Best Presidents Evah

Best Presidents Evah

I keep reading about the recent Gallup poll asking who was the greatest U.S. president. I believe Ann Althouse correctly explains the otherwise perplexing results:

[T]he main thing going on here is people are being asked to come up with the name of a President, and they don't have that many names floating around in their heads. It's always safe to say "Lincoln." Beyond that, they're rooting around in the decades they remember personally.

Someone else suggested you might get more interesting results if you required people to give two reasons for each choice, then throw out the choices backed up by reasons that were obviously pulled out of thin air ("Like, he was the most awesome and saved the world and stuff").

But I'm more interested in the views on the subject I'm likely to find here. I believe my vote goes to Washington, for setting the example of a peaceful relinquishment of power in an age when it was practically unheard of. Frankly, even today, not many people worldwide can expect to enjoy that blessing in their lives. It's a signal achievement of the American experiment.