Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House

Perennial favorite George Washington holds onto the top slot in this latest incarnation of presidential greatness surveys. Wall Street Journal Web editor Taranto and Federalist Society executive vice president Leo polled experts in history, politics and law on both sides of the volatile liberal-conservative divide. This politically attuned selection process produces no real surprises, however. Abraham Lincoln and FDR join the""Father of His Country"" in the exclusive pantheon of outstanding leaders. Longtime failures James Buchanan and Warren Harding anchor the bottom rungs. Ronald Reagan merits""near great"" status here, compared to""average"" rankings elsewhere. However, Democratic icons provoke gratuitous partisan sniping from some of the well-known conservative contributors, especially on the contentious issue of character, tilting the editors' much-vaunted objectivity rightward as a result. Peggy Noonan lingers on JFK's peccadilloes, including his use of sunless tanning products, rather than on his skillful management of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Robert Bork highlights FDR's domestic and international miscues, leaving readers to wonder how the only four-term president ever made the top three. Although George W. Bush is not ranked, he garners a glowing profile that's twice as long as FDR's. Fortunately, back-to-back essays on Lincoln by Jay Winik and Andrew Johnson by Jeffrey Tulis stand out and provide perceptive, timely appraisals of contrasting styles of executive stewardship during national crises. Complemented by William Bennett's cri de coeur against declining standards in the teaching of American history, by scholarly musings on economic policy, wartime leadership, judicial appointments and disputed elections, and by a fine concluding overview of the editors' methodology, these subtly shifting critiques of American presidents will give political junkies plenty to tussle over.