Who Are the 238 Presidential Scholars, Historians, and Political Scientists Polled for the SRI Presidential Rankings? — UPDATE!!

It's just comedy, really.

The main story's here, at Politico: "Professors rank President Obama 15th best president." Also Cassy Fiano offers the best one-paragraph summary:

Some “scholars” made a list ranking our presidents from best to worst. Apparently, President Zero is already a better president than Ronald Reagan, and predictably, Dubya is ranked one of the worst. Gee, this list sounds objective. Oh, and guess who number one is? FDR!

Exactly.

Some "scholars" placed Democrat FDR and Democratic-Republican (Anti-Hamiltonian) Thomas Jefferson ahead of Republican Abraham Lincoln.

Hey nothing like a little partisanship in an "objective" scholarly ranking.

And note something else: Here's the headline to the Siena presidential survey from 2006, "Experts: Bush Presidency is a Failure: Little Chance to Improve Ranking." More objectivity, no doubt.

I've checked the SRI links (the summary and the crosstabs). There's no information on the poll's respondents, which violates ethical survey sampling methodology.

Here's the contact information: Professor Tom Kelly: 518-372-7890 or Dr. Douglas Lonnstrom: 518-783-2362. I'm looking for e-mail addresses, and will update with those when I find them. And when I get it, I'll publish the list of the 238 "objective" scholars as well.

I should be laughing, and then I remember that these idiots are in charge of educating a large portion of today's youth. Society's going FUBAR.

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UPDATE: Just got off the phone with Professor Tom Kelly at Siena College. He told me the survey's "anonymous." He was was real nice. I asked if I could see the list of survey respondents. He said, "Well that's the thing. The survey is anonymous." I doubt Professor Kelly was up on things like Memeorandum. I asked about criticisms of left-wing bias at the poll, and he said, "Oh, I've heard things like that before." You think? Only a far-lefty could love a polling monstrosity like this. When I inquired a bit more about the identity of the respondents he said the reason for anonymity was designed to increase "objectivity." Hmm... Probably more likely to increase physical safety. He mentioned that the poll had gained reputation and the survey's write-ups have been published in Presidential Studies Quarterly, although I don't see a citation at the Wikipedia entry. (But here it is: "Rating the presidents: a tracking study," by Douglas A. Lonnstrom , Thomas O. II Kelly.) Frankly, only academics could like something like this.

(Well, actually, the MSM eats it up. See "In a new hard time, FDR's aura endures." Professor Kelly is interviewed there. Also, here's the Siena press release, "Siena Poll: American Presidents.")

Stuff like this is frankly another blow on the credibility of high-falutin scholarly research. As Rick Moran points out at American Thinker:

It's that the nation's public intellectuals operate so much in a cocoon that they don't realize people are laughing at them when they make Barack Obama the 15th best president of all time, while giving him "high marks for intelligence, ability to communicate and imagination." The evidence for any of that is so lacking that it obviously exists only in the minds of the respondents.

Additional commentary at Common Sense Political Thought (in high demand, obviously) and TrogloPundit (so simply even a Troglo can do it!).