I was surprised to see Eisenhower ranked so high - personally I would place Polk in his slot and move him down into the teens.
I've always thought of Grant as a sympathetic character - not a great president, but a good man at heart.
Problems with Wilson. It would take pages to go into the specifics of the details, but in broad terms. . . .
- -His management of foreign policy between August of 1914 and our entry into the War in 1917. The very timing of entry into the War. And even to a certain extent, questions whether we should have entered the war at all.
- -Once in the War, his insistence on an "American Peace." His insistence on taking center stage at Versailles.
- -His domestic policies during the War, this would include all the civil rights problems we read about as well as federal intervention in the war-time economy.
- -His choice of Robert Lansing to replace Bryan as Secretary of State. His decision to leave James Watson Gerard in place as ambassador to Germany after August 1914. His decision to leave Walter Hines Page in place as ambassador to England after August 1914. His choice of Newton D Baker as Secretary of War, especially after we entered the war.
- -I'll cut him some slack on his failure to bring the U.S. into the League of Nations, he was a very ill man by then, and I don't believe he could have pulled that one off, even had he been healthy.