvin Coolidge, and Thomas Jefferson. To my way of viewing things, Jefferson should be third, and Reagan somewhere lower in the top ten. About Coolidge, I have no clue except that Reagan loved him.
Leftists may not like FDR coming in at 20, with both Harry S. Truman and John F. Kennedy ahead of him. They probably won’t like “Sleepy Joe” Biden coming in last, either.
What do you think?
