Over the weekend, two enterprising scholars released a new pecking order of America’s chief executives. Well, not entirely new. Abraham Lincoln is still the G.O.A.T. But in a surprise move, Franklin D. Roosevelt has pulled ahead of George Washington for second place.
The tipoff was that Republicans rank Reagan the fifth-greatest president, but the Gipper only came up 16th in the survey. It was a math question one didn’t need a Ph.D. to solve a 9th grader could do it: The survey had 154 respondents so what percentage had to be Democrats or independents to bring a guy from fifth place to 16th? Off the top of my head, I guessed 90%. It was close. Justin Vaughn gave me the numbers: Of the 154, there were only 15 Republicans.