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Buy the Book
Rating the Presidents and Their Raters
Robert W. Merry explores American history “through the prism of presidential performance.”
Where They Stand: The American Presidents in the Eyes of Voters
and Historians
By Robert W. Merry
(Simon & Schuster, 320 pages, $28)
Robert Merry is a throwback—a journalist and a historian with no academic biases or shackles; a newsman and a man of letters, who values deep and thoughtful analysis, presented in clear, strong prose; and a writer who understands the primacy of a good story, well and intelligently told.
Merry served as Washington correspondent for the Wall Street Journal and executive editor of Congressional Quarterly, which he built into a widely respected publication, and has written for The American Spectator, New York Times, Weekly Standard, National Review, and the National Interest, of which he’s now editor. He’s also the author of three well-received books.
In his previous book, A Country of Vast Designs, Merry brought James K. Polk and his era to vivid life, resurrecting many of the largely forgotten figures of the period. In Where They Stand, he does the same for a great sweep of American politics, rexamining those presidents whose accomplishments have begun to fade, analyzing why they succeeded or failed by taking into account the judgments of historians and the voters who put them in office.
Since Arthur Schlesinger Sr. initiated his first presidential ratings survey in 1948 by asking a selected group of like-minded scholars to rate our presidents from great to failure, the “presidential rating game” has grown in popularity. In his approach to the game, Merry tells us he’s
less interested in who’s up and who’s down…than I am in what the Ratings Game teaches about how the presidency works and how presidents succeed—or fail—or serve simply in a zone of ordinariness or mediocrity. I put forward just one insight I consider fresh and perhaps even of value—namely, that no ratings game is worthy of the name if it ignores the contemporaneous judgment of the electorate.…Like most of us presidents have a boss—in their case, the American people. And if the boss was happy or unhappy with a particular employee of the past, then who are we—or even a collection of historians—to toss that aside?
Merry’s intention is to “explore American history through the prism of presidential performance.” As a navigating aid, he tells us, “I don’t place much stock in the personal judgments of individual analysts or commentators (including myself)…. Instead, I place stock in collective assessments—the rankings of hundreds of historians through multiple surveys over several decades; and the collective judgment of the electorate as it hired and fired presidents through the course of American history.”
He believes this approach “militates against any tendency to insert partisan sentiments into the discussion.” The voters have hired and fired conservative and liberal presidents. “By concentrating on voter sentiments we keep the focus on performance and away from anyone’s political leanings.”
Merry himself believes “that the two greatest presidents of the twentieth century were Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan—one perhaps the century’s most liberal president, the other perhaps its most conservative one.” He arrives at this conclusion, in part, because they were the only 20th-century presidents to be elected twice and also to “maintain party control of the White House after their second terms. In other words, they met the highest test of electoral success.” The people who hired them, in other words, strongly approved of their performance.
Merry breaks his book into four parts, the first an exploration of “the academic polls and the literature surrounding them,” as well as “the vagaries of history,” those changes in presidential rankings brought about by new causes and “vogues of thought.” (Think here of how new attitudes toward American Indians, much in fashion today, have altered contemporary assessments of Arthur Schlesinger Jr.’s beloved Andrew Jackson.) The second part consists of a discussion of “the making of the presidency” at the 1787 Constitutional Convention; presidential elections as referendums on the incumbent president or party; and the way electoral judgments come into play within the referendum system.
In the third section, Merry lays out his “test of greatness,” one of the most important components being “the war decision.” He also discusses what he calls the split-decision presidents—“two-termers whose second-term performances led to a White House change of party at the next election.” Two of the most notable examples of recent memory were Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.
Johnson’s spectacular crash-and-burn presidency was the result of making the wrong “war decision” in Vietnam—and making it in the name of defending “the vast Cold War perimeter,” a policy rejected by Eisenhower but resurrected under Kennedy, and “fully embraced by many Kennedy advisers retained by Johnson, most notably Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy. These men had contributed significantly to the Vietnam situation inherited by Johnson, and it was fraught with peril.”
INDEED IT WAS, and there’s an interesting sub-topic here—the role of key advisers in the success or failure of a presidency. Presidents Grant and George W. Bush also come immediately to mind. But that’s another subject, and as Merry points out, the war in Vietnam, misconceived and mismanaged by Johnson’s advisors, both civilian and military, and by Johnson himself, put the nation in peril—a mess that was dropped directly into the lap of LBJ’s successor, Richard Nixon.
