Times (UK) ranks the middling presidents
With Nixon and Bush Jr. out of the running nice and early, we can continue our comprehensive countdown to the greatest ever Commander-in-Chief in The Times US presidential rankings.
Eight of our US and foreign policy experts have considered, compared, debated and finally ranked all 42 presidents in order of greatness to give us a complete list of the best and worst.
Yesterday we published the ten worst and today it is time for numbers 32 to 22:
32. Jimmy Carter
1977-81 (Democratic)
Many of the comment posters on yesterday's worst ten presidents could not believe Carter missed the roll of shame. Well our panel only just left him out - making him their 11th worst President.
The Carter administration was dominated by a series of foreign policy disappointments including the surrender of the Panama Canal, the Iranian hostage crisis and the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan.
In Washington, Carter instituted major civil service reform and restructured the health and education departments but he failed to excite the voting population and, with the economy struggling, he was comfortably voted out of office after a single term.
"Carter got just about everything wrong." Chris Ayres, Los Angeles correspondent
31. John Tyler
1841-45 (Whig)
Tyler assumed the presidency after a brief constitutional crisis following the sudden death of William Harrison. He had been the Vice President and from this moment, all VPs were a heartbeat away from the White House.
He struggled to assert his authority and his presidency was often referred to as “his accidency”. He managed to survive the first ever attempt to impeach a President after an unpopular veto and went on to annex Texas and then bring Florida into the Union....
Read entire article at Times (UK)
Eight of our US and foreign policy experts have considered, compared, debated and finally ranked all 42 presidents in order of greatness to give us a complete list of the best and worst.
Yesterday we published the ten worst and today it is time for numbers 32 to 22:
32. Jimmy Carter
1977-81 (Democratic)
Many of the comment posters on yesterday's worst ten presidents could not believe Carter missed the roll of shame. Well our panel only just left him out - making him their 11th worst President.
The Carter administration was dominated by a series of foreign policy disappointments including the surrender of the Panama Canal, the Iranian hostage crisis and the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan.
In Washington, Carter instituted major civil service reform and restructured the health and education departments but he failed to excite the voting population and, with the economy struggling, he was comfortably voted out of office after a single term.
"Carter got just about everything wrong." Chris Ayres, Los Angeles correspondent
31. John Tyler
1841-45 (Whig)
Tyler assumed the presidency after a brief constitutional crisis following the sudden death of William Harrison. He had been the Vice President and from this moment, all VPs were a heartbeat away from the White House.
He struggled to assert his authority and his presidency was often referred to as “his accidency”. He managed to survive the first ever attempt to impeach a President after an unpopular veto and went on to annex Texas and then bring Florida into the Union....