E&P: Five Sunday Washington Post op-eds set off debate: Is Bush Worst President Ever?

[DeepModem Mom]

Editor&Publisher: 'Wash Post' Sunday Debate: Is Bush Worst President Ever?
By E&P Staff
Published: December 02, 2006



NEW YORK Five op-eds in Sunday's Washington Post may set off an intriguing debate, pro and con. On the front page of the Post's Outlook section, famed Columbia University historian Eric Foner proposes George W. Bush as the worst president in our history -- and author Douglas Brinkley disagrees, but only slightly: He thinks Bush only ranks as badly as Herbert Hoover. Another historian, David Greenberg, thinks only Nixon is worst. Meanwhile, another well-known writer, Michael Lind, pegs Bush at the #5 worst spot.

But Vincent J. Cannato, a historian at the University of Massachusetts, cautions: "Today's pronouncements that Bush is the 'worst president ever' are too often ideology masquerading as history."

The Washington Post editorial page has been a strong backer of the Iraq war from the beginning.

Foner opens by noting that such rankings have long been a favorite among historians, with changes in rankings (Truman up, Teddy Roosevelt down, etc.) setting off near-seismic rumblings. He describes some of the consensus losers, for example: "At a time of national crisis, Pierce and Buchanan, who served in the eight years preceding the Civil War, and Johnson, who followed it, were simply not up to the job. Stubborn, narrow-minded, unwilling to listen to criticism or to consider alternatives to disastrous mistakes, they surrounded themselves with sycophants and shaped their policies to appeal to retrogressive political forces....

"Even after being repudiated in the midterm elections of 1854, 1858 and 1866, respectively, they ignored major currents of public opinion and clung to flawed policies. Bush's presidency certainly brings theirs to mind."...

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003467728

[Poiuyt]

1. I disagree with Brinkley's conclusion

snip -

There isn't much that Bush can do now to salvage his reputation. His presidential library will someday be built around two accomplishments: that after 9/11, the U.S. homeland wasn't again attacked by terrorists (knock on wood) and that he won two presidential elections, allowing him to appoint conservatives to key judicial posts. I also believe that he is an honest man and that his administration has been largely void of widespread corruption. This will help him from being portrayed as a true villain.

This last point is crucial. Though Bush may be viewed as a laughingstock, he won't have the zero-integrity factors that have kept Nixon and Harding at the bottom in the presidential sweepstakes. Oddly, the president whom Bush most reminds me of is Herbert Hoover, whose name is synonymous with failure to respond to the Great Depression. When the stock market collapsed, Hoover, for ideological reasons, did too little. When 9/11 happened, Bush did too much, attacking the wrong country at the wrong time for the wrong reasons. He has joined Hoover as a case study on how not to be president.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/01/AR2006120101511.html


Starting a war of aggression has to be the worst thing a world leader can do (short of ethnic cleaning perhaps). Bush wanted to be known as a "War President" so that he would have a successful and popular term. He saw his father's popularity go down after the first Gulf War concluded, and Bush was determined not to let that happen. Starting a war for your own political power is truly vile.

Second, there has been plenty of corruption in this administration in the form of cronyism and war profiteering. What about Cheney's former company, Hallibuton, getting billions in no-bid contracts? And I'd love to have been a fly on the wall in Cheney's secret energy policy meetings. Is there any doubt why the oil company's profits have skyrocketed since Bush/Cheney took office?

[Diogenes2]

4. We werent't attacked after 9/11?

To paraphrase a poster on another thread's remark-- "Hell, yes we've been attacked... coming up on 3000 times so far.

[Skidmore]

2. Why is this even a debate?

And can we expect an op-ed reply from Poppy in the next week?

[DeepModem Mom]

3. Still -- significant, I think, that the WP is devoting an op-ed page to the question. nt