Presidents, privilege and performance

A rebuttal to criticisms of "Social Class in the Oval Office" by Howard G. Schneiderman & E. Digby Baltzell (no publication information provided), which compared presidential performance rankings with social class & concluded that presidents of upper social classes tend to perform better than those from lower social classes. This conclusion was criticized on the following grounds: (1) questionable evaluations of presidential success & failure: (2) dispute over equating presidential success with greatness of an individual; & (3) confusion over causation & correlation. The first criticism is answered by pointing to the objectivity & consensus of polls of historians regarding rankings of presidential performance. The second is rebutted by clarifying that the study did not intend to examine the greatness of an individual as a personal characteristic, but only in regard to performance in the presidency. The last criticism is answered by stating that no claims regarding causation were made. D. Generoli