Whoa!

Indeed, scandal and corruption, which not surprisingly have tainted most administrations to some degree, pale by comparison to the damage presidential policy decisions have wreaked. What weight does Grant's Credit Mobilier scandal have in comparison to Lincoln's 620,000 dead in the Civil War? Harding's Teapot Dome affair is but a drop in the ocean compared to the global horrors set in train by Wilson's decision to take the United States into World War I: Allied victory, a harsh Versailles treaty, German resentment, the rise of Nazism, and World War II, not to speak of the rise of Communism, which also followed in World War I's wake. Why do the historians, and following them the public, place on pedestals the leaders responsible for such utter catastrophes?

I have a theory: left-liberal historians worship political power, and idolize those who wield it most lavishly in the service of left-liberal causes. How else can one account for the beatification of Lincoln, Wilson, and Franklin Roosevelt? Truman, now so elevated in the estimation of the historians, left office in unpopularity bordering on disgrace because of his Korean War disaster, but the historians forgive him, admiring his use of nuclear weapons and attempts to preserve and extend the New Deal. Theodore Roosevelt, a bloodthirsty proto-fascist, evokes admiration because of his public flogging of big business, a perennial left-liberal whipping boy.

No More Great Presidents, by Robert Higgs. RTWT.

Actually, I agree. I was listening to Bill Bennett this morning - because I'd rather hear enthusiastic statism than griping about the post-office and the school teachers having the day off. Anyway, Bill and his guest, a presidential historian, talked about the 1996 list that Higgs talks about then Bill's guest came up with his own: 1. Washington, 2. Lincoln and 3. tie: FDR and Reagan.

A full day and a half later. (I've been busy.)

I've said before that Grover Cleveland was great and that I really liked Calvin Coolidge. I'd be tempted to make my top three: 1. Cleveland, 2. Washington and 3. Coolidge. I like Jefferson for the Declaration, and I have to forgive unconstitutional Louisiana Purchase because I think it was a strategically necessary move when you consider what the English and Spaniards were up to back then. Lincoln gets high marks for freeing the slaves, even though I don't believe it was a high priority for him and I don't appreciate the means. I know of somebody who did it better.

I give Reagan high marks for reversing, if only temporarily, America's trend toward socialism. Put him in fourth place.

The worst? Roosevelt, Wilson, Polk and Roosevelt, T. In order. Then Carter and Nixon. GW Bush is looking an awful lot like a cross between Wilson and Polk to me.

Read the article and the Mises Blog comments for some justifications and google Friesian Presidents (I'd put that in quotes, but if you were to cut and paste them that way it probably wouldn't help) for others.

I tend to believe, unlike the Mises Inst/Anti-War.com guys, that war is sometimes necessary, but I'm convinced that the Military Industrial Complex paradigm fs it up. But, if you want to compare wars, this one's pretty tame.

So far.