American President Rankings

As some of you may know, C-Span just created a poll of Greatest American Presidents (of all time, presumably).
Yeah, I know most of you don't watch C-Span (oh, look at me, I have a life), but fortunately I sometimes do. Unfortunately I never really payed attention to how this poll was put together, or who was involved in creating the poll.

In any case, I set out to create my own ranking of Greatest American Presidents of All Time (yeah, see, mine is of all time). In addition, I chose to rank Grover Cleveland only once, and also include the President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, and the longest serving (and really only one worth mentioning) President of the Continental Congress, John Hancock.

1.George Washington
-Created the office himself, nothing really compares.
2.Abraham Lincoln
-Kept the country together when it needed it most
3.Franklin Delano Roosevelt
-Saw the country through the Great Depression and most of World War II
4.Lyndon Baines Johnson
-Used great legislative prowess to pass civil rights legislation JFK was too much of a pussy to pass, also got congress to pass the great society somehow
5.Andrew Jackson
-Fiercely held to his beliefs, not matter the cost. only Van Buren got burned. Also the only President ever to not have ANY debt or deficit.
6.Thomas Jefferson
-Enigma of person and President, left the country better than it was. Also landed first post-revolutionary American war victory, in the Barbary Wars -- to the shores of Tripoli, bitches.
7.William Howard Taft
-No President upheld the constitution as much as he.
8.John Adams
-Didn't kill Jefferson, somehow. Carried on Washington's work.
9.Theodore Roosevelt
-First President to take on Corporations, and win.
10.Woodrow Wilson
-Continued anti-trust work of TR and Taft, also saw through WWI and tried patching back together Europe singlehandedly
11.Dick Nixon
-Another enigma of a man, did what he thought was best. Most bi-partisan President of the 20th century.
12.Harry S Truman
-Made some extremely tough decisions that hurt his short term image, but ended WWII and saw through Korea. Maybe MacArthur really was a cunt.
13.James Madison
-Perhaps more known for Secretary of State work, but started the war of 1812. Why shouldn't Canada be ours?
14.Ulysses S Grant
-Tried to continue reconstruction Lincoln's way, but got tied up in corruption and an uncooperative legislature. If he had more political experience, he would probably be higher. Could also out drink any other President, except maybe Bush 43 in his Yale days.
15.James Monroe
-Most known for his eponymous foreign policy doctrine. Was also President during the middle of the "era of good feelings"
16.Grover Cleveland
-Rough style cost him re-election before the country realized it worked, and elected him back.
17.Rutherford B Hayes
-Ended reconstruction, perhaps too soon, but the country had to be whole again sometime.
18.William McKinley
-Without him, we would not have Guantanamo bay. Also took the rest of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Phillipines, and Spain's dignity.
19.William Jefferson Clinton
-Had the enormous benefit of an economic boom and started paying back the National debt. However, he also failed to hunt down Osama Bin Ladin, though some say a certain Senate investigation was the reason he was never caught.
20.Dwight S Eisenhower
-Without him, we wouldn't have that antiquated 50's worldwide image of America.
21.Ronald Reagan
-Only President to not fully know that he was actually the President.
22.George HW Bush
-Raised taxes after he said he wouldn't, but I still wouldn't trust Dukakis driving our nation's tanks.
23.Warren G Harding
-Singlehandedly responsible for the Warren Harding thru-hole.
24.John Fitzgerald Kennedy
-Take out the Cuban Missile Crisis, and you have a pretty piss-poor presidency. Lucky for him Kruschev got drunk enough to try it, then sober enough to realize it was dumb.
25.John Quincy Adams
-Narrowly beat Jackson for the Presidency through Congressional tiebreakers. Began setting for the modern two-party system.
26.George W Bush
-Some downs and ups that are going to take more time to fully understand. Don't think he'll be as highly regarded after the fact as Truman, but his star will eventually rise.
27.Calvin Coolidge
-Harding minus the balls (that got him killed). Quiet fellow.
28.John Hancock
-Only Continental President worth mentioning. While duties were mostly titular, oversaw the first two and a half years of the revolutionary war.
29.James K Polk
-Believer of Manifest Destiny who annexed roughly half of the current continental USA. Failure to deal with slave issue in new areas, however, costs him.
30.Gerald Ford
-Pardoned Nixon then let OPEC raise gas prices.
31.Jimmy Carter
-Let OPEC raise gas prices even more, than lost a bunch of hostages, and a puppet government, to Iran.
32.Martin Van Burn
-Tried being Jackson, but failed miserably. The Van Buren boys are not to be messed with though.
33.James A Garfield
-Only President for a few months, but received the first Presidential telephone call.
34.Benjamin Harrison
-Just a stopgap between Grovers Cleveland.
35.William Henry Harrison
-Caught Pneumonia and died roughly a month after his innauguration. Every President below him had a negative effect on the country entirely.
36.Zachary Taylor
-Refused to be nothing more than a party figurehead, unfortunately also refused to live.
37.Franklin Pierce
-Bleeding Kansas
38.Chester A Arthur
-Cog of NY Political machine.
39.Herbert Hoover
-Danced while Rome burned.
40.Millard Fillmore
-Refused to deal with slavery issue at all costs.
41.John Tyler
-So bad he was disowned by his own party. To be fair, Henry Clay was the type of asshole who would try something like that.
42.James Buchanon
-It's sad that doughface here is the only representative from Pennsylvania. Why, Science, WHY?!?!
43.Andrew Johnson
-First President to be impeached. Damnit John Wilkes Boothe, did you ever stop to think you'd be leaving us with him?
44.Jefferson Davis
-The Confederacy had a strong showing for about a year or so, but quickly faded as the war raged on. If the war lasted a few more years, maybe I'd bump him up.

And whatever happenned to Presidential facial hair? I think the last was Taft, with a moustache. Obama, it's time to start growing a Fu Man Chu. You owe the public at least a soul patch.

-- Knuttel