Say what you like about George W Bush – and many people have done just that – but he was no Richard Nixon. He was worse, according to America's leading presidential scholars.
Both presidents may have had illegal wars based on deception and fear. Both may have lied to the country and left the prestigious office with rock bottom poll ratings. But only one had to resign or face the prospect of a trial and prison– and that was Nixon.

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Top of the pile, again, is Franklin Roosevelt, who has won the poll every time it has been held over the past 28 years. He achieves high marks on everything from foreign and domestic policy to communication skills and his ability to "avoid crucial mistakes" although he does feature rather low on integrity.

Interestingly, his namesake, Teddy Roosevelt comes in second – a surprising choice perhaps given that there are not many ordinary Americans who could tell you when he was in office (1901-09) let alone chose to list him in their top ten.
But the experts say he shares many of the qualities of FDR, having made a principled stand against big business interests at home even if he was fond of imperial adventures abroad.

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Barack Obama makes an appearance at number 15, three places above Ronald Reagan, which will have Fox News squawking about liberal bias. Obama is rated for imagination, communication ability and intelligence but falls short on avoiding crucial mistakes.

Nixon sits at number 30, boosted by high scores for imagination, foreign policy accomplishments and intelligence. He at least comes bottom on integrity and the ability to avoid crucial mistakes.

But buried near the bottom of that list – at 39th out of 43 – is G W Bush who only features in the top half of the list of attributes when it comes to luck and willingness to take risks.
He is close to rock bottom on ability to compromise, imagination and foreign policy accomplishments. He is second to bottom on intelligence. Apparently he is brighter than Warren Harding who was thought of as "amiable" even if his administration gained notoriety as the most corrupt of the 20th century.

Bush also comes next to last on his communication abilities which seems to miss the point that he very successfully sold Americans a war and a whole lot of policies they would have been better without.

"Money trumps peace, sometimes."---George W. Bush, February 14, 2007

On December 12, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5–4 vote that the Florida Supreme Court's ruling requiring a statewide recount of ballots was unconstitutional, and that the Florida recounts could not be completed before a December 12 "safe harbor" deadline, and should therefore cease and the previously certified total should hold. The Supreme Court's decision was an unsigned or "Per Curiam" ruling; the ruling was “limited to the present circumstances” and could not be cited as precedent.<42>

The ruling that stopped the Florida recount and handed the presidency to George W. Bush is disappearing down the legal world’s version of the memory hole, the slot where, in George Orwell’s “1984,” government workers disposed of politically inconvenient records. The Supreme Court has not cited it once since it was decided, and when Justice Antonin Scalia, who loves to hold forth on court precedents, was asked about it at a forum earlier this year, he snapped, “Come on, get over it.”