Right Honourable Men

Probably inspired by Calgary Grit's ongoing "Greatest Prime Minister" battle, today I bought and am quite excited to read, "Right Honourable Men", by Michael Bliss. I haven't read past the introduction yet, but for the record, here's how Bliss ranks our prime ministers:

1) Mackenzie King
2) tie b/w Sir John A. Macdonald and Pierre Elliott Trudeau
4) Sir Robert Borden
5) Sir Wilfrid Laurier
6) Lester Pearson
7) Louis St. Laurent
8) tie b/w Brian Mulroney and Jean Chretien
10) Alexander Mackenzie
11) John Diefenbaker

He dismisses the rest of the PM's as, "and then the others". I'm actually quite surprised by his ranking of Louis St. Laurent, considering he didn't even think him important enough to give him his own chapter in the book (which goes Macdonald, Laurier, Borden, Meighen and Bennett, King, King again, Diefenbaker, Pearson, Trudeau, Mulroney, Chretien) and I'm also surprised that someone I always felt was a more conservative historian placed Mackenzie King (champion of the welfare state) and Pierre Trudeau (champion of everything conservatives love to hate) so highly. I look forward to reading his reasoning.