Grading the Presidents of My Lifetime (An Independent's Perspective)

1) Eisenhower - B plus (a personal favorite, but even I can't excuse/forgive/justify his decision to install the Shah in Iran).....2) Kennedy - A minus (a shaky start, granted, but incomparable leadership when it mattered most).....3) Johnson - C (excellent on civil rights, but way too much in terms of social spending and, yes, three little BIG words; Gulf of Tonkin).....4) Nixon - F (do I really need to expound on this one?).....5) Ford - B plus (even his decision to pardon Nixon now looks pretty good in retrospect - a good and decent man).....6) Carter - C minus (only his brokering of peace in the Middle East can salvage what was essentially a lousy 4 years).....7) Reagan - B minus (strong marks for dealing with the Cold War/arms control, demerits for the savings and loan fiasco, Iran Contra, Lebanon, enormous deficits, etc.).....8) Bush 1 - B minus (a strong foreign policy president but, yes, lousy and/or unlucky when it came to the economy).....9) Clinton - B (nothing transformative accomplished, all but sexual disasters diverted).....10) Bush 2 - D (Woodrow Wilson on steroids, deficits, the debt, etc.).....11) Obama (thus far) - C (rather than changing Bush's agenda, he seems to have codified more than a fair amount of it, lousy leadership on health-care, the stimulus, etc. - I very much like him personally, though).....