Worst President Ever

In a History News Network poll, 61 percent of historians say that George W. Bush has been the worst president ever. It's very hard to know what to make of these kind of questions. How can you possibly try to evaluate someone like, say, Andrew Jackson in contemporary terms?

At any rate, it will surprise no one to learn that I think Bush has been a very bad president. More interestingly, I also take the view that Bush is probably correct to think that history will remember him kindly. American presidents associated with big dramatic events tend to wind up with good reputations whether they deserve them or not. One possible Bush analogy would be to Woodrow Wilson, who did all kinds of things with regard to civil liberties that look indefensible today and whose foreign policy ended as a giant failure, but who was associated with both big events and with big ideas that were influential down the road. Someday, I bet there will be democracies in the Middle East and some future Republican president will figure out a way to put meat on the bones of "compassionate conservatism" and Bush will be looked upon as a far-sighted figure who made some mistakes in a difficult period of time. Will he deserve a good reputation? No. Will he get one? I'd say yes.

Comments

Woodrow Wilson is generally remembered as a bad president.

Posted by Antid Oto | April 7, 2008 1:21 PM

Sadly, this is correct. Though to be fair, it is difficult for Bush to really be worse than James Buchanan.

Posted by IP Guy | April 7, 2008 1:22 PM

There's a funny irony here. Republicans tend to bash Wilson because of his foreign policy. Isn't that funny?

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | April 7, 2008 1:23 PM

I associate James Buchanan with the Civil War, and he is generally ranked one of the very few worst Presidents.

Posted by DTM | April 7, 2008 1:24 PM

I think he'll be recognized as the president who sped-up America's inevitable relative decline and the creation of a multi-polar world. Depending on how one views that new world will color how his longterm reputation develops, on the other hand regardless of that view, he will be seen as unnecessarily causing severe damage to his country, his office, the international system, his party, and Iraq.

Posted by David | April 7, 2008 1:25 PM

Matt, this is so short-sighted. Our children will be cleaning up Bush's messes. It only gets worse. Has history been kind to Harding? Buchanan? Nixon will have yet another downfall and will justly return to the failure category (for those who lifted him up, shame, shame). That the Bush catastrophies are just beginning is the assurance that his place in history will be secured where it ought to be: the very worst.

Posted by maxgowan | April 7, 2008 1:26 PM

Hoover didn't really get a big boost in later generations from being associated with the Depression.

Eisenhower had a relatively placid eight years, and his reputation only improved with time.

I think your "big events = the smile of later generations" thesis is just wrong.

Posted by brooksfoe | April 7, 2008 1:28 PM

Woodrow Wilson in his first term was responsible for a lot of good legislation - the creation of the Federal Reserve System, the Clayton Antitrust Act, which exempted labor unions from antitrust legislation and put more teeth into the Sherman Antitrust Act; the Underwood Tariff, which reduced tariffs and raised income for the federal government via an income tax; the Adamson Act, which imposed an 8 hour day on railroad workers in defiance of industry wishes; and a lot of other decent stuff. Overall, Wilson's first term was a very productive era for progressive legislation - the most productive by a considerable margin of the Progressive era, I believe.

His foreign policy legacy is pretty mixed, but I don't think it's as bad as you make it out to be. He did, after all, win World War I. Versailles was a mess, certainly, but that's always been acknowledged in understandings of Wilson, I think. At any rate, Wilson's legacy is pretty clearly mixed, and his positive reputation has to do as much with his very successful first term as with the failed ideals of his second.

One might also note that Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, and Andrew Johnson were all associated with big, dramatic events. They routinely come in at the very bottom of these kind of presidential polls.

Posted by John | April 7, 2008 1:29 PM

Do you think GWB will leave office with compassionate conservatism and democracy in the Middle East as his two signature issues? In both cases they were convenient campaign talking points to justify less attractive policies. Where is the evidence that he really pushed for compassion or democracy? He'll need a platoon of Grover Norquists to reinvent his legacy.

Welcome to the George W. Bush-New Orleans International Airport.

