Here's to you, Mr. Presidents

Today is Presidents' Day, a day to honor those who have occupied the nation’s second-highest office. (The highest office, as everyone knows, is CEO of Goldman-Sachs, the bank that actually runs America and much of the world.)

Born in 1951, I have lived under 12 presidents. Here’s how I rank ‘em, from worst to best.

The worst, at #12. LBJ:  Under Johnson, Congress passed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts that, 100 years after the end of the Civil War, finally gave African-Americans the dignity and rights they deserve. That said, he lifted one of his beagles by his ears. His Great Society, which included Medicare and Medicaid, conveniently ignored the fact that Boomers were going to grow old and their medical expenses would bankrupt the country. Most unforgivably, LBJ’s advisers told him early on that the Vietnam War was unwinnable. Refusing to be the first president to preside over an American defeat, he pridefully kept escalating it. Almost all the 58,261 names engraved on the Vietnam Memorial – including those killed after he left office – are attributable to him. I hope he’s in hell being tortured by an endless chorus of, “Hey, hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?”

#11. Carter: As governor of Georgia, Mr. Peanut met top national politicians and decided, abetted by his Lady McBethian spouse, that he was as smart as any of them, so he ran for president and won. Turns out he wasn’t as smart as he thought. He made the ongoing Middle East crisis possible by turning his back on Iran’s shah, more than 50 Americans were held hostage for 444 days, and inflation soared to 20 percent, leading him to claim there was a national malaise which, in fact, there was, thanks to him. Former CBS White House correspondent Lesley Stahl wrote that, of all the presidents she covered, he was the nastiest – petty, vindictive and downright mean. Now he goes around badmouthing America hoping that someone – anyone – will listen and realize he shouldn’t be near the very top of America’s Worst Presidents list. Shut up already.

#10. Bush the Second: After 9/11, he had the sympathy and support of the civilized world to help bring down al Qaeda. He squandered it by starting the Iraq War to prove to his mother, who thought he was a dope – she preferred Jeb and what mother wouldn’t? – that he had bigger cujones than his daddy, who had stopped short of overthrowing Saddam during the Kuwait war. His administration allowed Wall Street to run amok, causing the 2008 financial collapse from which we’ve yet to recover (unless you trust the Huffington Post or New York Times, in which case you know things have never been better). His election was the result of the public’s disgust with …

#9. Clinton: A brilliant politician. A lucky one, too. The economy boomed thanks to technological innovations that had nothing to do with his policies. I agree with those who say his sex life was nobody’s business. Where he went wrong was a) lying about it and b) every time the sanctimonious Congress (led by Gingrich, who was screwing around on his wife, too) was about to impeach him, launching attacks on what he claimed were suspected al Qaeda hideouts which the media, all of whom have sex with interns – that’s the only reason to go into journalism – refused to characterize as Wag the Dog operations.

#8. Obama: The current president has no leadership skills whatsoever. None. And while I admire his stance on most social issues – the reason he’s been elected twice – he doesn’t understand basic economics. How could he? The only private sector job he ever held was as an intern at a Chicago law firm. Interns from Ivy League colleges at law firms spend their summers sitting in skyboxes at baseball games and being wined and dined, while being paid obscene amounts of money. Obama apparently came to believe during the summer he interned at Sidley Austin that he deserved all this. He doesn’t. I’ve been wrong about him all along. Probably am now but hey, it’s my blog.

#7. Bush the First:. Congressman. Ambassador to China. CIA director. VP. Nobody ever ascended to the presidency with more experience. Bush’s problem was Quayle, whom he selected as his running mate because he was good-looking (to appeal to women) and against abortion (to pander to the religious nuts who, under Reagan, seized control of the GOP). I was going to vote for Bush until a few days before the election when his campaign advisers, who had realized almost immediately that Quayle had the IQ of a deer tick, allowed Quayle to speak in public for the first time, knowing there was no way Dukakis could possibly win. When asked if he would allow his wife to have an abortion if she were raped and became pregnant, he said no. Quayle couldn’t even spell potato for Chrissakes. Just as Sarah Palin was McCain’s downfall, Quayle was Bush’s. For four years Quayle was a heartbeat away from the presidency, an unforgivable lapse of judgment on Bush’s part.

#6. Nixon: I was 22 when he resigned and could never have imagined that, when I compiled this list at 61, he would rank so high. But then, I could have never imagined the dufuses who came after him. Nixon started the process to end the Vietnam War and established relations with China, which, in turn, made it possible for Americans to buy cheap plastic Chinese-made stuff at Wal-Mart. I bought a coffee cup at his presidential library with a quote from the speech he gave just before he, Pat, Julie, David and Diane Sawyer – yeah, Diane Sawyer used to work for him – boarded the plane that flew him back to California the day he resigned. “Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.” I was glad to see him go but nearly 40 years later, I’m willing to cut him some slack and bet history will, too.

#5. Ford: The first prez who had never been elected as president or VP inherited a mess upon Nixon’s resignation and, amazingly, did a decent job. Despite tumbling down the stairs of Air Force One in front of TV cameras, he brought some much-needed dignity back to the White House.

#4. Ike: Under Ike cars had fins, there were no wars, great TV shows like Gunsmoke and Leave It to Beaver premiered, the economy was swell. What wasn’t to like?

#3. JFK: A rich kid with the best speechwriters daddy’s money could buy, JFK stood eyeball to eyeball with Khrushchev during the Cuban missile crisis. The Commie blinked. We won. The Civil Rights Act was actually his work – LBJ just got it passed.  His heart was always in the right place. Unfortunately for his legacy, his dick wasn’t.

#2. Reagan: Our national grandpa had orange hair but red American blood coursing through his veins. His obsession with defense spending caused an economic boom, making it possible for American yuppies to discover the pleasures of Mercedes and BMWs, while bringing down Communism, enabling Russians, Bulgarians and Albanians to drive Mercedes and BMWs. If he were to be exhumed, stuffed and propped up in a chair in the Oval Office, millions of Americans – myself included – would feel better.

And the winner, #1. Truman: The effete Eastern establishment thought the uneducated rube from Missouri who became President after FDR’s death, was a joke, but Truman had the last laugh. He made the agonizing but ultimately correct decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan, saving millions of American lives that would have been lost in the hand-to-hand combat the Japanese promised GIs they would encounter if we had been forced to invade that nation of loons; approved the Marshall Plan; fired the insubordinate, narcissistic MacArthur, and told the press to bite him. Truman had common sense. Other than Washington or Lincoln, no other president even comes close in my book.

These, of course, are my opinions only. You have your own. The freedom to express them is one of the many things that make America great.

Here’s to you, Mr. Presidents. And to the rest of you, have a wonderful Presidents' Day.