Bush among worst presidents

It shouldn't be a huge surprise to anyone, except his most arden supporters, that George W. Bush was ranking poorly in a survey of United States presidents conducted by C-SPAN.

Bush was ranked 36th of the 42 men who have held the office of President of the United States. The survey of 65 historians and professional observers of the presidency was conducted in December and January. Participants ranked each president on a scale of one, "not effective" to 10, "very effective," on a list of 10 leadership qualities, including relations with Congress, public persuasion and moral authority.

Also no huge surprise, Bush scored lowest in international relations, 41st; and in economic management, 40th. His highest rankings were 24th in the pursuit of equal justice and 25th in crisis leadership, vision and agenda setting, which doesn't say a lot considering he had one of the worst crisis in the history of the nation in which to demonstrate his ability. The equal justice rating also doesn't add much to his credibilty considering the Constitutional amendments he trampled in the name of national security.

Interestingly, Abraham Lincoln had a Civil War to deal with, certainly as much of a crisis as Bush dealt with, yet Lincoln was rated as the best U.S. president. In fact, Lincoln was ranked in the top three in each of the 10 categories evaluated by participants.

Rated worst among all the presidents were James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce, William Henry Harrison and Warren G. Harding.

The top 10 presidents, according to the list, were Lincoln, George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Harry S Truman, John F. Kennedy, Thomas Jefferson, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Woodrow Wilson and Ronald Reagan.