C-span survey of presidential leadership

Puts Lincoln as number 1, followed by Washington and FDR.

Thought this would amuse the board:

http://www.c-span.org/presidentialsurvey/overall-ranking.aspx

My main beefs are Woodrow Wilsons and JFKs high scores. The first was an intelligent but dislikable man who combined horrible people skills, misguided idealism, and old-fashioned southern racism. The second is simply overrated and made some pretty large blunders (getting into Vietnam, Bay of pigs, and a Cuban missile crisis that turned out well but should have been avoided in the first place).

JFK gets a free pass on these sorts of things all the time. They might have Dubya a little on the high side, and Carter is waaaaaaay too high.

Yep, perceived martyrdom tends to do that to politicians. We had a pretty controversial PM who got shot and became a symbol of the good old days.

From what little I'd know I prefer either Johnson or Nixon to JFK on substance depending on the issue (even if Nixon obviously had mental issues towards the end with the paranoia and all).

I thought it was cool that Eisenhower moved a point up to #8. He was a smart, principled man, and very forward-thinking for his time. Much better nuts and bolts president than JFK, but never gets the props.