Presidents Ranked Based On Challenges
Rankings by Davis Foulger
I've heard a large number of Republicans tell me how hard Bush has had it and
what a cushy eight years Clinton had. The assertion strikes me as ludicrous
at face, if only based on their media coverage and the willingness of congress
to rubber stamp their legislative proposals. I decided, however, to check it
out. Just how hard have U.S. Presidents had it? I have compiled a list of U.S.
Presidents and the Challenges they have faced. This ranking is a statement
of just how hard I think various presidents have had it based on that data.
These comparisons are, in some ways, unfair. The population of the United States
grows tremendously over this period, making larger scale problems more likely.
Record keeping for weather and natural disasters doesn't become routine until
the late 19th century. Economic records aren't kept in any reasonably systematic
fashion until the middle of the 20th century. Still, there is probably no arguing
that the job of President is harder now than it was 200 years ago. That said,
I would rank the difficulties that Presidents faced as follows:
- Abraham Lincoln. Over 500,000 soldiers die in the Civil War, our nation's
most serious crisis. Along the way he changes the world for the better forever.
- Woodrow Wilson. The 500,000 deaths in the 1918 flu epidemic is the largest
death toll from any single source in a single year in U.S. history. He faced
that death toll, morover, while sending 100,000 American soldiers to their
deaths in WWI. Other epidemics, accidents, and natural disasters in his term
add over 10,000 more U.S. deaths to his term of office. On the upside, he
starts the League of Nations in an attempt to prevent another world war.
- Franklin Roosevelt. After facing down a national depression, Franklin Roosevelt
had to deal with upwards of 400,000 casualties in WWII and a variety of other
accidents and natural disasters. He takes second to Wilson, but not by much.
- Harry Truman. Most of the 100,000 casualties in the Korean War come on his
watch. A polio epidemic claimed another 7000 lives in 1952. He starts the
United Nations while dealing with all this.
- Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. Its hard to decide which of these Presidents
has it worse. Both oversee tens of thousands of war casualties. Both deal
with some of the most severe social protest in the history of the United States.
Both deal with major natural disasters. Both live in the shadow of JFK's legend
and are unable to measure up.
- James Polk. The Mexican War provided a major challenge and a death toll
as high as 13,000.
- James Madison. The War of 1812 killed over 2000 American's.
- George Herbert Walker Bush. Earthquakes, hurricanes, oil spills, and the
first gulf war made G.H.W. Bush's term a challenging one. Overall, he does
a pretty good job, but is unable to overcome the recession that is handed
to him by Ronald Reagan.
- William Jefferson Clinton. Although none of the disasters in Clinton's term
were as serious as the worst in G.H.W. Bushes, he faced a lot of them and
several delivered what should have been punishing blows to the economy. It
remsins that he managed, despite a hostile congress and eight years of spurious
investigations, to build (or at least not get in the way of) a strong economy
and to fight an emergent terrorism very effectively.
- George W. Bush. Although he has really only faced one major challenge, it
was a biggy: the destruction of one of the major symbols of our capitalist
democracy by terrorists. What he has done in the wake of that challenge is,
in the end, rather embarrassing. He has attacked countries that had nothing
to do with the terrorism with a serious toll in American lives, undermined
our alliances, broken important treaties, arrested people and held them without
benefit of counsel, in many cases, for months or yeasrs at a time, and passed
laws that reduce our freedoms.
If you'd like to argue you for a different ranking, feel free to append
your argument for that ranking here.