Joe Biden believes he is the 'most qualified person in the country to be president'

[zipplewrath]

59. That might need a chart

Or table or something.

I've been thinking about this recently. Looking back to FDR, there weren't alot of presidents that came in particularly "qualified".

Truman: Was the absent VP in the sense that he wasn't much involved at all. His senate career wasn't exactly filled with unique experience.

Eisenhower: Strong experience, especially diplomatically of sort, not to mention running large, complex organizations. Pretty week on electoral experience. Not sure how much that mattered once you get elected. He didn't have a whole lot of legislative background for moving legislation through.

Kennedy: Limited experience, especially executive and had a weak legislative background.

LBJ: Strong legislative background, not much executive. Weak military background cost him.

Nixon: Moderate executive experience (VP, about the same as Truman). Moderate Legislative. Nothing stellar. Ended up being strong on foreign policy, probably because of Kissinger.

Reagan: Wow, where to start. The man was a figure head his whole career. There's an old joke about 20 years of experience, or 1 year of experience 20 times. That was pretty much him. It isn't clear he ever learned any depth at all.

Bush I: Probably the one that came in with the most experience. Strong political background, moderate legislative. Very strong executive background and diplomatic background.

Clinton: Executive of a small state. National background was all political. Very little legislative background. Basically no foreign policy background.

Bush II: Executive of a major state (but strangely limited powers for a governor). Political background from the family experience. Legislative experience was basically nil. No real diplomatic background. Even military background was pretty weak.

Obama: Virtually no executive experience. Very moderate legislative experience. No military or diplomatic background to speak of. Did have that Community Organizer background which is somewhat similar to moving legislation.

Looking over that list, I don't see a strong correlation between their credentials, and their performance. Probably the most effective legislative president was LBJ, although Clinton was probably a very close second. Bush II had success politically, but that was about it. Bush I was probably the deepest and broadest experience, and he accomplished very little other than watching things unfold without screwing them up too badly (except for Gulf War I).

Most folks around here would take Obama first, and he had the weakest of any probably.