Cross posted at Left Coast Rebel
#4 Ronald Reagan – Ronaldus Magnus is without a doubt my personal favorite president and it is with great difficulty I do not put him closer to #1 in this list. He defeated what was arguably our mightiest foe in our short history and he did so without firing a shot while encouraging many of the wonderful technological advances we enjoy today through his push for space supremacy. Reviled by the press, he nonetheless spoke directly to the hearts of the American people. That ability and his wit and charm lead to the biggest electoral landslide in history. He understood the fight we would be in for the hearts and minds of our children’s children. He is the father of modern conservatism. Despite the smear jobs of liberal historians and the press will say, he was extremely well read and supremely knowledgeable of the issues and history. One of his main advantages was that he was nearly always underestimated because of his looks, age, or because of his sense of humor. In my mind, when I picture the President of the United States he is who I suspect I will always see. There is simply no comparison to any president who has come since, and many who came before. I would support cloning if it meant bringing him back. I would like to dynamite Roosevelt’s face right off of Rushmore and put Reagan there.
#3 Abraham Lincoln - warned the South in his inaugural address “in your hands my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of Civil War. The government will not assail you…you have not an oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect, and defend it.” After defeating the Confederacy the enemy combatants were for the most part pardoned, the President encouraged southerners to lay down their arms and join speedily in re-union. Reconstruction would likely have been vastly different had Lincoln not been assassinated, in his second inaugural address he said: “With malice toward none, with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nations wounds…” His assassination turned reconstruction into the military occupation and subjugation of the South…creating more wounds instead of healing them…the assassination…not his presidency. I learn and adjust my positions when I am wrong. I have learned much in the last year regarding the civil war, Lincoln helped fulfill the promise of the founding. That being said, I am still not sure it is illegal for states to secede.
#2 Thomas Jefferson - “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man” Jefferson took that oath literally. After the wars and crisis in France passed he reduced the armed forces, cut the budget, eliminated the onerous whiskey tax, and reduced the debt by third. He sent the marines to whip up on the Barbary Pirates harassing shipping in the Med , Responsible for the Louisiana purchase. Sent Louis And Clark on the Voyage of Discovery to map our territory, an endeavor very literally equal to the Moonshot in its audacity for the time.
#1 George Washington – The indispensible man. The only man that the founders all agreed on to lead them. Led the continental army through to victory in what should have been an unwinnable war, then became our first president. Saw early on the flaws in the Articles of Confederation and became a prime mover for the Constitutional Convention. Accurately foresaw what the two parties would do to politics in this nation, and in his Farewell Address urged his countrymen to limit excessive party spirit, and geographical distinctions and warned against long term alliances with foreign powers (advice we obviously have not kept). He was actually asked by many to become King…a title he vehemently refused. To be begged to be King and to refuse it, that is Character. There was never any doubt, or should not be, who is our greatest president ever.
For the rest of the countdowns:
Worst Presidents of All Time: 20-11; 10-1
Best Presidents of All Time: 10-8; 7-5
-KOOK