Posted by wren | April 7, 2008 1:32 PM

Woodrow Wilson is generally well-regarded because he marked a departure from the past in that he tried to make America more engaged with Europe and finally put an end to America's suspicion of foreign entanglements. Whether he was a good president or good person is seen as tangential to the fact that he tried to forge a new path.

Despite Bush's claims, his presidency has really been more about old thinking and mindless interventionist behavior with which we are already familiar. I don't see the future as being one in which Anglo-American interventions in the middle east will be the norm. I see him being regarded as a Nixon- or Grant-like character than Wilson.

Posted by Tyro | April 7, 2008 1:32 PM

I don't see it myself. Just about everything Bush has done has failed even against his own goals. He set out to establish a permanent Republican majority, now the Dems hold Congress and are poised to take the WH; he set out to liberate Iraq (and the rest of the Middle East), and has caused a bloody mess; he tried to phase out Social Security, and got nowhere; he tried to establish the "Ownership Society", and we've got a wave of foreclosures and shrinking home ownership; he swore to get bin Laden "dead or alive", and 6 years on he's still at large.

Against that, we've got a few pretty speeches which obviously never matched the policy priorities. We give Wilson some credit because he didn't just *talk* about establishing supranational organizations - he really tried hard to do it.

Nope, Bush goes down in history as a big loser. Maybe not the worst. But very very bad. Reading
"My Pet Goat", giving the "Mission Accomplished"
speech and flying over flooded New Orleans are
just vivid illustrations of stupidity and incompetence. And anyone who digs behind the scenes into the torture memos, the disappearing emails, the Plame case, and the Alberto Gonzales DoJ isn't going to find any hidden goodness.

Posted by Richard Cownie | April 7, 2008 1:36 PM

The Wilson comparison just doesn't fly. Ask the average American what they know about him. If they know anything at all, it'll be that he won WWI. Deserved or not, hostilities were brought to a close under his watch, so he gets the credit. This is like Bush how?

Posted by NHCt | April 7, 2008 1:38 PM

People, people, take heart. Matt has predicted that history will view W positively. That is even more convicing evidence that he will be considered the worst president ever for generations to come.

I half expect Nixon's family to send W a thank you card for the not-so-bad-by-comparison service he has so kindly provided.

Posted by Shochu John | April 7, 2008 1:38 PM

Let's not assume that historians and journalists won't improve, and learn how to hold their own against propagandists?

Posted by ange | April 7, 2008 1:39 PM

Joe "Soft Power" Nye pondered exactly the same question in a piece in the LA Times a week ago

"Is Bush Our Woodrow Wilson?"
www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-nye30mar30,0,6538671.story

Posted by Paul | April 7, 2008 1:40 PM

This is a pretty ridiculous analysis...

Look, there's a pretty good chance that our financial system/economy will collapse in the very near future. And our Iraq War has been an utterly total disaster. These things---and maybe additional catastrophes still to come!---will make people very, very unhappy. Who else will they blame?

Bush's "mistake" was being reelected in 2004. After eight full years of Bush, the looming disasters can't really be blamed on anyone else. If Kerry had gotten in, and muddled around for a couple of years, lots of people would be blaming him for Bush's mistakes.

Posted by RKU | April 7, 2008 1:42 PM

His (Wilson's) foreign policy legacy is pretty mixed, but I don't think it's as bad as you make it out to be. He did, after all, win World War I.

Statements like this make me worry that Matt's prediction is correct.

I think his general premise that being associated with big events increases one's historical standing is correct. However, Bush's failures are of such high magnitude and so pervasive (he's much WORSE than Woodrow Wilson!) that he will never be rehabilitated.

Posted by Jim W | April 7, 2008 1:42 PM

Come on. WWI marked the beginning of American world ascendance, that later came to fruition post-WWII. That swamps anything about how badly Wilson managed it. So Wilson is associated with something good. The civil rights stuff was bad, but continued stuff that had been going on for decades.

Bush is not associated with anything good, and where he did take action he marks a recognizable departure from previous trends.

