How will history treat Bush?

[Jara sang]

Not a single one of his policies has been a success. The last third of his pResidency will have been racked with scandal. I know when he leaves office he will not become an elder statesmen.(Cushy seat on the board at Carlyle) But I know right wing pundits will continue to sing his praises after he leaves office. The thought of them canonizing him and renaming every federal building in the country after him triggers the mechanism for forced expulsion of my stomach contents.

[acmavm]

1. Like the boil on the butt of humanity that he is.

[mmonk]

2. Depend on what happens to our country (who wins)

and thus who writes the account.

[0007]

3. All depends who writes the history of this bumbling stumbling

moran.

[jesus_of_suburbia]

4. Worst pResident EVER!

[npincus]

5. One historian's opinion (Sean Wilentz):

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/profile/story/9961300/the_worst_president_in_history?rnd=1146166652625&has-player=true&version=6.0.12.872



George W. Bush's presidency appears headed for colossal historical disgrace. Barring a cataclysmic event on the order of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, after which the public might rally around the White House once again, there seems to be little the administration can do to avoid being ranked on the lowest tier of U.S. presidents. And that may be the best-case scenario. Many historians are now wondering whether Bush, in fact, will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history.

From time to time, after hours, I kick back with my colleagues at Princeton to argue idly about which president really was the worst of them all. For years, these perennial debates have largely focused on the same handful of chief executives whom national polls of historians, from across the ideological and political spectrum, routinely cite as the bottom of the presidential barrel. Was the lousiest James Buchanan, who, confronted with Southern secession in 1860, dithered to a degree that, as his most recent biographer has said, probably amounted to disloyalty -- and who handed to his successor, Abraham Lincoln, a nation already torn asunder? Was it Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, who actively sided with former Confederates and undermined Reconstruction? What about the amiably incompetent Warren G. Harding, whose administration was fabulously corrupt? Or, though he has his defenders, Herbert Hoover, who tried some reforms but remained imprisoned in his own outmoded individualist ethic and collapsed under the weight of the stock-market crash of 1929 and the Depression's onset? The younger historians always put in a word for Richard M. Nixon, the only American president forced to resign from office.

Now, though, George W. Bush is in serious contention for the title of worst ever. In early 2004, an informal survey of 415 historians conducted by the nonpartisan History News Network found that eighty-one percent considered the Bush administration a "failure." Among those who called Bush a success, many gave the president high marks only for his ability to mobilize public support and get Congress to go along with what one historian called the administration's "pursuit of disastrous policies." In fact, roughly one in ten of those who called Bush a success was being facetious, rating him only as the best president since Bill Clinton -- a category in which Bush is the only contestant.

The lopsided decision of historians should give everyone pause. Contrary to popular stereotypes, historians are generally a cautious bunch. We assess the past from widely divergent points of view and are deeply concerned about being viewed as fair and accurate by our colleagues. When we make historical judgments, we are acting not as voters or even pundits, but as scholars who must evaluate all the evidence, good, bad or indifferent. Separate surveys, conducted by those perceived as conservatives as well as liberals, show remarkable unanimity about who the best and worst presidents have been.

[jrw14125]

6. you're assuming humans will have written history when he's through

[progdonkey]

7. after the nuclear war...

when the apes take over, Bush will be heralded has the Great Chimp who made it possible for Ape Civilization to flourish.

[Jara sang]

9. Chimperor indeed.

A Chimperor among chimps.

[BrklynLiberal]

8. Too bad he will not end up as an insignificant footnote.

He will be infamous, like Hitler.

[glarius]

10. Like a BAD, UNFUNNY JOKE!

Everything he says or does and even the goofy, clueless expressions on his face are beyond comprihension to a thinking person. HOW DID THIS MAN GET TO BE THE LEADER OF THE WORLD'S MOST POWERFUL COUNTRY?.....MIND BOGGLING!

[Sinti]

11. As a mass-murdering maniac, severely lacking in intelligence n/t

[benddem]

12. with contempt n/t

[Neil Lisst]

13. Bush will be bottom five presidents, lower than his old man.

[catmandu57]

14. Very poorly

and the further away from the present very very badly.

[UTUSN]

15. He said he don't care 'cause he'll be dead. So much for his afterlife n/t