When I was growing up, there was no Presidents Day, but there might as well have been. As a member of the last generation of students who were expected to memorize the presidents of the United States in chronological order, I still associate clammy hands with the making of presidential lists.

We were also expected to absorb trivia about presidents unlucky enough to have been born with names like "Rutherford" and "Ulysses." With the exception of Abraham Lincoln, the presidents who served in the early-to-mid-1800s and those who clustered around the end of the 19th century were mysteries to me.

When called upon to say something interesting about, say, John Tyler or Zachary Taylor, my default answer was always a hopeful "they were assassinated?"

As far as I was concerned, Millard Fillmore was a recurring character on "The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show." To my young mind, Chester Arthur and Grover Cleveland were such cool names, they could have been jazz musicians who showed up for gigs at the White House, but never left.

Recently, C-SPAN released the results of its poll of 65 historians and political scientists who ranked the 42 men who had served in the White House by the end of 2008 according to how they handled the economy, exercised leadership during a crisis, dealt with international relations, pursued justice and set the national agenda.

Abraham Lincoln topped the list just as he did in 2000 when C-SPAN began its survey. George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman round out the list of our top five presidents, according to these historians.

It is a fairly solid list, though skewed heavily toward presidents who served in the 20th century. None of the top five could be called a truly crazy choice, though FDR has come in for a revisionist drubbing by conservatives who have begun to argue that the New Deal was bad for America.

John F. Kennedy is sixth on the list, followed by Thomas Jefferson, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Woodrow Wilson and Ronald Reagan. At this point, polite consensus gives way to ideological commitment. We feel strongly about the men on this portion of the list and wonder to what extent sentimental considerations have clouded the historians' objectivity.

How did Kennedy pull ahead of Jefferson on this list? Why is Reagan in the top 10 given the scandals that dogged his second term?

The next 10 presidents on the list cry out for commentary. Lyndon B. Johnson is No. 11, followed by James Polk, Andrew Jackson, James Monroe, Bill Clinton, William McKinley, John Adams, George H.W. Bush, John Quincy Adams and James Madison.

Three presidents who have served in office since 1980 are in the top 20, which feels unlikely on an intuitive level, though I'm not sure why it should.

As odd as those names are, the next 10 are guaranteed to start fights in bars. Grover Cleveland kicks off the list followed by Gerald R. Ford, Ulysses S. Grant, William Howard Taft, Jimmy Carter, Calvin Coolidge, Richard M. Nixon, James A. Garfield, Zachary Taylor and Benjamin Harrison.

With the exception of the villainous Nixon, doesn't this portion of the list read like a miscellany of underachievers? At least Carter outpoints Nixon, but his ranking several slots behind Ford just isn't right.

Martin Van Buren begins the descent into the nether regions of the presidential list followed by Chester A. Arthur, Rutherford B. Hayes, Herbert Hoover, John Tyler, George W. Bush, Millard Fillmore, Warren G. Harding, William Henry Harrison, Franklin D. Pierce, Andrew Johnson and James Buchanan.

I know what you're thinking -- why is Harrison ranked so low when he died a mere month into office? It's not his fault he contracted pneumonia on Inauguration Day. Should someone who never signed an executive order be ranked behind George W. Bush?

As for Mr. Bush's ranking as seventh from the bottom, he's about where he belongs in the pecking order until scholars and historians have thoroughly examined his record.

We've all heard the mantra in recent years that the 43rd president is the worst that exclusive club has yet produced. He may be, but it hasn't been proved yet. Still, given his proximity to the bottom, he is very much in the running.

For now, George W. Bush has surprised his critics by eluding the bottom five. Once again, the former president has been "misunderestimated."