Where Will George Be Ranked?

When George W Bush finally retires to the ranch he will come out near the top of the historical presidential rankings. Assuming he serves out the remainder of his second term, he will end up tied for second with 2922 days in office.

Actually Bush will be only the thirteenth man to pull off two full terms. The other twelve are Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Grant, Cleveland, Wilson, FDR(easily #1 with 3+ terms), Eisenhower, Reagan and Clinton. Truman, Teddy Roosevelt, Coolidge and Lyndon Johnson took over after the death of the sitting president and were elected to second terms. This group served anywhere from 1800 to 2800 days. Richard Nixon managed 2027 days in office.

Of the many great presidents with long tenures, Nixon is not one of them. Grant and Coolidge are also typically ranked among the poorest presidents of all time. So where will George W Bush end up in terms of achievement?

In a Quinnipac University poll from May of this year, Bush was picked as far and away the worst of the eleven chief executives since WWII. If scholars and historians end up agreeing with these respondents and George gets ranked below Nixon, he will slide in as the eleventh worst president of all time. But why stop there? The bottom ten beckons.

Admittedly, this a very tough club to break into. The current basement dwellers are (counting down): James Garfield, Zachary Taylor, John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Ulysses Grant, William Henry Harrison, Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, and Warren G Harding. In this lot we find familiar stories of corruption, laziness and drinking. Let's focus on the man on the bubble: James A. Garfield. Could Garfield edge out George W in the final ratings?

Garfield served only 199 days of his term including 80 days on his death bed. After being shot twice in an assasination attempt, he spent nearly three months under the horrendous care of the doctors who eventually killed him. The best physicians in the land probed Garfield's chest wound with unsterilized fingers, accidentally punctured his liver, and never found the bullet. The famous story is that a newly invented metal detector malfunctioned because Garfield was lying on a metal bedframe. Garfield's condition deteriorated and he ended up dead from an aneurysm.

But in happier times Garfield could simultaneously write in Latin with one hand and in Ancient Greek with the other. (Can W scratch out his fraternity letters without breaking his pencil?) Garfield also has a Johnny Cash tune about him, was mentioned in a Clint Eastwood movie, and didn't make the entire world hate the United States. So yes, Garfield could pull off the upset.

If Bush does join Tippecanoe and Tyler too in the bottom ten, Democrats will have nothing to gloat about. We couldn't beat him with a sitting VP or a tall war hero with a deep voice. Of course Republicans will probably rig the vote and get GWB ranked ahead of Clinton.

No matter where he ends up on the all time list, George W has already been properly memorialized in his least favorite place on earth, northern California. For some reason San Francisco has a proud tradition of naming streets after terrible presidents. Always ahead of the game, the city already has one named for 43. Long after George is gone, his favorite people (liberals, freaks and gays) will be strolling along Fillmore, Taylor, Buchanan, Pierce, Harrison, Grant and Bush. For those keeping score at home, Garfield and Johnson are sadly not San Francisco street names. But Harding Park Golf Course is named for Warren G, an avid golfer who died at the Palace Hotel.

Tyler was excluded because he annexed the Republic of Texas and admitted the state of Florida in 1845.