One of the benefits of growing up in an immigrant family is that you get to compare U.S. history with that of where you came from — Cuba, in my case.  In other words, the U.S. looks pretty good when you compare it to your own history.  This is why I've always felt that the U.S. was blessed with the integrity of the men who served as president.  I'm not saying they were perfect, but they are better than most of the others in other countries.

It’s difficult to pick a favorite president because we tend to focus on the ones we remember.  In our case, it’s the Cold War or recent presidencies.  Nevertheless, I will try to look at past and recent history.  My five picks for best presidents:

1. George Washington: the U.S. was lucky to have this man at the foundation of the republic.  Most new countries go wrong from the beginning.  On the other hand, the U.S. had the proper man at the right moment.  It’s criminal that some schools teach only that he was a slaveowner.
2. Abraham Lincoln: who else?  He kept this nation together.  It’s sad because no one appreciated him during his presidency.
3. Franklin D. Roosevelt: great leader.  He made people feel better during the Great Depression, which saw huge levels of unemployment.  Also, FDR saw evil in Europe and confronted it.
4. Dwight Eisenhower: as they say, he gets better with age.  His steady leadership was exactly what the country needed after Korea and World War II.
5. Ronald Reagan: the Great Communicator, and the one who inspired so many to become conservatives.

Honorable mention to George W. Bush, who was brilliant after 9-11, Gerald Ford for taking over after the Nixon resignation, Harry Truman for enacting the policy of containing communism, and Donald Trump for being realistic about the threat of an unaccountable bureaucracy.

Overall, the U.S. has been very lucky with the integrity of its presidents.

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Image: Cathy Rowe via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped).