Best/Worst Presidents

[rocketpig]

Kasz216 said:

Anyway, my list

Best

1) Theodore Roosevelt - Was someone who was able to compromise while still getting shit done.  Only president widely considered one of the greatest who DIDN'T have a giant ass war to bail us out of.  Put in just about the right level of government controls into most areas. 

2)  George Washington - The reason so few revolutions actually seem to result in true monoarchs is because of the lack of leaders like George Washinton who stand up and say "I don't want to be King/Dictator." 

3)  Thomas Jefferson - Lousiana Purchase.  He had native american issues, but at least was for assimilation above all else.  Unlike a guy in the bottom of the list.

4)  Lincoln - Why so low on the list?  Well, because honsetly I think Lincoln was partly a product of his time.  I think the presidents above would of done just as well during the Civil War if not beter.  Did a lot of awful things as well...  Nowhere near FDR or Woodrow Wilson level though.

5)  Really any number of presidents work here.... no one else stands out head and above the next 6-10 i can think of.

Worst

1)  James Buchanon - Basically caused the Civil war.

2) Andrew Jackson - Jacksonian Democracy is great and all but it doesn't make up for fucking genocide.  It just doesn't.

3) FDR - Sure, we won WW2... great if your an "Ends justify the means" type person, however the list of his crimes makes George W Bush look like a saint.  

The guy imprisoned completely innocent citizens because they found out he was plotting to get us into WW2, while running a campaign that directly said he would keep us out of WW2 because that's what most of the people wanted.  He tried to destroy the supreme court by passing  a measure that would let presidents nominate as many justices as they wanted until they got the ruling they wanted.  The list of shit he did and shit he wanted to do is too long for this.

 

4) Franklin Pierce - Same as Buchanon but to a lesser degree

5) Hebert Hoover - Ironically considered the posterchild of not acting during times of economic disaster.  In reality he was the very first President who advocated cyclical spending, and did so.  He actually greatly increased government spending by a level that was pretty unprecedented at the time.  This is frogtten only by how much FDR raised it.

Probably the most thought-out, balanced, and fair list I've seen in this thread. Kudos. I'm not sold on FDR being on worst list but you said it right there... It all depends on perspective.