the Obama, Great???

There were obviously no really standards for this poll ranking the Obama 15th best president, Obama the Great:

In a Siena College poll of 238 presidential scholars, Mr. Obama emerges as the 15th most highly rated president, trailing Bill Clinton (13th place) but finishing three spots above Reagan (18th place). Mr. Obama's immediate predecessor, George W. Bush, was ranked number 39th among 42 presidents, and bested only Warren Harding in one category, intelligence.

Siena poll director Douglas Lonnstrom notes that Obama scored highest in the categories of imagination (6th), communication (7th) and intelligence (8th). His only poor rating was "background," where he placed 32nd, perhaps because of his relative inexperience before taking office.

For either Clinton or the Obama to come in ahead of Reagan is remarkable, and quite telling, and rather disturbing given that the history departments of most universities are dominated by leftists. The reality is, if you rated FDR on his terms in office before the war and were serious about it, with real standards and criteria - not feelings - then he would finish near the bottom of any list along with Carter and soon the Obama. The only saving grace for FDR was his ability to talk to the people and that gave them a sense of false hope even as the country's economy kept falling because of his economic programs. the Obama lacks even that ability - he does not talk to the people he attempts to talk over them with big sounding ideas and empty platitudes. It is hard to reassure people when you have not even taken responsibility for your failures. Likewise, to rate a president without considering traits like Leadership is mystifying to me and thus nullifies any results based on touchy-feely qualities. He got high marks in areas that he really has no skill in - imagination - what imagination, for 40+ years we have heard the same socialist drivel flow from the mouths of presidents like Johnson and Carter and to some extent Clinton - nothing new there. Intelligence - well he is intelligent but he isn't smart and being a Theorist is even worse. Communication - he never says anything - but in today's 30-second sound bite world nothing said is considered communicating.

Now contrast the Siena silliness with this assessment of the first 17 months of the Obama's administration:

"Seventeen months into office, Obama is increasingly isolated -- from his party, from American voters and from the world. Though he was sworn in amid great expectations to transcend partisan, racial, cultural and economic divisions, the country is more polarized than ever and Washington is even more a target for voter anger than it was under President Bush. Polls show majorities of Americans do not believe Obama has a clear plan for creating jobs, or to deal with the oil spill, and they oppose remaining in Afghanistan. . . . Obama is so politically toxic in battlegrounds he can't campaign for most Democratic candidates and his relationships with Democrats outside his intimate circle of mostly Chicagoan advisers fall somewhere between faint and frosty" -- A.B. Stoddard, associate editor of The Hill, a newspaper covering Congress.