In part, because of the dual mandate Nixon was handed—bring an honorable end to the war and restore peace to a nation ravaged by rioting and unrest—he both failed and succeeded. As Merry notes, Nixon “never talked of winning the war; he spoke of ‘ending the war and winning the peace’”—and by so doing, to put into effect “his grand geopolitical vision, as reflected in the brilliant article he wrote for Foreign Affairs in October 1967.”
This article, Merry writes, “presaged his later overture to China,” which in turn led to the rebalancing of global power throughout the world. “But in the meantime, it was crucial that he prevent a communist victory in Vietnam.” Otherwise, the American presence in Asia would have been attenuated, newly non-communist Asian nations wouldn’t have resisted Chinese influence, “and China wouldn’t have been emboldened to break decisively with the Soviet Union.”
About the Author
John R. Coyne, Jr. a former White House speech-writer, is co-author with Linda Bridges of Strictly Right: William F. Buckley Jr. and the American Conservative Movement (Wiley).
Letter to the Editor View all comments (28) | Leave a comment
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Brooksifier | 6.27.12 @ 6:40AM
"Merry himself believes “that the two greatest presidents of the twentieth century were Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan"
Hilarity to ensue.
Derek Leaberry| 6.27.12 @ 8:19AM
Harding, perhaps the least intelligent president of the 20th Century, was one of its best. He inherited a deep recession, cut taxes and spending, and the economy revived. He gave birth to the "Roaring Twenties." Harding provided leadership in the global reduction of naval warships. He ended the Palmer raid mentality prevailing in the Wilson Administration. He freed Eugene Debs from prison. America returned to normalcy.
tdiinva| 6.27.12 @ 9:25AM
On what basis do you claim that Harding was the least intelligent President of the 20th Century? Do you have his IQ score to compare with all the others? Is that relative statement such as all Presidents have had an IQ above 130 except for Harding who had a 120 score? Of all the Presidents who have IQ scores available -- basicly the WWII serving Presidents -- Kennedy was lowest at 120 and Nixon was the Highest at 180. Even 120 is not low. It is one standard deviation above the mean.
IQ above a certain level become an ego thing. Richard Feynman, perhaps the greatest particle physicist of his generation, had an IQ of 127. That is slightly less than the much denigraded George W. Bush.
Derek Leaberry| 6.27.12 @ 10:32AM
Knowing something about the 20th Century presidents, I would certainly place Teddy Roosevelt(writer), William Howard Taft(law), Woodrow Wilson(intellectual), Herbert Hoover(engineer), Dwight Eisenhower(war engineer,writer), Richard Nixon(law), Jimmy Carter(engineer), Ronald Reagan(economist, writer) and Bill Clinton(law) above Harding. There might be an argument that William McKinley, Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman, Jack Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford, and George HW Bush were closer to Harding's level. However, Harding was a journalist and certainly no Mencken. So I place him belong the other presidents in intellect.
Occam's Tool| 6.27.12 @ 10:51AM
Yes, but Wilson and Carter were profoundly ignorant men, bordering on evil. The Best Presidents were foxes, not hedgehogs.
The Brightest President was not Jefferson, but Lincoln.
AllAmericanAmerican| 6.27.12 @ 11:55AM
OT I respectfully suggest you read some of Thomas DiLorenzo's books on Lincoln---you may change your tune on him.
Derek Leaberry| 6.27.12 @ 1:16PM
Wilson, Clinton and Johnson were evil and unwise. Carter was more along the lines of foolish.
Lincoln was highly intelligent, if evil. Certainly top ten in intelligence. But he was not as intelligent as Jefferson.
David T| 6.27.12 @ 2:30PM
Lincoln didn't have the well-rounded education and wide-ranging intellectual interests of Jefferson, but he certainly matched Jefferson in raw IQ points. Lincoln was a thinker par excellence and a prose master. And, pace DiLorenzo, he wasn't evil--Nixonian, maybe, but not evil.
Dai Alanye | 6.27.12 @ 10:54AM
A superficial evaluation at best. Further, in calling Carter an engineer he takes Jimmuh at his own evaluation. Carter was not a "nuclear engineer" nor did he have an engineering degree.
Derek Leaberry| 6.27.12 @ 1:19PM
Carter did graduate the Naval Academy with its emphasis on hard sciences. He didn't graduate on a diet of Women''s Studies courses and Black Studies.
Occam's Tool| 6.27.12 @ 2:19PM
I believe Hyman's term for carter was that there are "engineers who design things and engineers who drive choo-choos. Carter was the later."
Derek Leaberry| 6.27.12 @ 3:28PM
Well, he was able to run a peanut farm adequately.
