The Most Common Trait Among Bad Presidents

Beginning with a poll conducted by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr. of Harvard University in 1948, historians have long sought to rank U.S. presidents based on their competency and effectiveness. Schlesinger gave it another try in 1962, consulting 75 different historians, and his son Arthur Jr. did likewise in 1996.

In 1982, the Chicago Tribune joined the mix by polling 49 historians for The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents, and William J. Ridings Jr. and Stuart B. McIver surveyed 719 historians over an 8-year period before publishing Rating the Presidents: A Ranking of U.S. Leaders, from the Great and Honorable to the Dishonest and Incompetent in 1996.

Not to be outdone, the Wall Street Journal commissioned its own poll in 2005 in conjunction with the Federalist Society and James Lindgren of Northwestern University Law School. Meanwhile, the Siena College Research Institute conducted a series of surveys in 1982, 1990, 1994, 2002, 2010, 2018 and 2022. C-Span followed suit in 2000, 2009, 2017, and 2021.

Whereas the above list is not exhaustive, the results are remarkably similar. At the top of almost every list are the same three names: Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Franklin Roosevelt. Bringing up the rear are almost always James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, and Warren G. Harding.

Other presidents ranking high (in order of their presidency) include Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, James Polk, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, and Ronald Reagan. Joining the aforementioned underperforming presidents at the bottom of the heap are Franklin Pierce and Herbert Hoover.

So, what made the Top 10 presidents so great? And just as importantly, what made the Bottom 5 so painfully inept?

I am only an amateur historian, but I have studied the presidency for more than 55 years. In fact, I memorized every president’s name in order when I was a young boy and can still recite them today without missing a beat. And so, please allow me to give an educated guess as to why the Not So Fabulous Five were, well, not so fabulous.

They were indecisive.

Buchanan, and to a lesser degree Pierce, had a chance to reconcile the North and the South over the issue of slavery. Instead, they chose to kick the proverbial can down the road, allowing their successor – Abraham Lincoln – to clean up the spill in Aisle 5.

After the Civil War, Andrew Johnson had the opportunity to follow Lincoln’s brilliant blueprint for Reconstruction. Unfortunately, he caved into pressure from northern senators who were tired of overseeing the South… and southern senators who were equally tired of being told what to do. Johnson’s failure to lead allowed the former slave-holding plantation owners to reassert their power and gave rise to the Ku Klux Klan.

As for Harding, he was so preoccupied with his mistress and overseeing a graft-filled administration that he forgot to actually govern during his short two years in office. A failure to act early and decisively also cost Herbert Hoover – and the nation – dearly, ushering in the Great Depression in 1929 and ushering Hoover out of the White House in 1932.

Perhaps no better comparison exists between a decisive president and an indecisive one than Harry Truman and Jimmy Carter. I can just imagine Carter – who let Iran hold American hostages for 444 days – wringing his hands for months (if not years) over whether to use atomic weapons to shorten World War II. It took Truman just 87 days from the time he assumed office to drop “Little Boy” on Hiroshima… and Japan surrendered nine days later.

Sadly, I see the same paralyzing indecision in Joe Bien and that does not portend well for America. Remember that there was only one dissenting voice in the Situation Room when President Obama had to give the "go" order to kill Osama bin Laden... and that was Sleepy Joe's.