One writer who isn’t the least taken in by the Siena poll of historians that ranks Obama as our 15th best president is Gene Healy of Cato. Writing in the Washington Examiner, Healy points out that the professors who get asked to rank presidents are just about uniformly statist in outlook, getting all excited about presidents who push federal activism at every turn and turning thumbs down on those who prefer to leave the people alone. Healy points out that Warren Harding is ranked as the third-worst president, but his administration was notable for peace, prosperity, tax and spending reductions, and the restoration of civil liberties that had been under assault under Wilson. Fortunately for the American people, Harding listened to the advice of Andrew Mellon, who counseled that federal non-interventionism was the best policy when the economy entered a sharp postwar recession.

Conversely, despite the evident counter-productivity of his obstinately statist economic policies, his assaults on the rule of law, and his eagerness to use politics as a means of rewarding supporters and hurting opponents, Obama gets pretty high marks from the scholars. That just shows how foolish many of our historians are.