Are there any legitimate reasons to deny Barack Obama was a great president? He is ranked as 1 of top 10 best presidents in history, saved the economy, gave millions health-care, had no scandals, & improved the US's image.
There is one compelling reason to not rank Barack Obama as a great president: It’s too soon.If we look at just the post-WWII presidents, covering the most recent third of our history, there’s a trend. Their evaluations are in constant flux, up and down. New information becomes available. Old tropes are confirmed or discarded as a result.Truman and Ford had great testicular fortitude. Or they were poor leaders for dropping the A-bomb or pardoning Nixon.Kennedy was a visionary, from the inaugural address to the Moon program. Fine. Bay of Pigs, anyone? And how responsible was JFK for causing the Cuban missile crisis, as distinguished from resolving it?Nixon wasn’t impeached, but should have been. He was a crook who cut and ran just in time. Clinton was properly impeached, but his offense was also properly judged to be trivial. Yet both men presided over great events for the nation as well; opening China and working with a hostile Congress to attain budget surpluses (remember those?) will do to start their respective conversations.Eisenhower’s stock quietly continues to rise. Reagan’s assessment is extremely partisan: Berlin Wall. Iran-contra. PATCO and Star Wars and 600 ships.Carter is widely acknowledged as one of our greatest former presidents. But his performance in office, while not regarded as badly as it once was, is still so-so at best.Bush-41 bridges a gap between Reagan and Clinton without distinction. Bush-43 had one superlative moment, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. But he had too much faith in war as a tool of policy. Two administrations later we are still paying for it.LBJ’s handling of Vietnam was a precursor to Afghanistan that we failed to fully appreciate. And the long-term unintended consequences of the Great Society range from muddled to terrible.The relative impact of all of these men continues to shift and has in some cases for over 50 years. It’s been just over a year since Obama left office. It will be a while before his niche is found, and those who avidly assert his greatness or his failure are likely as not wearing matching blinders.