With all of the more important issues of today, polls of who Americans rate as their greatest president really have very little importance, unless as a possible barometer of what Americans don't know about this country's history.

Polls commissioned by Washington College for Presidents' Day, as well as a CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll, can be faulted for not applying enough emphasis to the issue of knowledge of history, which is an important ingredient in rating a president.

Abraham Lincoln was rated tops in the college poll; Ronald Reagan was deemed greatest in the CNN poll.

It is understandable that Americans of today don't rate George Washington as the greatest or next-greatest of the nation's 43 presidents. They don't have enough knowledge about the presidents who led this country prior to, say, 1960, when John F. Kennedy was elected.

A more relevant, eye-opening endeavor would be to have a few thousand Americans match a non-obscure issue with the president who dealt with it during his time as chief executive. With history taking a back seat on the educational front, the results of such an exercise might be sobering.