My PJ Media colleague Robert Spencer recently called C-SPAN’s survey of presidential historians “clearly useless” and “chilling” for being a shameless hit piece on Trump. And that’s true. It will be decades before Trump has a chance of getting a fair shot at having his place in history assessed with even a smidgeon of objectivity.
But I’m not here to talk about Trump’s ranking. Instead, I’m going to show more evidence of the survey’s uselessness by highlighting the despicable way leftist historians are trying to rewrite the history of Barack Obama’s dumpster fire presidency. Obama’s first appearance on this list was in 2017, when he came in at a ridiculous ranking of 12th place overall.
One would think that as time passed, the love affair with Obama would subside and his ranking would start to reflect his presidency more accurately; but alas, that thinking is wrong. In the 2021 survey, Obama finally broke into the top ten, placing him among historical giants like Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson, Truman, and Reagan.
I’ve long noted that the media and academia would be excessively kind in their assessment of Barack Obama simply for being the first black president. However, historians have completely lost the ability to be objective. The C-SPAN survey has proven this yet again because nothing about Obama’s presidency should put him anywhere near the top ten. Academia is just too left-wing and too woke.
Here is a case in point. In 2019, two Princeton University historians claimed Barack Obama was a bipartisan president. “Although he came into office with a strong mandate from the 2008 election, his political temperament led him to seek out compromise positions with Republicans from the outset,” the historians claimed. I debunked this steaming pile of horse manure at the time, and it’s still relevant today because if we don’t call it out, the so-called experts will try to rewrite history.
Related: Obama’s Back and He’s Mocking Americans Again
But just how awful and partisan is C-SPAN’s 2021 survey of presidential historians ?
Let’s consider the facts. Obama presided over the worst economic recovery since the Great Depression, and stagnant wages and low labor force participation plagued his entire presidency. An incredible 95 percent of the jobs created on his watch were part-time or contract jobs. America’s credit rating was downgraded for the first time in history on Obama’s watch. And let’s not forget the record deficits he accumulated.
Despite all this, Obama ranks 9th overall on “economic management” in this survey. Yes, despite Obama’s horrible economic record, “experts” rank him in the top ten on this issue. And we’re supposed to take this survey seriously?
And then there’s the “moral authority” category. Now, what do you think Obama got here?
Before I tell you, let’s recall just some of Obama’s many scandals during his presidency, like the Senate seat for sale scandal, the green energy loans scandal, Fast & Furious, the VA backlog scandal, the Benghazi attack cover-up, the Iran ransom scandal, the IRS scandal, and Spygate.
Or how about August 2014, when 47 of 73 inspectors general wrote an open letter to Congress informing them that the Obama administration was obstructing investigations. Such a letter was unprecedented, and the systemic corruption and obstruction would have been considered an impeachable offense for almost any other president. In fact, several of his scandals were impeachable.
Remember how the media claimed (and still claim) Obama was “scandal free”? Well, sadly, presidential historians are just as deluded: Obama ranked 6th overall in the category of “moral authority.”
Related: Obama Reveals What He Really Thinks About the TEA Party
It’s not even worth wasting time reviewing the other categories. Partisan academics who care more about rewriting history than documenting it made the C-SPAN survey of presidential historians utter trash.
