Playing the ranking of Presidents game

A recent New York Times’ article “Rescuing a Vietnam Casualty: Johnson’s Legacy” cites a recent poll indicating how the approval ratings by the general public of the past nine Presidents.

Below a listing of the public’s rankings, we list our own and add the current president.

“The latest percentages are based on a national CNN/ORC telephone poll conducted Nov. 18-20, 2013; earlier numbers are based on CNN/ORC polls and Gallup polls.

APPROVAL RATINGS:

John F. Kennedy 90

Ronald Reagan 78

Bill Clinton 74

Gerald Ford 67

George H. W. Bush 62

Jimmy Carter 60

Lyndon Johnson 55

George W. Bush 42

Richard Nixon 31″

NEWSLANC RANKINGS:

Barack Obama (Not included in CNN poll)

Bill Clinton

George H. W. Bush

Gerald Ford

Richard Nixon

Lyndon Johnson

Jimmy Carter

Ronald Reagan

John F. Kennedy

George W. Bush

Had Harry S Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower been included, we would have placed them on the top of our list.

Formost of Barack Obama’s many accomplishment in the face of unremitting Republican opposition:

1) Extracting American troops from two senseless wars;

2) Bringing health insurance to 40 million Americans and taking the first steps towards reform of a broken system,

3) Reforming aspects of the misguided War on Drugs, to date largely through ‘benign neglect’ to state initiatives. Hopefully proposed reforms to the criminal justice system will follow.

4) Increasing income tax rates on the wealthy.

5) Elevating the status of African-Americans to full equality just by showing up!

Moreover, had Congress accepted his recommendation for fiscal stimulus, the nation would have recovered from the Great Recession and the ongoing economic stagnation at least two years ago and, with people back to work and wars ended, our budget would be in balance or close to it.

We invite our readers to comment now and then to check back in fifty years to see what historians have to say.