Matt still has a bit of the "contrarian" disease. Just say sensible stuff, and don't strain to be different from the consensus.

Posted by mq | April 7, 2008 1:44 PM

Matt it is absurd to compare today's media saturated and highly recorded historical moment with a hundred years ago.

Bush will never be regarded as anything but a disaster because we have the media to record his failures in glorious color and sound.

It would take profound revisionist history to rescue this trainwreck from anything but a Nixonian failure stamp across its wretched forehead.

Posted by WinSmith | April 7, 2008 1:44 PM

Er, no. Lots of presidents have not been resuscitated, notably Nixon, but also Buchanan.

I'm no fan of Woodrow Wilson, but I think it silly to compare him to Bush. For one thing, he had substantial domestic achievements, even if they came at the cost of civil liberties of war opponents. For another, the US won WWI. If the system he helped construct failed to stop (and even hastened the rise) of Nazism, that happened over a decade after he left office.

The better example is Truman, of course. But despite all his foreign policy screwups, Truman proved prescient regarding our current day view of the Cold War and Civil Rights. There are no guarantees that Bush will prove so lucky.

Posted by AWC | April 7, 2008 1:47 PM

"American presidents associated with big dramatic events tend to wind up with good reputations whether they deserve them or not."

There may be some truth to this, but the key counter-example is Lyndon Johnson. Civil rights, the Great Society, a landslide victory, etc. Some pretty dramatic events AND some solid good achievements, and he's not universally remembered as one of the great presidents.

One thing about presidential historians is that they are generally Whiggish to a very remarkable degree. I.e. they judge a president by things he did that seemed to lead toward or away from the U.S. today (civil rights, being a predominant world power, having great industrial wealth, etc.), regardless of what effect it had at the time. So both FDR and Reagan were great presidents, because they both contributed significantly to the particular kind of welfare state we currently have, which is judged to be just as it should be.

This is probably the only type of presidential history that can get the high level of respect that it gets, where these people routinely get invited to be on NBC to talk about the presidential race. But it's also quite boring, because it refuses to ask if we could have had a different kind of country than we now have, and if it might have been better.

"Republicans tend to bash Wilson because of his foreign policy. Isn't that funny?"

And because of his record on civil liberties. He was the "first fascist dictator", after all, according to Jonah Goldeberg. That's so hilarious that somehow I forgot to laugh.

Posted by Colatina | April 7, 2008 1:48 PM

Concurring with the above: Wilson's foreign policy was not nearly as poor as you claim. Ultimately, Wilson was on the right side of the debate over the League of Nations regardless of his legislative defeat. And the vigor of his advocacy for his vision of future international affairs clearly and effectively inspired future generations.

Posted by dry_fish | April 7, 2008 1:48 PM

Heh, heh. matt you certainly have your trolling boots on today.

That so many historians see him as a failure should be a warning. The British 1914 Iraq campaign was so staggeringly expensive that I suspect it precipitated the decline of the British empire. The comparisons are truly compelling here. For this to be true, the petrodollar will have to recover and the debts paid off in a reasonable time, and the Middle East will have to enter stage of peace and prosperity. I would like to think this will happen--seriously--and it could do. The only way it is conceivable is if the US buries the hatchet with the Iranians and a comprehensive and just settlement is worked out for the Palestinians. In this scenario you could see a genuine and just Pax Americana--and I think it is conceivable if the US can make the shift in thinking. It would all hinge in other words on an outrageously successful Obama presidency (I can't conceive of any of the other candidates achieving this under any circumstances).

The you are right, President Bush may get a far better reputation than he has any right to expect. His achievements will have been to so discredit US hard power to precipitate a wise investment of the huge reserves of soft power that remain.

It still remains a long shot though.

Posted by Chris Dornan | April 7, 2008 1:49 PM

In Wilson's defense, by all accounts he could think and speak in complete sentences.

Go back to the Big Debates in 2K and 2K4. Objectively, who looks like the better option?

Posted by ed | April 7, 2008 1:51 PM

Anyone who looks kindly on Woodrow Wilson should read "The Great Influenza" by John M. Barry. Wilson refused to halt troop shipments to Europe despite the massive levels of deaths onboard due to influenza are horrifying.

