This will be a fun game. This is a ranking by C-SPAN. Others that do it might be a little biased. I trust these guys. They did ranked the presidents in 2000, 20009, and 2017. So let's look at and criticize 2017's rankings. We'll start with their bottom ten.
43. James Buchanan - It's an ok thing to be underrated. But you have to be rated badly to begin with to get there. Buchanan is that. The pre-Civil War presidents all get ripped off for compromising with the South. But they were just trying to keep the Union together. We could have had the Civil War decades sooner. When the South left the Union he didn't try to bring them back. He didn't think the Constitution allowed him to basically declare war on part of the U.S. If not a valid point, at least an understandable one. He was one of a few Presidents that were successful in everything they ever did, but then not as President - Hoover, JQ Adams, Carter. Life lesson - Quit when you're ahead.
42. Andrew Johnson - He is basically President Trump without Twitter. His state Tennessee left the Union, but he stayed. Very commendable. Lincoln thought so highly of that, he made him vice president. He wanted to welcome back the South to the Union just as he felt Lincoln would have. However, he also wanted to because he didn't really have that big of a problem with slavery. So he probably should be ranked low - but there are some good qualities about him. He also didn't deserve to be impeached.
41. Franklin Pierce - Poor Franklin. He was an alcoholic, but gave it up. He was elected President, but before he took office, his only living child was killed in a train accident. His wife was sickly and this kind of sent her over the edge mentally. After his term, his wife died and he then renewed his love of alcohol until it eventually killed him. Tough life. Have a heart C-SPAN.
40. Warren G. Harding - I think the job was more than he bargained for. He owned a paper. He wrote editorials on government for his paper. So he knew some things. But its easier to critique things that to actually do things. He got in and appointed a bunch of his buddies to high positions. They figured they could get away with all kinds of stuff, and they were right. He looked and sounded presidential. That should count for something.
39. John Tyler - Again, deserves better. The first VP to become to become President. That was after Harrison died within a month. Tyler barely had time to unpack. Others took his position to be just a fill-in until they could pick the next President, but he stood his ground. He compromised with the other party, so his party hated him, but he didn't compromise enough to have his other party like him. So he was kind of party-less for the 3 years and 11 months of his term. He was maybe the most pro-slavery of our Presidents, though.
38. William Henry Harrison - One more snub of Tyler, by ranking Harrison right ahead of him. What exactly did he accomplish? Not a lot. He was only there a month, and he was sick for a lot of that.
37. Millard Fillmore - Yeah, probably about right. I like his name, though.
36. Herbert Hoover - He inherited a terrible economy. And it's not true that he did nothing. We forget how radical the New Deal was. Most Presidents would have done the things Hoover did.
35. Chester Allan Arthur - I think he was morally suspect before being President, but then came in after an assassination and than seemed to change is moral compass direction. He cleaned some things up while he was President.
34. Martin Van Buren - Like Hoover, the guy before him messed up the economy so the next guy had it tank just after he came in. Martin was a behind the scenes, campaign manager for A. Jackson. Usually they aren't a sympathetic figure. Maybe he got what he deserved.
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