We just dealt with the losers in a previous article. Now let’s look at the winners. One note: We’re not counting the Founders because they are in a class of excellence all by themselves.

  1. I mean, did you have to ask? …Donald Trump- Yes, I know. His first term isn’t even over with yet and he has not won any wars or guided us through national trauma like a depression.Well, he gets massive points for having to do neither because of his wise policies. His economic performance may be the best contrast with a predecessor in U.S. history and he has restored America as a power to be reckoned with in the world.His best quality? He has all the right enemies and drives them absolutely bat guano. And, anyone else ever buzz the Daytona 500 in Air Force One? Yeah, didn’t think so.
  2. Ronald Reagan- He used his movie star charisma to great effect when the nation needed an uplift after four years of the petty and weak Jimmy Carter. He revitalized the economy, beat the Dems in two landslides, won the Cold War, and did it all with a confident smile.He oversaw, with Thatcher and John Paul II, a golden age of Western leadership. Those of us who served in uniform when he was CINC were proud to be his troops.
  3. Harry Truman- Gotta have one Dem on here and this one deserves it. Dropped the bomb that ended WWII and that spared millions of lives. Realized, as opposed to his infirmed predecessor FDR, that Stalin was up to no good and saw down the Soviet madman in Berlin, Greece, and Korea. Today he’d be a Trumplican, as would about half of pre-60s Dems.MORE NEWS: Disturbing new report reveals FBI had multiple informants in Trump’s presidential campaign
  4. Abraham Lincoln- Had a bad hand and played it hard and effectively. Yup, to make the omelet of national reunification he broke some eggs. He had no choice, as the life or death of this country hung in the balance. His humor wasn’t bad and he was a keen judge of character. His words and wisdom are immortal.
  5. Calvin Coolidge- My personal favorite, he served during the Jazz Age of the 1920s. Didn’t talk when he didn’t have to, made sure the feds minded their own business, and had the habit, when people came into the Oval Office, of just staring at them and waiting for them to talk first.He said half of them just ran out. Which was fine with Silent Cal, because he said most of them were there to ask for something they shouldn’t receive.

Bonus: the best thing you’ll read on the presidents all day. One of my great regrets in life is that I didn’t write it.