President Chester Arthur backed the Pendleton Civil Service Act which ended the inefficient and corrupt practices associated with Jackson’s ‘spoils system’.
President Theodore Roosevelt’s achievements: Nobel Peace Prize for actually negotiating peace in Asia (unlike an obnoxious, modern recipient). Known as the “Trust Buster”, TR worked with the labor movement to achieve better working conditions and higher wages. Issued the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine ensuring European nations and colonialism were kept a bay in the Western hemisphere. Initiated construction on the Panama Canal. Initiated major advances in U.S. conservation policy.
President Harding achieved a major foreign policy coup by calling the Washington Conference and initiating arms limitation agreements that keep world peace throughout the 1920s. Harding reconstituted American civil liberties by repudiating the Espionage Act of 1917 employed Wilson to unconstitutionally imprison political foes, e.g. Debs and others: whom Harding released from prison. He also averted a post war recession and presided over a ‘roaring’ domestic economy.
President Coolidge also presided over a roaring domestic economy.
President Truman ended WWII. That’s not insignificant in anybody’s book. He helped initiate and backed the war crimes proceedings at Nuremberg and in Tokyo. Initiated the Marshall Plan in Europe. Advanced the Truman Doctrine. The Berlin Airlift. He initiated civil rights legislation and integrated the U.S. military. Helped create the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Defended S. Korea against invasion.
President Eisenhower: Truce in Korea (still holding). Interstate Highway System. Civil Rights Act of 1957. Established NASA. Mobilized the National Guard to protect the Little Rock Nine.
These men far exceeded Obama's accomplishments in both the foreign and the domestic arena.