Worst. President. Ever?
Friday December 26, 2008
Related: Bush on Civil Liberties Issues | What Bush Did Right
In a few weeks, President George W. Bush will become former president George W. Bush and the Bush administration will become the business of historians. Replacing him will be President Barack Obama, and replacing his administration will be the Obama administration.
We're not really in a position to assess the historical place of the Bush administration in any comprehensive way, but judging from what we know now it seems likely that Bush will be remembered as a failed president, much as Jimmy Carter has been, and not merely as a competent one-termer, as George H.W. Bush has been. Much like Carter, Bush can salvage his legacy with an exemplary post-presidency career, should he choose to have one. My suspicion is that he will not, at least not anytime soon; it is hard to imagine a scenario, for example, where Bush would be sent abroad to broker an international peace treaty. And in contrast to Clinton, who immediately began nonprofit work, Bush seems to feel no overwhelming need to establish a new public image right away:
And until we do, it's also hard to assess elements of his civil liberties legacy. We may unconditionally oppose the PATRIOT Act, for example, or the Bush administration's use of torture, warrantless surveillance, and large-scale detention without judicial review, but we might be less likely to condemn Bush for it if it turned out that the measures seemed necessary at the time. Additional information can't eliminate the Bush administration's dreadful civil liberties record, but it can make us aware of factors that could mitigate Bush's guilt and soften his legacy.
Likewise, the jury's still out on Bush's Supreme Court appointments. Already it seems as though Alito and Roberts are not quite as eager to flush away civil rights precedents as are Scalia and Thomas, though they are more willing to do so in some instances than Kennedy. As they establish a record on the Court, will it be a record of latitudinarian center-right jurisprudence or right-wing judicial activism? It took years before observers realized that Kennedy was not an ultraconservative justice, and we may still be a year or two from understanding much about Alito and Roberts.
But there are some things we do know about Bush. If the Bush record turns out to be exactly what it appears to be, he was primarily a president who panicked when confronted with a national crisis, declared multiple elective wars, and implemented measures that threatened, but did not permanently weaken, the rule of law. He wouldn't be the first president who did this, and he probably won't be the last, but history might remember him as the most banal.
See also:
In a few weeks, President George W. Bush will become former president George W. Bush and the Bush administration will become the business of historians. Replacing him will be President Barack Obama, and replacing his administration will be the Obama administration.
We're not really in a position to assess the historical place of the Bush administration in any comprehensive way, but judging from what we know now it seems likely that Bush will be remembered as a failed president, much as Jimmy Carter has been, and not merely as a competent one-termer, as George H.W. Bush has been. Much like Carter, Bush can salvage his legacy with an exemplary post-presidency career, should he choose to have one. My suspicion is that he will not, at least not anytime soon; it is hard to imagine a scenario, for example, where Bush would be sent abroad to broker an international peace treaty. And in contrast to Clinton, who immediately began nonprofit work, Bush seems to feel no overwhelming need to establish a new public image right away:
"I'm looking forward to getting off the stage," Bush told the [Washington] Post. "I have done my duty to my country. I have given it my all. It's now President-elect Obama's time. I have had enough of the spotlight."The positive aspects of Bush's legacy can be summed up in four words: he kept us safe. But is that really true? There have been no large-scale foreign terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since 9/11. But there were no large-scale foreign terrorist attacks on U.S. soil prior to 9/11, either, so that's not necessarily indicative of anything. Did Bush protect us or did we just get lucky? Until we know more about what happened in the months and years immediately following 9/11, we're unlikely to have a solid answer to that question.
And until we do, it's also hard to assess elements of his civil liberties legacy. We may unconditionally oppose the PATRIOT Act, for example, or the Bush administration's use of torture, warrantless surveillance, and large-scale detention without judicial review, but we might be less likely to condemn Bush for it if it turned out that the measures seemed necessary at the time. Additional information can't eliminate the Bush administration's dreadful civil liberties record, but it can make us aware of factors that could mitigate Bush's guilt and soften his legacy.
Likewise, the jury's still out on Bush's Supreme Court appointments. Already it seems as though Alito and Roberts are not quite as eager to flush away civil rights precedents as are Scalia and Thomas, though they are more willing to do so in some instances than Kennedy. As they establish a record on the Court, will it be a record of latitudinarian center-right jurisprudence or right-wing judicial activism? It took years before observers realized that Kennedy was not an ultraconservative justice, and we may still be a year or two from understanding much about Alito and Roberts.
But there are some things we do know about Bush. If the Bush record turns out to be exactly what it appears to be, he was primarily a president who panicked when confronted with a national crisis, declared multiple elective wars, and implemented measures that threatened, but did not permanently weaken, the rule of law. He wouldn't be the first president who did this, and he probably won't be the last, but history might remember him as the most banal.
