The Overrated Presidency of George Washington

First read this:

http://www.c-span.org/PresidentialSurvey/Overall-Ranking.aspx

So George Washington moved up the list from 3 to 2 beating out FDR. Clinton moves up five, riding on the coattails of Obama and inexplicably, US Grant moves up 10 points. The Grant thing bodes well for Obama who seems to be having trouble with his cabinet picks being totally on the up and up. If it turns out that some of his guys are crooks, maybe in 150 years historians will forgive him somewhat as well. He's got that to look forward to.

The biggest crime is that James K Polk ranks 12. That's crazy. Upset victory and destruction of his political enemies (the Whigs), "44 40 or fight" (annexation of the pacific northwest), annexation of texas, Mexican concession, huge expansion of international trade, one of the rare examples of 19th century economic reform that was neither market driven nor ham-fisted regulation. His biggest failing is his inability to bring about a peaceful end to slavery, although he had a workable plan with the Missouri compromise that might have ended slavery with the approximately 2 decades between his presidency and the civil war were it not for that (unprintable) Buchanan. The Missouri compromise might have allowed us to have purchased Cuba from Spain, a missed chanced.

People (read: liberals) who want to say "W as is worst president ever" should consider the Buchanan legacy:

* Dred Scott
* Used the army to persecute Mormons.
* Massive increase in the debt. This may not seem like a big deal in the 20th century, but in the 19th century, both the republicans and the democrats were parties of real fiscal responsibility.
* Did everything possible to sabotogue his own parties abolitionist in order to bring about the civil war (traitor) both in words (expressing his personal views in favor of slavery) and in deed (Kansas) and in omission (Fort Sumter)
* Even by the standards of the 19th century his pro-slavery cabinet was astoundingly corrupt.

But I haven't gotten to the topic of this post yet.

I should say that I feel great affection for George Washington ever since he was portrayed by "Brad" from Rocky Horror (with Patty Duke as Martha... just epic) but the Presidency was not his finest hour, he really didn't like having to serve a 2nd term and its probably not what he wanted to be remembered for, if he even cared about being remembered at all. Like many great Generals, presiding over a democracy is a bad fit. Ever since the funerial games of Petroclus, there is an abiding vanity in Western culture to think that great leadership in war can translate to great leadership in peace. Maybe, but not always so. The fact that the Citizen Genet thing got so blown out of proportion that it ranks as one of the major incidents of his presidency shows a poor grasp on diplomacy, the ultimate failure of the Jay Treaty (as evidenced by the OGRABME and eventual war of 1812) is also evidence. The fact that we got into a naval war with pirates on the Barbary Coast even suggests that there were some limits on Washington's ability as a head of state military figure. But the biggest failure of Washington as a President was the fact that as a man of such greatness, he misperceived the partisan smallness of his peers. Although he cautioned them against forming political parties, this counsel fell on deaf ears because, well, no one else could ever be George Washington, a solitary monument in his own time.

I would have preferred to have seen Washington not serve a 2nd term and for Benjamin Franklin to have succeeded him. Unfortunately, Franklin would have been 86 years old and anyway, he died 2 years before the 2nd term. John Jay (for whom the basically lousy Jay treaty is named after) would have been a great 2nd president as well, and would have caused the end of slavery.

Am I say that Washington was not a great President? No. He served with dignity and honor that was never surpassed (not even by Lincoln) and is a shining example of what all Presidents should live up to. But effectiveness must matter and as such, I would probably rank him in a tie for 9th after: Lincoln, Polk, Jefferson, FDR, Reagan, Monroe, LBJ, Taft, and tied with McKinley (McKinley had a really effective economic stimulus package, the greatest Secretary of State in US History [John Hay, architect of the Hay-Bunau Varilla Treaty], and also "Cuba Libre!")