JaBbA's Hut

It's often said that history looks back and judges a presidency differently than the people. Roosevelt, Carter and Truman are good examples of presidents who were disliked by many Americans but whose presidencies have fared better when looked at from a historical perspective. I also often hear "History will judge Ronald Reagan's presidency as one of the greatest of all times".

So maybe historians have a pretty good perspective on whether a presidency is a success or a failure.

If that's true, BushCo's in trouble.

“If one believes Bush is a ‘good’ president (or great),� one poll respondent noted, he or she “would necessarily also believe Reagan to be a pretty good president.� They also tend to despise Roosevelt. “There is no indication,� one historian said of Bush, “that he has advisors who are closet communist traitors as FDR had. Based on his record to date, history is likely to judge him as one of America’s greatest presidents, in the tradition of Washington and Lincoln.�

The thought that anyone could rate the incumbent president with Washington and Lincoln is enough to induce apoplexy in a substantial majority of historians. Among the many offenses they enumerate in their indictment of Bush is that he is, as one of them put it, “well on his way to destroying the entire (and entirely successful) structures of international cooperation and regulated, humane capitalism and social welfare that have been built up since the early 1930s.� “Bush is now in a position,� Another historian said, “to ‘roll back the New Deal,’ guided by Tom DeLay.�

Several charges against the Bush administration arose repeatedly in the comments of historians who responded to the survey. Among them were: the doctrine of pre-emptive war, crony capitalism/being “completely in bed with certain corporate interests,� bankruptcy/fiscal irresponsibility, military adventurism, trampling of civil liberties, and anti-environmental policies.

Among the 80%+ answering that Bush's presidency is a failure, the answer to this question is startling:

"The Bush Presidency is the worst since:"

55 Nixon
48 Worst Ever
44 Harding
42 Hoover
38 Reagan
35 Buchanan

That's a pretty bad list to be a part of.