Dubya Has Some Work To Do...

C-SPAN has released a new survey of 65 historians and presidential observers and ranked our Chief Executives from one to 42. (Yes, Obama is President # 44, but he isn't in this survey, and Grover Cleveland was numbers 22 AND 24, so he's only counted once)

Here are your top and bottom 10 Presidents:

You will note that our most recent president, George W. Bush, is ranked 36th.... About where you'd expect him to be, given his popularity ratings in his final years in office. But there's hope yet for Dubya. It remains to be seen whether time heals all wounds, but it does tend to take the edge off of hard feelings.

In a similar survey taken in 2000, Bill Clinton finished 21st... Nine years later, Slick Willie is up to 15th! Of course, for every uptick, there must be a downtick... Jimmy Carter, for example, has dropped from 22nd to 25th in the same time span.

Most of the top 10 you see above is unchanged from the 2000 survey, although Ronald Reagan did swap places with LBJ. Nothing like dying to improve your image.

And speaking of the dead, I still think no one (except maybe Elvis) has benefitted more from dying than John F. Kennedy. Yes, the guy was dynamic and good-looking and all, and yes, he did get us into the space program, which was the coolest thing ever. But he was also President for less than three years. You can't convince me he would have stayed in that spot if he had served two full terms!

You can see the complete list here, and see the comprehensive C-SPAN survey here!