Most if not virtually all US Presidents have been simply average -- meaning competent but not great.
For example, George Washington was simply average, whereas his greatness lies in the work he did during the American Revolution. Washington's greatest blunder was urging the USA to stay out of foreign affairs, and this was taken seriously for several generations afterwards, until it led to the conflagration known as WW2. Isolationism is not the answer for a superpower, yet lots of people hung onto Washington's words like they were the Gospel.
Ike was the same as Washington in that way -- an average President but one who had distinguished himself by defeating Nazi Germany. Ike's greatest blunder was not seeing Viet Nam coming as a failure for the US -- because of the situation it was unwinnable -- too far away and too corrupt internally. Ike had grown to fear communism in Russia and China, and therefore he though the USA could muscle their way in Southeast Asia as well, even AFTER FRANCE proved success there was impossible for a Western nation.
There were some incompetent Presidents who completely failed to deal with the issues of their times, and two come to mind -- Buchanan and Hoover.
Buchanan did very little in response to South Carolina's rebellion, leaving that all to Lincoln later.
Hoover did nothing to stem the poverty from the Great Depression, leaving that all to FDR later.
There were some extremely corrupt Presidents, of which Nixon comes to mind, and Ford also.
As far as who was a truly great president, as was said earlier by PASCHENDALE, it takes extraordinary circumstances to allow any President to show greatness.
No doubt Lincoln was a great President.
No doubt FDR was a great President, even though the far right fringe bad-mouth him to this day.
Both Lincoln and FDR died in office, Lincoln from an assassin's bullet, and FDR from total exhaustion and a debilitation disease. They both gave it their all.
Kennedy was an above average President who had one moment of glory during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but then he botched things with the Bay Of Pigs. Kennedy died in office too from an assassin's bullet, but this time the assassin was merely a wacko. Kennedy did not do anything particularly extraordinary to deserve to be killed -- as far as we know. Oswald was simply unstable.
LBJ did great things for civil rights, but botched Viet Nam. However he inherited Viet Nam from Ike.
I remember back in 1980 everyone thought Carter was an idiot -- now they mostly consider him to be godlike.
I remember back in 1980 everyone thought Reagan was godlike -- now they mostly consider him to have been an idiot.
The Reaganesque policies of tax cuts for the rich followed by GW Bush as well were idiotic for the US Treasury, and none of these two ever achieved any government cost cutting nor any deficit reduction as promised. They each used Keynesian policies (normally considered to be "liberal") to stimulate the US economy in order to make everybody happy -- in each case with military spending.
Other than that I would not criticize GW Bush -- I think he was just average with a little bit of Reagan dumbo for giving more tax cuts to the rich. Maybe below average in intelligence, but definitely average as a President.
GHW Bush hiked taxes on everybody, which mostly hit the middle class. He also focused his energies on Iraq, for which he thought in his own head he would be heralded as a hero, however Clinton was able to politically paint him as distracted by foreign affairs and that cost GHW his re-election. So GHW blundered, but overall his was merely a 3rd Reagan term.
Clinton was also a good speaker, and at a time when GWH was vulnerable, Clinton snatched victory away from him. Then the internet boom and the dot com boom propelled Clinton to prosperity. At the height of it all Willy whipped out his Willy and it went downhill from there with Monica. Monica lives in the UK now and is afraid to show her face in the USA. Clinton was competent but frat-boy foolish.
So now, on to BHO -- the main topic of this thread.
He looks good, he has a beautiful family, he gives great speeches, he administers the CIA effectively, he has been more lethal than GW Bush against Al Qaeda, he re-raised taxes on the rich and that's why they hate him for it, and he kept his promise to bring the troops home, which unfortunately unleashed firestorms in Iraq and A-stan.
I would definitely call BHO competent, although I don't personally agree with his gun views. BHO has been like a more competent version of Carter -- pacifist Presidents who were weary and leery of warfare.
So that's my answer for BHO: Competent yes. Great no.
If we were still in high school, competent would mean a B+.
Great would be an A+ and there are only a couple of those in all of our history.
And the failures would get D's and F's -- Buchanan, Hoover, Nixon and Ford.
Chew on that, then rebuttal me.