Roosevelt rated top US president, younger Bush in bottom fourth

Jan 16, 2007, 22:50 GMT

Washington - Franklin D Roosevelt, who led the nation out of the Great Depression and through World War II, is ranked the greatest US president of the modern era, while the current White House resident rates near the bottom, according to Zogby International's annual presidential greatness survey released Tuesday.

Roosevelt received a 78 per cent rating for greatness in the 11th annual telephone survey.

US President George W Bush, embattled by the growing unpopularity of the war in Iraq, received a 21 per cent greatness rating - tenth in a list of 12, and higher only than Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, who received 19 and 12 per cent respectively.

Respondents were also asked to give a 'failure' rating to presidents, and gave Bush the worst failure rating with 30 per cent, worse than Nixon, with a 23 per cent failure rating, Zogby said.

The late president Gerald Ford jumped from 11th greatest president, or 17 per cent, in 2006 to seventh greatest president, or 43 per cent, after his death in December.

While Ford was for decades seen as a weak president who got to the White House by appointment instead of popular vote, US obituaries were full of praise for the role he played in healing the country after Nixon stepped down amidst the disgrace of the Watergate and dirty tricks scandal.

The survey of 843 likely voters earlier this month had a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points, Zogby said.

The order of greatness started with FDR, followed by John F Kennedy (74 per cent), Ronald Reagan (59 per cent), Harry Truman (52 per cent), Dwight Eisenhower (47 per cent), Bill CLinton (44 per cent), Ford, Jimmy Carter (31 per cent), George Herbert Walker Bush, father of the current president (29 per cent), Bush, Johnson and Nixon.

Roosevelt has held the top of the list except for two years, when Kennedy was put on top.