I know, I know. You're so shocked. So was I. (...Ha ha.)
Here's just a snippet:
Political science professor Joseph E. Uscinski, one of the study’s authors, said the new analysis shows that the overwhelmingly liberal academic community consistently ranks Republican presidents about 10 spots lower than the public would.Come on. Who could seriously rank Obama above Reagan? (Or Clinton, for that matter, but whatever...) If nothing else, wouldn't you require more than two years to form a solid, realistic opinion of a presidency? I guess they figure Obama's ranking using the same clairvoyance (precognition, to be precise) that the Norwegians used when they decided to give him the Nobel Peace Prize. :o\
“I don’t think anyone is surprised,” Mr. Uscinski told The Washington Times. “Among the political scientists and historians that I work with, Democrats outnumber Republicans 8 to 1.”
What was eye-opening, he said, was the stark difference between the historians’ assessments of Republicans and the grades given by the public.
“On average, all the Republicans get the short end of the stick,” he said. “But the one it impacts the most is [Ronald] Reagan. It’s often difficult for people to fathom why he’s ranked as low as he is.”
. . .
In the C-SPAN rankings - the focus of much of the University of Miami analysis - Reagan in 2009 broke into the Top Ten, behind Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Franklin Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Thomas Jefferson, Dwight Eisenhower and Woodrow Wilson.
But on other surveys, the late conservative icon falls much lower. A 2010 Siena College poll has Reagan at No. 18, behind Bill Clinton, Lyndon Baines Johnson and Barack Obama.
