President Obama did Hillary Clinton no favor when he announced that he doesn’t think “there’s ever been someone so qualified to hold this office.” Not to take anything away from Mrs. Clinton, who is, we can see, a formidable figure, but what was Mr. Obama thinking? Is Hillary Clinton more qualified than George Washington? He was the general who won the Revolutionary War, he was a delegate in both the First and Second Continental Congress, and chaired the constitutional convention.

By some measures, Mrs. Clinton isn’t as qualified as Washington’s horse, Nelson. The steed didn’t live long enough in human years to get over the constitutional age requirement, but he was famously steady under fire and disclosed a remarkable character and temperament, even in battle. Plus, Nelson never took any multi-million-dollar “charitable” contributions from foreign governments. Nor did he send government secrets via email. Nelson wouldn’t have been caught dead endorsing the articles of appeasement with Iran.

But let’s skip the satire. John Adams may have been more qualified than Washington, at least by the time Adams was elected. For one thing, he’d won the hand of Abigail. It would be too much to say that he invented the idea of separated powers, but he brought concept of separated powers into law as principal author of the Constitution of Massachusetts. He was minister to France, the Netherlands, and Britain, and vice president for eight years. He still holds the record for breaking ties in the Senate.

The presidential rankings clerk at the New York Sun suggests George H.W. Bush had an underappreciated set of qualifications when he got to the door of the White House. He’d been a war hero, a congressman, director of central intelligence, ambassador to China, permanent United States representations at the United Nations, chairman of the Republican National Committee, and Vice President of America (and president of its Senate). And a successful businessman.

Thos. Jefferson had the best set of qualifications for president, according to one Web site that has a ranking. By the time the Virginian got to the White House he’d been a burgess (in the first elected legislature in the New World), served as a member of congress, written the Declaration of Independence, done a tour as ambassador to France, been governor of Virginia, Secretary of State of America, and Vice President. Plus, too, he’d written the Act of Virginia for Religious Freedom. We mean, c’mon.

The idea that the resume is the measure of the man (or woman) was itself questioned by Jonah Goldberg in a column in the Globe newspaper in Boston. That was in February, when this notion that Mrs. Clinton was the most qualified person ever to get near the presidency was starting to sprout. Mr. Goldberg was animated to write on this head because Senator Booker had suggested that Mrs. Clinton was the most qualified person since Washington. We’re not here to suggest that Mrs. Clinton isn’t qualified at all. But without peer? The suggestion invites ridicule.