Warren Harding appears on lots of worst-presidents lists. He shouldn’t according to this emailer:

I noticed your list of top five favorite presidents on the Corner
today. It mirrors my own list.
Still, I have to (because nobody else will) give a Presidents Day
shout-out to Warren G. Harding. Perhaps our most underrated president.
A wildly popular president during his administration, his shortened
term saw a booming economy, a 40% cut in government spending, the
creation of the Bureau of the Budget, and of course the return to
“normalcy” after the tumult of the Wilson years. It’s also worth
mentioning his cabinet included heavyweights Andrew Mellon, Calvin
Coolidge and Herbert Hoover.
Unfortunately, the years following his death saw the assassination of
his character and reputation. Accusations of philandering and
corruption have cast him to the bottom rung of American presidents.
Still there is good reason to question, if not doubt many of these
charges– see Paul Johnson’s work and Robert Ferrell’s “The Strange
Death of President Harding.”
Johnson said “The experience should encourage the historian to look
more closely at other presidential myths.” Hopefully historians will do
a better job seeing through the myths that will, and already do
surround our current president. Though somehow I doubt they will.
Just my two cents on Presidents Day.