Also, according to this book, Wilson's stupid decision to plunge the U.S. into WWI was a key contributor to the spread of influenza in the first place. Admittedly, Wilson had no way of knowing that this would be the case, and I'm also not sure what the current science is on this question.

Posted by Jim W | April 7, 2008 1:53 PM

In the future Bush will be compared to Presidents Harding, Buchanan, and Dewey.

Iraq isn't the only disaster of Bush's 19 years in office.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | April 7, 2008 1:54 PM

Bush will be remember kindly if and only if: (a) Iraq turns out OK in the end (even if it takes 5, 10, or 20 years), (b) Al Qaeda never manages another significant attack on the U.S., and (c) the economy doesn't completely collapse in the next few years.

(a) won't mean the invasion was justified in the first place, but it will give sympathetic historians sufficient justification for crediting Bush's "vision" ala Reagan.

(b) could replaced with "any future significant terrorist attack is credibly blamed on the lapses of a future administration," making Bush's 9/12/2001-present streak look good in comparison (after all, "nobody" could have anticipated 9/11).

Posted by Chris Conway | April 7, 2008 1:59 PM

There's one area in which Bush's reputation could be even worse in the future: No one, at this point, really holds him responsible for 9/11, but it's easy to imagine the CW 20 years from now being that Bush was the president who sat idly by while 3,000 Americans were killed.

In fact, it's easy to imagine Bush's culpability growing in future years, if more documents emerge showing they were more aware of the threat than has been reported. And the fact that he hasn't caught Osama bin Laden, or even made much of an effort to catch him, isn't going to help.

Posted by Tom Nawrocki | April 7, 2008 2:00 PM

Nah. I think the emerging consensus in comments is correct.

The historical opinion of Wilson was resurrected because his Presidency featured some real, lasting domestic accomplishments, and because he made some unpopular foreign policy decisions that later came to be seen as prescient.

While it's not entirely impossible that the Bush Doctrine will be rehabilitated due to a miraculous flowering of democracy and human liberty between the Tigris and Euphrates, he *still* won't have any lasting domestic legacy that moves him into the category of Wilson or Truman. The best he can hope for at this point is a legacy like Jimmy Carter's -- where one high-profile positive development during his term is usually mentioned during an otherwise negative review.

Even this strikes me as highly unlikely. Bush's legacy will be hubris and mismanagement. He will either be remembered for gross strategic error or for the vindication of the incompetence dodge. Neither one is a legacy any President would want.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | April 7, 2008 2:00 PM

I suspect that Woodrow Wilson is rated highly among academic historians in large part because Wilson was an academic himself, and of no small repute. Home-team bias plays a role here.

George W. Bush obviously won't have that advantage. Indeed, I suspect that one of the long-term effects of the Bush administration will be a re-evaluation of Wilsonian interventionism. Rather than Wilson and Truman bringing Bush's reputation up, I think he may bring theirs down.

But forget about academia for the moment. How will Bush's reputation fare among the general public? Think about Lyndon B. Johnson. He played a key role in founding Medicare (which is immensely popular) as well as spearheading the Civil Rights Act. His administration was also characterized by a strong economy with abundant, high-paying jobs. Despite all that, he is still routinely considered a failure, primarily because of the charnel house that was Vietnam. Then consider that Bush has Johnson's disastrous war without his economic success or domestic achievements.

Hard times, military setbacks, and a loss of U.S. prestige are never good for your reputation as a President. Just ask Jimmy Carter.

Posted by Josh G. | April 7, 2008 2:04 PM

If global warming does indeed lead to catastrophic economic and social disruptions later in the century, I think Bush will be largely remembered for his role as a denier and disabler of action on climate change at a crucial moment.

Posted by Virginia | April 7, 2008 2:07 PM

Surprisingly objective, Matt, and probably true. I'm just surprised Truman hasn't come up. He was even less popular than Bush at the end, and deservedly so. His handling of the Korean War makes Bush look like Alexander the Great. Still, a few decades later and he's seen as a visionary.

