A poll was published recently that ranked President Obama as the worst president since World War II. Notwithstanding that this seems to me to be yet another example of people who blindly hate the president for no apparent reason other than the huge unstated one (see my previous entry), it’s not at all fair to judge a sitting president, no matter who they are or what you think of them, by overarching historical standards. Some time ago I read an assertion by a historian (unfortunately, I can’t remember the identity) who indicated that a President couldn’t really be judged from a historical perspective until 30 years after he left office. Based on this, the last President who can currently be judged historically is Jimmy Carter. To digress for a moment, I believe that Carter presents a very interesting dichotomy. It’s hard for me to believe that anyone, no matter what politics you might subscribe to, can argue that Jimmy Carter is anything but an upstanding, decent human being due nothing but undying respect. As a President, however, he has always been judged as, for the most part, a failure. It’s hard to believe that history going forward will change that very much. Between skyrocketing oil prices, overall inflation and the Iran hostage crisis, he was dealt probably the worst hand in Presidential history. So, it could be said that he was the best person to be President, but maybe one of the worst Presidents. Nixon, on the other hand, was, to say the least, not a great guy. The moniker Tricky Dick was very justifiably won. Yet there were accomplishments during his Presidency that, from a historical perspective, proved beneficial for the country. The bottom line is, I don’t think a critique like that could ever be done completely subjectively. Will Obama be treated well historically? Who knows? The jury’s really still out on Reagan, after all, despite the efforts of many to stack the deck in his favor. Once you set aside your personal feelings for Obama, or George W, or even Bill Clinton, for that matter, would it still be possible to categorize any of them as the worst Presidents at this point in time? I really don’t think so.
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