See also:
Comments
You write: “There have been no large-scale foreign terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since 9/11. But there were no large-scale foreign terrorist attacks on U.S. soil prior to 9/11, either.” You apparently forgot that there was no “foreign terrorist attack on the U.S.” on 9/11 either. Even if you believe there was, the U.S. government never proved that foreigners had anything to do with 9/11, as demonstrated in my research paper entitled “No evidence that Muslims hijacked planes on 9/11″ and posted on: http://www.aldeilis.net/english/images/stories/911/noevidence.pdf
With my best season’s greetings,
Elias Davidsson
No; Bush is, hands-down, the worst President in US history–that is, if you really believe he was ever elected President in the first place, and I don’t. His apparatchiks jury-rigged and stole two elections to put him in the White House.
No other president was ever complicit in making America guilty of torture. No other president ever claimed that he could simply ignore US law and international law–and proceeded to do so! Even though Reagan turned us into an aggressor nation with his attacks on Granada, Chile, and Libya, Bush II carried it to new heights with his colonization of countries in Asia. No previous President gave the federal government a total veto power over my right to earn a living.
The undermining of the Republic and the Constitution that this man has accomplished will, unfortunately, live on, despite the coming of the Obama administration, barring a completely unforeseeable determination on the part of the new President to root it out.
bush is a disgrace to mankind. His brother rigged FL the first time, and bush cheated his way into the WH through the Supreme Court. I believe big business Diebolt rigged the computers to give bush the votes the second time. Pre-polling had Kerry ahead by miles.
bush has disgraced Americans and trashed our country. When he said he has “done my duty to” our great country, he used the correct term “to” instead of “for” because he did irreparable evil “to” our country.
I loathe the idiot. His brain is sub and abnormal.
This was actually a surprisingly fair article. However, you under-emphasize the main point: Given all the information we currently know, Bush was a terrible leader. Sure, we can speculate that there’s some secret evidence that will bear out the atrocities of law he committed, but is that even likely? There weren’t even any WMDs!
I think we should just call a spade a spade, without trying to balance the issue by reference to unseen and unlikely evidence.
Bush was the worst president ever. Period.
You guys are forgetting Jimmy Carter. He had that honor as worst president wrapped up years ago. If he had supported the Shah of Iran, the Ayatollah would have never arisen. He cut the military to the bone and then had to leave it up to someone like Ross Perot to rescue those hostages. No backbone. No brains and lately has been bordering on being one of the biggest of the Hate America Crowd. You may think Bush was bad, but Jimmy Carter is far worse.
Cathy, the idea that Jimmy Carter cut defense spending is a lie told so many times people accept it as fact.
The truth is Jimmy Carter increased Defense spending, both in absolute terms and as a fraction of gross domestic product, every year of his presidency.
The idea that Jimmy Carter caused the fall of the Shah of Iran is simply wrong. The Shah of Iran was a brutal dictator – no better than Bush’s bogey man Saddam. Carter’s mistake was that he supported him too long.
Based upon the first months of the Obama administration, you may want to revisit and revamp this article later this year. Obama’s record on civil liberties may not be bad in your eyes, but pretty much everything else he is touching will be.
“He kept us safe”?
Who the hell was president ON 9/11?
“Kept us safe,” my ass.
Patrick Lilly is an idiot. No other way to describe it. You smoked a lot of pot in high-school, didn’t you Patrick?
As an Iranian, I am compelled to inform my American friends of one simple fact. Please have a look at the map of the world in 1976, which Carter inherited, and then have a look at the world map in 1981, a world Carter left for all of us. You’ll notice how the world, and the U.S. was mismanaged by a team of unknown, border-line anarchists, (Carter/Brzezinski/Clark). In any other country they would be tried for treason. To this day, the Carter Center in Atlanta serves as a bastion of “help” to anti-Americanism and world terrorism. America does not understand the world. (I wish it did). The reason is that it never pays for it’s mistakes the way the world pays for America’s mistakes. Americans made a mistake in 1976, and were out of it in 1981, but the rest of the world is still paying for America’s bad choice. Especially my own country. It is now evident how he made Iran the pointed arrow of his policies. Why should Iranians pay for Carter’s love for terrorists? Iran was America’s first friend in the Moslem world. Iranians to this day love Americans. 50,000 Americans who lived in Iran can attest to that. He gave Iran away to his terrorist friends, the Islamic equivalent of the KKK. He called Khomeini a “saint” back in 1979!!! The Shah was not as he portrayed. Carter did not know the world then, and doesn’t today. Iran and The U.S. will go on paying for his policy of mixing politics with religion. The 9-11 families should take him, and Brzezinski to court for damages. (Brzezinski created the Taliban, and subsequently al-Qaeda). The U.S. Senate should also ask what was an American Attorney General (Ramsey Clark) doing in Tehran leading the marchers under Death to America banners??? Was it part of his normal duties? Or did it in fact reflect core policies of the Carter White House? Those policies are in full speed by Carter today. Americans should ask why? And make him pay for his misdeeds, even if it would undermine the office of the President of the U.S.