Posted by Robert Powell | April 7, 2008 2:08 PM

I wonder how significant 9/11 will seem in thirty years. Obviously, it's a big deal, but it sure wasn't Pearl Harbor. Maybe even closer to the Beirut Marine barracks bombing under Reagan?

Posted by Joe | April 7, 2008 2:09 PM

I don't think so. I think that Bush's disregard for the Constitution, and grab for total executive power, will make him the bad boy of government classes for years and years to come. The crappy economy he gave us and a losing war won't help. He's historical toast. The "big" stuff he was involved in all failed.

I mean. Suppose the Germans weren't at their ropes end when American troops arrived in France in 1917? And the war held on for another four years, fought to a draw. Think anyone would think Wilson was so hot? That's Bush.

Posted by David in NY | April 7, 2008 2:11 PM

Somewhere between Nero and Caligula.

Posted by goethean | April 7, 2008 2:13 PM

Suppose Bush's intervention in Iraq triggered a global outbreak of influenza that killed 100 million people? And on top of that, resulted in a flawed peace treaty that led to an even worse war 20 years later? That's Wilson.

Note: I still think Bush is worse than Wilson.

His (Truman's) handling of the Korean War makes Bush look like Alexander the Great.

Wow, that's out of left field.

Posted by Jim W | April 7, 2008 2:19 PM

"I wonder how significant 9/11 will seem in thirty years. Obviously, it's a big deal, but it sure wasn't Pearl Harbor. Maybe even closer to the Beirut Marine barracks bombing under Reagan?"

Pearl Harbor was more significant only in that it was the pretext for the U.S. joining a much larger war than the limited Afghanistan and Iraq wars. But 9/11 was the first foreign attack on the continental U.S. since the War of 1812, and it caused about the same number of casualties as Pearl Harbor. Unlike the Pearl Harbor attack, the vast majority of the 9/11 victims were civilians.

The Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon caused a tenth as many casualties and was significant mainly in that it led us and our European allies to abandon their attempts to stabilize Lebanon.

Posted by Fred | April 7, 2008 2:21 PM

Re David in NY

"I mean. Suppose the Germans weren't at their ropes end when American troops arrived in France in 1917?"

The Germans were very far from their ropes end in 1917. In fact, absent the US intervention, they might very well have won the war. It should be remembered that the Russians had been defeated and most of the divisions that had been involved in the Eastern Front were sent west to bolster the German forces there. It was the French Army that was near collapse after the mutinies in 1916 while the British had reduced their forces in France by some 40%.

Posted by SLC | April 7, 2008 2:34 PM

And what does history have to say about Abraham Lincoln, eh?

Lincoln freed 4,000,000 slaves.

The Commander In Chief liberated 27,000,000 Iraqis.

(And Lincoln was a member of which party?)

Oh yeah.

Posted by Taisa | April 7, 2008 2:35 PM

The Commander In Chief liberated 27,000,000 Iraqis.

That number is way too high. Even if you believe the Lancet study, the number is only around 1 million.

Posted by Jim W | April 7, 2008 2:39 PM

if more documents emerge showing they were more aware of the threat than has been reported

Documents? You think Cheney's shredders are going to miss that many? These guys have already made it clear that they aren't going to be preserving records, regardless of what the law might say about it.

Posted by KCinDC | April 7, 2008 2:40 PM

I think GWB will not be viewed by historians as one of the worst, if not the worst, president in history.

Buchanan tried to pander to the South and still didn't prevent the Civil War. But the Civil War was probably inevitable no matter what he did.

Harding was just a garden variety crook.

Hoover was in over his head, but not badly intentioned.

Bush will leave behind him a damaged economy, a damaged military, a chaotic Iraq, damaged international standing, and a legacy of disregard for the Constitution that is second to none.

He is more than incompetent. He is malevolent.

