President Kennedy’s handling of the Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis resulted in varying assessments regarding his capability. Some argue that Kennedy exhibited both strength and composure in averting nuclear war, while others maintain that he bumbled the Bay of Pigs in the first place and thus emboldened Khrushchev to play an aggressive hand regarding the missiles.
To that end, must a president address issues of monumental proportions (such as nuclear war) to be considered great, or should those who presided during unremarkable times be given more credit as catalysts of welcome mundaneness?
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We encourage lively, thought-provoking discussions conducted with dignity and decorum. We reserve the right to remove any comments that are deemed abrasive and directed toward any member. No president is off limits, but we adhere to the longstanding tradition of refraining from fully evaluating presidents who have not been out of office for at least 20 years. While negative criticism of specific presidents is allowed, here’s what’s appropriate and what is not.
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Over the years there has been much criticism about this topic. Critics complain that too many scholars base their rankings on a strong presidency, which is not necessarily always an effective one. I would still start with peace and prosperity as the main pillars of presidential success and go from there.
And I agree with those on here who’ve said we really ought to wait 20 years until a president has left office to fully evaluate his/her performance.
Roy,
The more I think about it the more I also agree that we ought to wait twenty years until a president leaves office before ranking him or her. Of course it is tempting to rank Trump, Obama, and the younger Bush, but it may not be time yet.
Ivan Eland in his book Recarving Rushmore really upsets the apple cart and for one thing ranks John Tyler as #1.
I’m familiar with Eland’s book. His is an interesting take about what’s important in a presidency. He has a strong preference for presidents he believes did not exceed the power and authority granted onto them by the Constitution.
Interesting questions, both the broad and narrow, but I’ll address the narrow (for now): Khrushchev wanted to test the young American president. Had Eisenhower been in charge, Khrushchev likely would not have attempted to place missiles in Cuba, even if Ike had gone through with the Bay of Pigs invasion and it failed as it had under Kennedy (which also may or may not have been the case).
On another note, some people have a real problem with rankings and prefer to evaluate presidents on a scale of, say, 1-5 instead of directly comparing one to the other.
Perhaps a criterion of presidential rankings ought to be performance under the circumstances, so as to credit those who did a good job under intense pressure without penalizing those who had an easier time of things.
Roy,
I agree with you on how people may see a problem with ranking presidents on a 1-5 scale. I propose that instead a 1-5 scale, there could be a tier list created so that people can rank each president by directly comparing one to the other. There should be different categories in the tier list so that each president can fully be represented for their time in office. Here is a example of the concept of ranking presidents with a tier list:
https://tiermaker.com/create/i-rate-the-us-president-based-on-their-pets-637423
With a list like this we could gather data on how the public view these presidents base on the different categories that are created for the tier list.
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