First choice: Zaphod Beeblebrox, because (as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy notes) he had “no real power whatsoever.” Also, he was the sort of guy you could imagine having a drink with, and he had two heads, which are better than one.(quoted from National Review Online)
Second choice: William Henry Harrison, because he left office before he could do much damage.
It is a sign of how magnificent our country is that there can be so much debate on this topic. At the risk of being predictable, the two greatest Presidents ever are the two whom we specifically honor on this day.
George Washington was a demigod among men, which accounts for the tireless efforts of revisionist historians to cut him down to size. A man of impeccable character, grace and strength, he was a gift from God at a moment when our nation needed such a gift. How this man managed to hold together a ragtag army of freezing, underfed, underclothed and largely unpaid volunteers from 1775 until French aid came in 1778 is inexplicable. In fact it can only be called miraculous. Having every opportunity at the war's end to seize control of the nation as our first King, or at least Lord Protector (which in fact he was urged to do so by several supporters), Washington chose instead to surrender his command (Prompting King George to dub him the "greatest man who ever lived"). Called back into service as his nation's first President, Washington served humbly, assembling the original "team of rivals" in cabinet members Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. Washington rejected in disgust the suggestion that he be referred to as "Your Excellency" and demanded to go by "Mr. President." And once again, with limitless power in his hands and zero tradition to hold him back, President Washington humbly established the tradition of serving two terms only.
His second year in office, Abraham Lincoln came to understand that he was to be God's instrument in the abolition of slavery. Slavery had always been an abomination in Lincoln's eyes. Earlier in his career he referred to the slave trade as that which has the "capacity to make me miserable" and as a Congressman he had successfully fought to ban the sale of slaves within the Washington city limits. Lincoln did not immediately move to abolish slavery when the first states began to secede, in no small part because some of the Union states were in fact slave states. However, he soon acted in accordance with the mandate he felt God had set upon him and freed by Executive mandate some four million human beings. Were the war fought with remarkable efficiency to swift victory by the North, the Emancipation Proclamation alone would have secured Lincoln's place as one of the greatest (if not the greatest) Presidents. But of course the war was not fought well. Lincoln endured a long succession of incompetent Generals while American boys bled to death by the hundreds of thousands. History had once again dropped a massive weight onto Lincoln's shoulders--in all, some 600,000 American boys and men would die--and once again he carried on without buckling. He waited, he ordered, he excoriated, he replaced, and he was finally rewarded with "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. Thanks to Lincoln's resolve, which sometimes manifested itself in draconian tactics such as suspending Habeas Corpus, the North won the war and our Union was preserved.
There are blessed few other Presidents who can said to even approach the tier occupied by these two men, though their fellow Rushmore occupants Jefferson and T. Roosevelt are undoubtedly two of the more remarkable Presidents. Certainly Reagan deserves adulation comparable to that lavished upon Teddy. Harry Truman is an unsung hero who, like Lincoln, made the hard decisions necessitated by a horrific war. Yet Washington and Lincoln still stand above the rest, and rightly so. I don't know that there will ever be another Abraham Lincoln. There will certainly never be another George Washington.
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