Ronald Reagan was deservedly known as “the Great Communicator,” a politician with quick wit, an authentic smile, and the ability to deliver his message with the force and substance that can only be backed by the exact optimism he espoused. In communication circles, this is known as “congruity.”

Some two and a half years ago I wrote my list of the best and worst Presidents of all time, ranking them from #1 to #41 (I only counted Grover Cleveland once and George W. Bush was still president).

In 2010, with me four and a half years wiser by my own estimations, this list needs a good updating. I’m still no expert (Who really knows where to put Zachary Taylor?) but have a few criteria you might find interesting.

(Left: Which of these Presidents dropped out of the top five?)

Did Obama win the Nobel Prize for literature?

Oh, I guess they’re just giving out Peace Prizes for fiction now.

When even CNN is saying that the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Barack Obama “not for substantive accomplishments,” you know something’s up.

In this case, it’s the increasing irrelevance of the Nobel Peace Prize…

Part of me feels like it’s actually a good thing when Barack Obama does silly unpresidential things like fill out NCAA brackets (harmless, sure, but even Coach K said he should have better things to do) and go on Jay Leno (”I understand you have a new piece of legislation to promote…”). Two good things about this: people get turned off by overexposure, for one. And when it comes to much of what Obama does, I’d rather have him filling in his NFL Fantasy Roster than trying …

Who else saw Obama’s speech to Congress last night, when a Republican yelled out “You lie!” as Obama was saying the bill wouldn’t cover illegal immigrants?
People were saying it was inappropriate, but I’m sick of treating our Presidents like they’re some sort of half-kings. Besides, it was Obama’s choice to speak to Congress; there’s no reason Republicans have to sit and listen to him say whatever he wants without getting a response.
But it wasn’t even a State of the Union address. You know, like the one in 2005 …

Public school teachers will be deferring to their high priest next Tuesday (Sept. 8th), when Barack Obama is set to “deliver a national address directly to students” at noon, according to the Department of Education’s web site.  As Michelle Malkin notes,
Instead of practicing cursive, reviewing multiplication tables, diagramming sentences, or learning something concrete, America’s kids will be lectured about the importance of learning.
Man.  I once wrote a column about how lecture-style teaching wasn’t the most effective; now Obama’s holding lectures to talk about lectures.  Apparently when you want to pay …

Now that we know they’re trying to give Obama power to control the Internet, I just realized that they’re trying to give him power over what is essentially an abstraction of a system.  If they feel fine doing that, what’s next?  Funny you should ask.

Happiness. Some people are happier than others, and in order to keep the playing field level, Obama will seek to make happy people less happy, though you could argue that he’s already doing this.
Your thoughts. You know “The Secret,” which talks about your ability to get …

Some Catholics who emphasize social justice believe that Jesus would support things like nationalized health care, so that everyone (including the poor) would have access.  I’m not so sure.
When people say “we need to help the poor,” and then support nationalized health care, they’re making a big leap.  For instance, who says helping the poor has to be a federal issue?  Can’t health care be left to the states?  Just because a bill calls for overhauling health care by placing power in the hands of the federal government means that …

I don’t like it when people claim to be politically moderate, as you might remember from my post “Stop Pretending You’re Moderate.”  Political moderates see themselves as open-minded, non-party affiliated, and independent-thinking.  I see them as flimsy, bandwagon-jumping political weaklings with few to no political principles.
Politically, I am guided by some important principles:  life and economic liberty are two crucial ones.  Understanding those principles with my advanced conservative brain helps me understand news that comes my way; for example, when Bush and Pelosi were talking about stimulus in early 2008, …

With all of the government spending and stimulus spending going on these days, this…

…is the program that doesn’t have enough funding.
Not the Send-the-Asteroid-into-the-Earth program.  The Find-Big-Asteroids-That-Could-Collide-with-The-Earth one.
I can already see Obama talking about this at a Town Hall meeting:
“You know, there’s a lot of people out there who say ‘this government isn’t protecting the Earth from major asteroid collisions, so it must want people dead.’  Nothing can be further from the truth.  We simply don’t believe in investing money in a program that has the potential to saves everyone’s lives.”
I’m …