Carter's father was a southern gentleman, the leading man in his county. I wonder why Carter ended up so badly. And think about Carter's feminist-socialist daughter, Amy. Earl Carter would have been disappointed.
Occam's Tool| 6.27.12 @ 10:49AM
Lazy genius is no genius at all. Feyman's IQ was mismeasured. Look at "5 easy and not so easy pieces."
Jack in Wi| 6.27.12 @ 9:39PM
Derek: I totally agree about Warren Harding. But my favorite President was William Henry Harrison. He did the least damage of any President.
AllAmericanAmerican| 6.27.12 @ 9:48AM
“The progenitor of Franklin Roosevelt is not Jackson; it is Henry Clay."
Really? Might want to check your history there fella. The progenitor of Tyrant Abe was Henry Clay. They were contemporaries in the Whig Party and Clay was Lincoln's political mentor.
Any presidential rating that does not list Lincoln somewhere at, near, or below the bottom is to be ignored. We would not be where we are today, with a federal leviathan government, were it not for Lincoln.
Dai Alanye | 6.27.12 @ 10:57AM
True, in a sense. Without Lincoln we'd be divided into several little nations, quarreling continually with one another. The US would resemble the Balkans.
AllAmericanAmerican| 6.27.12 @ 11:50AM
I highly doubt that. The South was very open to compensated emancipation and the CSA made countless overtures to Lincoln---all refused. In fact, the four "upper" Southern States--VA, TN, NC, & AR--only left the union AFTER Sumter, when Lincoln demanded they provide him with troops to invade the CSA.
Every other Western nation that practiced slavery was able to abolish it without bloodshed and war.
Not only that but technological advancements were making slavery less profitable anyway. Lincoln wanted high tariffs to help fund "internal improvements," IOW launder tax money to his railroad masters. Along the way he consolidated power in the executive branch and effectively neutered the notion of State sovereignty. Obammy is just finishing what Lincoln started.
AllAmericanAmerican| 6.27.12 @ 11:52AM
Guess I shoulda asked as opposed to constantly quarreling with random nations around the globe?
Me, I'd rather live in a "Balkanized" North America where one nation respected the original founding documents of the USA and maximized individual freedom than in the United Nanny State Nation we have now.
Occam's Tool| 6.27.12 @ 10:47AM
I have been to James K Polk's home and museum and The Hermitage.
Seeing the conditions Jackson's slaves lived in is disheartening. Realizing that Jackson was the only great man in his family is disheartening, as well.
Polk's home and museum, unlike Clinton's "half-chub in Little Rock," is modest, as suits the man, although his achievements were anything but. The best of the Near-Great Presidents, in my opinion, and one whose perfection obscured his talents (getting everything done in one term and then discreetly dying months after leaving office is an admirable pattern).
Dai Alanye | 6.27.12 @ 10:59AM
The way Jackson treated Indian nations, even including those allied with the US, is worse than disheartening.
Occam's Tool| 6.27.12 @ 2:20PM
Dai: no comment on the "half-chub in Little Rock?" Both my wife and I noted the phallic resemblance at the same time.
J.C.Eaton| 6.27.12 @ 2:50PM
I always enjoy the the discussions surrounding this topic: they're an exercise in mental onanism But fun, nonetheless. Mr. Merry's book on Polk is very good indeed.And Mr. Polk probably deserves a lot of admiration because he announced at the outset that he intended to be a one-term President. He was true to his word and accomplished virtually everything he set out to do. I tend to agree with AAA that Mr. Lincoln was overrated....sorry to those of you that revere theman but he did get 600,000 of his countrymen killed and his legacy has been burnished by martyrdom. In my highly skewered opinion, the best of the bunch was, is, and always will be: the First: His Excellency. Best,
RJ| 6.27.12 @ 6:55PM
I agree with you that George Washington deserves to be first in our hearts, but I think that Lincoln deserves to be in second place. He outlawed slavery which the Founders could not. He created a delicate political coalition to win the Civil War, as well as prevent European empires from taking advantage of our conflict. Secretary of War Stanton deserves full credit for the administration of the war. Lincoln deserves full political credit for finally resolving the issue of slavery and keeping the country together; both of which are major accomplishments. I have often wondered how Andrew Jackson, who put down the Nullification Crisis, would have done if he served during Lincoln's term. My guess is that he might have done better in the conduct of the war, but, as a slave owner, I don't think he would not have done as well in ending slavery. I can't see him promoting the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment.
AllAmericanAmerican| 6.27.12 @ 7:57PM
What is so great about keeping a union together when some of the members do not want to remain a part of it??? I don't get it.
