Apologies for the long post; I didn't have time to write a short one. Apologies too, for weighing in too late to contribute to the conversation.

They say liberal is someone who won't even take his own side in an argument, and so it was with me this President's Day. I received an astonishing document in the mail maybe a month ago, from Brian Lamb of C-Span, asking me to rank every president from one to forty-three on ten "Individual Leadership Characteristics." I remember chuckling at the ILC's fine-grained sensitivity. Maybe there are people who can really responsibly rank John Tyler vis-a-vis Ulysses S. Grant as to their "Administrative Skills," Grover Cleveland versus Calvin Coolidge as to their "Morality Authority"--but I am not that man. I sent apologies to Mr. Lamb; I hadn't, I explained, anything near the erudition to carry out the appointed task.

Then, last Monday, I learned that America's "presidential historians" had, without benefit of my vote, named Ronald Reagan the tenth-best president in United States history.

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