I've posted this each President's Day for ten years but have found no reason to adjust the rankings.
It's
not a real President's birthday (Lincoln's was the 12th, Washington's
is the 22nd), but everyone wants a day off, so sorry Abe and George, but
we're taking it today. But in the spirit intended for the holiday, let
me offer up Borepatch's bestest and worstest lists for Presidents.Top Five:#5: Calvin CoolidgeNothing To Report is a fine epitaph for a President, in this day of unbridled expansion of Leviathan.#4. Thomas Jefferson.Jefferson
is perhaps the last (and first) President who exercised
extra-Constitutional power in a manner that was unambiguously beneficial
for the Republic (the Louisiana Purchase). He repealed Adam's noxious
Alien and Sedition Acts and pardoned those convicted under them.#3. Grover Cleveland*. He
didn't like the pomp and circumstance of the office, and he hated the
payoffs so common then and now. He continually vetoed pork spending
(including for veterans of the War Between the States), so much so that
he was defeated for re-election, but unusually won a second term later.
This quote is priceless (would that Latter Day Presidents rise so
high), on vetoing a farm relief bill: "Federal
aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the
part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national
character." #2. Ronald ReaganHe
at least tried to slow down the growth of Leviathan, the first
President to do so in over half a century (see entry #5, above). He
would have reduced it further, except that his opposition to the Soviet
fascist state and determination to end it cost boatloads of cash. It
also caused outrage among the home grown fascists in the Media and
Universities, but was wildly popular among the general population which
was (and hopefully still remains) sane.#1. George WashingtonCould have been King. Wasn't. Q.E.D. Bottom Five:#5. John Adams.There's
no way to read the Alien and Sedition Acts as anything other than a
blatant violation of the First Amendment. It's a sad statement that the
first violation of a Presidential Oath of Office was with President #2. #4. Woodrow Wilson.Not
only did he revive the spirit of Adams' Sedition Acts, he caused a
Presidential opponent to be imprisoned under the terms of his grotesque
Sedition Act of 1918. He was Progressivism incarnate: he lied us into
war, he jailed the anti-war opposition, he instituted a draft, reinstituted segregation
in the Civil Service, and he was entirely soft-headed when it came to
foreign policy. The fact that Progressives love him (and hate Donald Trump) says all you need to know about them.#3 Lyndon Johnson.An
able legislator who was able to get bills passed without having any
real idea what they would do once enacted, he is responsible for more
Americans living in poverty and despair than any occupant of the White
House, and that says a lot.#2. Franklin Roosevelt.America's
Mussolini - ruling extra-Constitutionally fixing wages and prices,
packing the Supreme Court, and transforming the country into a bunch of
takers who would sell their votes for a trifle. He also rounded up a
bunch of Americans and sent them to Concentration Camps. But they were nice Concentration Camps - at least we're told that by his admirers. At least Mussolini met an honorable end.#1. Abraham Lincoln.There's
no doubt that the Constitution never would have been ratified if the
States hadn't thought they could leave if they needed to. Lincoln saw
to it that 10% of the military-age male population was killed or wounded
preventing that in an extra-Constitutional debacle unequaled in the
Republic's history. Along the way, he suspended Habeas Corpus,
instituted the first ever draft on these shores, and jailed political
opponents as he saw fit. Needless to say, Progressives adore him.So happy President's Day.
* I am currently reading A Man of Iron: The Turbulent Life and Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland (recommended). I had not known that the very first First Lady to have Jackie Kennedy style glamor was his wife Frances, whom he wed in the White House itself. Here she is in her salad days (courtesy of Wikipedia):