Summary: Weekly report of U.S. military deaths in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan), compiled from U.S. Department of Defense News Releases. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 16, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that historians ranked Abraham Lincoln the best U.S. president and James Buchanan the worst. Former President George W. Bush was ranked 36th out of the 42 men who had been chief executive by the end of 2008, according to a survey conducted by the cable TV channel C-SPAN.