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FDR was the greatest U.S. president ever because he got the country through both the Great Depression and World War II.



I would probably pick Teddy Roosevelt as the greatest US president, after perhaps Washington (the single act of refusing a third term was perhaps the most important political act in US history).

(Lincoln doesn't belong here; he got into a war his predecessors had avoided and did an abysmal job of Commander in Chief. The policy of refusing session at all costs had already been decided by Buchanan before Lincoln took office)

In terms of “getting the country through” the Great Depression: keep in mind none of the things FDR tried worked. Hitler ended the Great Depression. FDR gets credit for not giving up but ultimately he didn't get anywhere until the late 1930's war buildup (not by putting people to work but by injecting predictable demand into the market and making people willing to invest for a change).

FDR & Stalin: You have to remember that early in WW2 the allies truly believed Russia would make a peace treaty with Germany, at whatever cost, and leave the Allies to face Germany alone. That's what the Communists did in WW1 and everyone thought it would happen again. It wasn't just FDR who believed this: pretty much everyone obsessed over it at some time. You can't really understand the ass-kissing without realizing this. Even up past the Normandy invasion it was considered a strong possibility that Russia would stop at Germany's borders and allow the Allies to fight the full German army, and they realized that until late 1944 there was no chance the Allies could defeat Germany without Russia.

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I'd put Reagan far above FDR as well.



I don't know about “far ahead” but I think that in 20-30 years the view won't be that far apart, with FDR scoring rather better on foreign policy (WW2) and Reagan on economics (recovery from the 1970s).

PS Carter had help in the 1970s – wage & controls were introduced by Nixon, not Carter. And I would put Johnson down as much worse for the economy than Carter: Johnson's welfare spending just took a while to make itself known. And in the long term Bush is likely to be ranked right with Johnson, for the same reasons, and below Carter: as far as the American public is concerned there's not much worse than getting into a war without a way to get out of it with a victory.
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"If they can't picture me with a knife, forcing them to strip in an alley, I don't want any part of it. It's humiliating." - windsock