Presidents' Day, early edition

Tomorrow, due to busing complexities, I will picking up a bunch of students in the school van. This means I will have less time than ever to get my morning in, so an early post to tide you all over until later in the morning.

This blog is perfectly analogous to a garage band. More hobby than vision.

As the resident American History teacher, a y-chromosomer, and a member of my generation (lover of lists, maps, and all things almanac), I bring you C-span's presidential rankings, with which I mightily disgree...Moreover, being born in 1965, I have survived NO SUCESSFUL PRESIDENCIES! So I think Presidents' Day is pretty silly.

the top 15:

Abraham Lincoln (of course)

George Washington (sui generis)

Franklin D. Roosevelt (of course)

Theodore Roosevelt (with Lincon, the most brilliant, and certainly the nuttiest. Notice that the modern GOP never mentions him)

Harry S. Truman (give me a break. why why why?)

John F. Kennedy (again, give me a break. If TR gave us modern solutions, JFK passed on most of the problems of the ensuing decade)

Thomas Jefferson (as president, dubious; a bit like Polk. A great man, though, like Ben Franklin)

Dwight D. Eisenhower (c'mon! Did a bunch of 70 year olds make this list?)

Woodrow Wilson (pretentious moralizer who lied us into war. And got pwned by the rest of the world's powers. Sound familiar?)

Ronald Reagan (I promise you he'll be lower and lower on this list. What was his lasting achievement?)

Lyndon B. Johnson (tragic. epic. Who knows where he belongs.)

James K. Polk (violent imperialist who did what he said he was going to do. Lincoln cut his political teeth opposing Polk's Texas policy)

Andrew Jackson (violent imperialist who was nevertheless the first truly democratically elected president. The poor voted for him. They couldn't really vote before.)

James Monroe (stumbled into the War of 1812)

Bill Clinton (will sink like a stone. A very middling man.)

and now the bottom:

Rutherford B. Hayes

Herbert Hoover (He orchestrated the relief effort in Europe after WWI and was one of the most admired men in the world at the time. He couldn't adjust to the new era, that is, 1929.)

John Tyler

George W. Bush (natch, and will drop. Bush will bounce off the floor that Buchanan provides, of course, only if we recover from this economic mess.)

Millard Fillmore

Warren G. Harding

William Henry Harrison

Franklin D. Pierce

Andrew Johnson

James Buchanan (He utterly failed to lead in the years prior to the Civil War. Pennsylvania's only president is a more than adequate stand-in for its political culture of the last 150 years.)

What a bunch of overmatched reactionaries.