Responding to a question posed in an ABC News survey in February 2002, a random sample of 1,025 American adults named Abraham Lincoln as the greatest American president ever. Several other luminaries — including the other three faces on Mount Rushmore (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Theodore Roosevelt) — received only a smattering of mentions. Franklin Roosevelt finished third, tied — weirdly, in my view — with Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. But what really stands out in the present-day context is that tied with John F. Kennedy for second place as the greatest American president was … George W. Bush.
