As candidates compete to become the next president of the United States, one memoir, Raising Hell for Justice: The Washington Battles of a Heartland Progressive (University of Wisconsin Press), renders judgment on every person who has held that office in the post-Vietnam era--offering some surprising verdicts.

The book's author, Democratic Congressman David R. Obey of Wisconsin, is the longest serving member of the U.S. Congress in Wisconsin history, first elected in 1969, and the powerful chairman of the Appropriations Committee. He has pronounced Republican Gerald R. Ford, the only unelected president in the group, as the best of the crop.

Why Ford? "Because," writes Obey, "on his watch, he did the two great things that the country needed most. First, after the deep scars of Watergate, Gerald Ford healed the nation. By the very example of his decency, humility, sense of duty, balance, and fairness, he healed the country and contained the tide of cynicism that was Richard Nixon’s legacy. He was the very model of civility, and through his conduct he restored America’s confidence in the decency of our system of government. Second, he pardoned Richard Nixon. By doing so, he helped move Nixon off stage and allowed the country to focus on the future rather than the past. Yes, that was in the interest of his Republican Party, but it was also right for the country. I opposed it at the time, but I was wrong."

After Ford, the Democratic leader's presidential rankings take on a more partisan tilt:

2) Bill Clinton— "Clinton reversed the fiscal recklessness of the Reagan era and returned the nation to fiscal rationality, and in the process he restored the confidence that was so essential to economic prosperity."

3) Jimmy Carter—"Carter, in an intensely personal tour de force, brought together two traditional Middle East adversaries, Menachim Begin and Anwar Sadat, and against all odds forged the Camp David peace accords between Egypt and Israel."

4) George H.W. Bush— He responded to the downfall of the Soviet Empire with reasonable skill...He showed a strong sense of doing everything possible to push the Middle East peace process forward—at considerable political risk to himself. Most important, in the 1990 budget deal, after one false start, his administration began the process that Clinton so courageously carried out—that of getting a handle on the national deficit."

5) Ronald Reagan— "...a disastrous president...Reagan’s fiscal irresponsibility was so breathtaking that the country ran up more debt on his eight-year watch than it had incurred under all previous thirty-nine presidents combined." He added in an interview, "they virtually doubled the national debt as a percentage of our total national income and at the same time he convinced people that government was the enemy of the public interest rather than a tool to support the public interest. I think doing something like that is about the worst thing you can do in a democracy."

6) Richard Nixon—"He was a serious and knowledgeable person. Some of those policy achievements do to some extent counterbalance the profound damage Nixon’s viciousness did to this country and to the political system that drives it. That is why I am left with the judgment that Nixon may in some ways be surpassed by the present occupant of the White House in comparative damage done this country."

7) George W. Bush—Obey accuses him of "willful negligence" and waging "class warfare on all but the wealthiest...He has, at every turn, divided our country, not because he needed to but because he chose to, as part of a deliberate strategy to win election...Instead of following Hubert Humphrey’s challenge to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, George W. Bush has raised doing the exact opposite to a high art form, not only weakening American society but destroying its standing in the world in the process." As for Bush's foreign policy, Obey said, "It will take us literally a generation to recover from the mistake he’s made in Iraq."

And who is he supporting for president in 2008? "The day after the last presidential election," Obey recalls, "I called John Edwards and I said, ‘John, if you’re crazy enough to run, I’m crazy enough to endorse you.’ "