No other job, with the possible exception of the pope's, is as complex as that of the president of the United States.

Alvin Stephen Felzenberg asked himself how, then, could historians rank and rate presidents on any single quality?

He offers an alternative that examines how presidents performed based on three personal attributes and in three policy areas.

Using a five-point scale, he then ranked each president based on all six measures.

		"THE LEADERS WE DESERVED" By Alvin Stephen Felzenberg Basic Books ($29.95)

The resulting book provides a nuanced look at where the nation's chief executives stood out and where they stumbled.

First, there's some bad news for Pennsylvanians. James Buchanan, the state's only native-born president, holds his familiar place at the bottom of presidential rankings.

Despite having served in more state and federal offices than any other president, Buchanan appeared to have learned little from his lifetime of experience, Felzenberg writes.

Lacking character, vision and competence, Buchanan also sought to reduce national liberty. He blocked emancipation measures and supported erosion of civil rights for free blacks in an unsuccessful attempt to placate Southern slaveholders.

Buchanan is in the lowest spot in Felzenberg's list, with Andrew Johnson and Franklin Pierce, often called America's most handsome president, tied for the second-to-last position.

Occupying the top of the list is Abraham Lincoln, an overachiever who earned top grades of five on all six of Felzenberg's scales. He is followed by George Washington and Theodore Roosevelt.

One surprise is how well Ulysses S. Grant did under Felzenberg's analysis.

The Civil War general turned politician ranks higher than Woodrow Wilson, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, John Adams, John Quincy Adams and George H.W. Bush.

Jefferson and Wilson suffered from Felzenberg's judgment of their mediocre character and half-hearted defenses of liberty.

Grant got high marks from Felzenberg for his efforts to extend voting rights to newly freed slaves and for his efforts to integrate blacks into national life despite administrations fraught with scandal.

Mexican War hero Zachary Taylor, Virginia-born and a slaveholder, died in office.

His death in 1850 let Felzenberg speculate about what might have been had Taylor served out his term.

Like Andrew Jackson before him, Taylor was a Southerner who was ready to send federal troops and hang traitors to protect the union.

If a civil war had started in 1850, he might have held more states in the union, weakening the Confederacy and shortening the war.

An academic who teaches at the University of Pennsylvania and George Washington University and a sometime bureaucrat, Felzenberg has written a book likely to start many more arguments than it settles.

I, for one, can't see how he can rank Dwight Eisenhower above Franklin Roosevelt.

I think I'll have to assign my own values to character and economic policy and see what happens.