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- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Historians
on Monday dealt a blow to President Clinton's hopes for an illustrious
legacy, ranking his presidency average and his moral authority the lowest
among U.S presidents, just behind Richard Nixon's.
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- A survey of 58 historians, carried out by public affairs
cable channel C-SPAN and timed for release on President's Day, produced
few surprises in its ranking of the best and worst of the 41 men who have
served as president.
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- Abraham Lincoln topped the list, followed by Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt and Harry Truman.
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- At the other end of the scale, William Henry Harrison
ranked 37th, followed in descending order by Warren Harding, Franklin Pierce,
Andrew Johnson and James Buchanan.
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- Clinton ranked 21st, behind George Bush (20), the one-term
Republican he ousted from the White House, and ahead of Jimmy Carter (22),
another one-term president who was the last Democrat to hold the office
before Clinton won it in 1992.
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- Scholars rated presidents in 10 areas: public persuasion,
crisis leadership, economic management, moral authority, international
relations, administrative skills, relations with Congress, vision/setting
an agenda, pursuit of equal justice for all and performance within the
context of their times.
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- Clinton scored best for his management of the economy
and for his pursuit of equal justice for all -- ranking fifth on both issues
-- while receiving average marks for most other categories and scoring
lowest of all for his moral leadership.
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- ``Bill Clinton probably won't appreciate the Jekyll and
Hyde verdict on his presidency, fifth in economic management, 41st in moral
authority,'' said Richard Norton Smith of the Gerald R. Ford Library, who
took part in the survey. ``Apparently, where historians are concerned,
it's not the economy, stupid.''
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- Clinton Record Stained By Impeachment
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- Clinton has presided over the longest U.S. expansion
in history but his record has been stained by his December 1998 impeachment
by the U.S. House of Representatives on charges of perjury and obstruction
of justice stemming from his affair with former White House intern Monica
Lewinsky.
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- The Senate acquitted Clinton in February, 1999, allowing
him to remain in office.
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- Nixon, who resigned in disgrace in 1974 during his second
term rather than face all-but-certain impeachment for his part in the Watergate
scandal, ranked 40th in moral authority and 25th overall.
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- Howard University's Edna Medford, who took part in the
survey, said the rankings suggested historians appreciated the ''extraordinary
significance'' of the Civil War, which yielded the best- and worst-rated
presidents: Lincoln and Buchanan.
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- ``Few should be surprised that the first ranked and the
dead last ranked president came out of the same era -- the Civil War,''
said Medford. ``One is credited with preserving the union; the other was
less than effective in slowing its movement toward disintegration,'' Medford
said of Lincoln and Buchanan.
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- Andrew Johnson, the only president other than Clinton
to have been impeached, scored highest at 35th for his economic management
and ranked near the bottom in all other categories, including relations
with Congress, where he stood last.
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- Like Clinton, he was acquitted by the Senate -- in his
case by a single vote.
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- The historians surveyed appeared to share a slight bias
in favor of 20th century presidents.
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- Of the top 10, seven served during the last hundred years,
including both Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt (numbers 2 and 4, respectively),
Truman (5), Woodrow Wilson (6), John Kennedy (8), Dwight Eisenhower (9)
and Lyndon Johnson (10).
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- ``The historians who participated clearly prefer presidents
who led the nation in wars,'' added John Splaine of the University of Maryland.
``Even unsuccessful warriors, like James Madison and Lyndon Johnson, ended
up in the top 20 overall.''
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- The survey -- devised by Medford, Smith, Splaine and
Douglas Brinkley of the University of New Orleans -- asked the scholars
to rate presidents on a one to 10 scale from ``not effective'' to ``very
effective'' in each of the 10 categories.
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- C-SPAN sent the survey in December to the 87 historians
and other professional observers of the presidency who contributed to its
41-week ``American Presidents'' biography series. Fifty-eight agreed to
take part.
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