Recently we heard the phrase "too big to fail" as an excuse to bail out large banks and GM. A few conservatives made the argument that these companies NEEDED to fail and the market would correct itself if only a big nanny state gubmint would stay out of it.
IMO, secession was the same thing 150 years ago. It was our Constitutional Republic "auto-correcting" itself when a tyrant (Lincoln) tried to overstep his executive authority. Left alone, in time slavery WOULD have ended as it did in EVERY OTHER Western nation which practiced it, all without the 600,000+ dead JC mentioned. Secession was and IS a check on the all-encompassing Federal Govt encroaching on State Sovereignty.
Read Scalia's dissenting opinion. Read DiLorenzo. Read Thomas Woods' "Nullification." Read Bastiat.
Instead you have people who claim to be small govt, States' Rights, maximum freedom-type folks LAUDING Lincoln, the man who literally destroyed States Rights, the man who used the US Army to kill civilians in NEW YORK CITY, the man who "freed" slaves (well only the ones in CSA control---the ones in Southern territories under Union control remained slaves). The man who literally until his dying day tried to repatriat blacks back to Africa, to Central America, to South America, anywhere he could send them.
AllAmericanAmerican| 6.27.12 @ 7:58PM
(Cont)
Sure, Lincoln didn't want slavery in the Western territories---IN ORDER TO KEEP THEM LILY WHITE!!!
Lincoln was a tyrant who trampled, sh*t on, p*ssed upon, chewed up and vomited out the US Constitution, he is the reason every other petty dictator wannabe like Wilson and FDR and LBJ did the same, and Obama is simply finishing what Lincoln started.
If you love you some Lincoln, it is intellectually dishonest to bash Obama for Obamacare and immigration and stimulus, etc. At least he isn't arresting State legislatures (yet) or using he Army to arrest John Roberts (yet).
RJ| 6.27.12 @ 10:33PM
We are going to disagree on Lincoln. You are right that he was influenced by Henry Clay and supported Clay's "American System" so I would not call him an advocate of small government. However, I don't see him as being another Obama or Franklin Roosevelt. (I have read many of Scalia's writings and Bastiat is the best of best. Neither one of them would fashion a defense for slavery.)
Two points regarding your note: It is implied that secession was in response to Lincoln overstepping his executive authority, but most of the states left the Union before Lincoln was inaugurated. The dispute rested on the seceding states' demand to extend slavery beyond their borders.
Second, you say that slavery would have died out as it did in other societies. In my readings of contemporary writings from the American Revolution era through the Civil War, I am always struck that slavery was less vigorously "justified" by the Founders' generation than by the generation of the 1830s through the 1860s. Some Southern Slave-owners were involved in disrupting foreign governments in Cuba and Central America in their efforts to extend their interests in slavery. The Dred Scott decision allowed them to take slavery into US territories which wished to be free of it and there was a legitimate fear that the Courts would extend this principle to the free states. Perhaps the South would have abandoned slavery at some point, but there is no evidence that they were turning in that direction.
AllAmericanAmerican| 6.28.12 @ 11:19AM
We're not disagreeing on Lincoln---you are refusing to accept reality. I too was once a believer in the "Lincoln Myth" taught in schools. Then when Obammy re-enacted Lincoln's journey to DC for his inauguration I looked into why the most liberal, commie, Marxist Senator in the US Senate would be so hip to good ol' "honest' Abe, the founder of the Republican Party.
Read some history, real history, not the nonsense taught in schools. Hell, read Lincoln's own words. You might be surprised.
RJ| 6.27.12 @ 6:42PM
There is much to be critical of regarding G.W. Bush's Presidency, but there has been some convenient rewriting of the facts regarding the reasons for going to war against Saddam Hussein. It was certainly not limited to weapons of mass destruction. I offer the following words from Donald Rumsfeld's book, "Known and Unknown":
"Intelligence evidence about WMD had a way of taking pride of place in the litany of reasons for going to war. In fact, that should have been only one of the many reasons. There was a long list of other charges against Saddam Hussein’s regime – its support for terrorism, its attacks on American pilots in the no-fly zones, its violation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions, its history of aggression, and its crimes against its people. … Obviously the focus on WMD to the exclusion of almost all else was a public relations error that cost the administration dearly. (435) On October 2002, Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq. This often overlooked but significant congressional action reflected a strong, broad, and bipartisan view that Saddam Hussein’s regime would need to be toppled by force to protect the United States and international peace and security. Rather than focusing solely on WMD programs, the legislation listed twenty-three separate indictments against the regime." (pages 435-436)