Posted by litigatormom | April 7, 2008 2:42 PM

People don't care about Wilson's low regard for enemy rights anymore than they do that FDR was gleefully using the Constitution for toilet paper rather than value Jap and Nazi rights above Americans. Except ACLU Jews. Who else cares that FDR blatantly lied about violating the Neutrality Act and wiretapped dangerous subversives, or that Wilson rounded up and deported a pack of foregn anarchists, communists, and bomb-makers?

As for Nixon and LBJ, they were, next to FDR, the most consequential Presidents of the 20th Century. (TDR, Reagan, Wilson - 4th, 5th, 6th most consequential) But LBJ is hurt by his enemies crediting all he did to Saint Martin Luther King and the Soviet disinformation and propaganda campaign on Vietnam that used ideologically sympathetic members of the US media to help "win" Vietnam. (KGB archives call their suborning US and Euro media to win the information war, thus the Vietnam victory one of their greatest feats.)

Nixon suffered because media Jews that gave FDR, Truman, JFK, and LBJ a pass for doing worse and sleazier things than Nixon did - never forgave him for going after their communist and "pinko" relatives, and never ended their war with Nixon until they "got him".

Because Nixon and LBJ were so consequential, and basically intelligent, competent men that achieved most of what they set about to do with voter's approval, and their impact so lasting - their rise in historical estimation is inevitable.

Bush is alas, like Jimmy Carter and Buchanan. Ineptitude, numerous wrong decisions, inability to lead. There is unlikely anything to happen is future history to make Buchanan, Bush II, and Jimmy Carter worth spit. The damage Carter did to our economy took 10years to repair, the damage he did to national security by caving to radical Islam, gutting the CIA, enacting FISA is still unfolding. Bush II will be hated for generations. And most of the rancor will not involve the light, as wars go, casualties of Iraq. But the damage he did to US prestige and to the American economy and every American's standard of living by globalism and putting us in hock to China and letting China gut our jobs that drove all American's standard of living..

Posted by chris ford | April 7, 2008 2:46 PM

I think the final judgment of history will rather closely match this prescient piece from Jan 17 2001:

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28784

Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'

...

"You better believe we're going to mix it up with somebody at some point during my administration," said Bush, who plans a 250 percent boost in military spending. "Unlike my predecessor, I am fully committed to putting soldiers in battle situations. Otherwise, what is the point of even having a military?"

On the economic side, Bush vowed to bring back economic stagnation by implementing substantial tax cuts, which would lead to a recession, which would necessitate a tax hike, which would lead to a drop in consumer spending, which would lead to layoffs, which would deepen the recession even further.

...

"We as a people must stand united, banding together to tear this nation in two," Bush said. "Much work lies ahead of us: The gap between the rich and the poor may be wide, be there's much more widening left to do. We must squander our nation's hard-won budget surplus on tax breaks for the wealthiest 15 percent. And, on the foreign front, we must find an enemy and defeat it."

Posted by Richard Cownie | April 7, 2008 2:46 PM

I think Bush will easily win the crown of worst two term president. And contrary to MY, I think his reputation will only deteriorate. When you look at where the US stood in the world on the day that he took office and how it will look the day he leaves -- well short of just burning the whole country down it's pretty hard to concieve of a worse job.

He only escapes worst of all time because Buchanan and Pierce managed to preside over the disintegration of the country in their single terms -- and Hoover allowed the Depression to continue without doing much of anything about it.

If great accomplishments and involvement in great events made you fondly remembered, we'd be celebrating LBJ as though he were Washington.

I don't even begin to understand the claim that Truman's handling of Korea was disastrous, not to say in a league with what the Chimperor has done to us in Iraq.

Posted by Sir Charles | April 7, 2008 2:47 PM

My first instinct was "Matt's on crack." My second was, "Hangon, no one more than George W. Bush has ensured that irresponsible Republicans never again get elected to the presidency, so maybe there's something to this."

But now I'm back to "Matt's on crack." Wilson has a good reputation (to the extent he has one) because his internationalism was eventually vindicated and because the U.S. won WWI. We're losing the war on terror and no part of the Bush doctrine is ever going to be vindicated.

Posted by Jack Roy | April 7, 2008 2:48 PM

If Bush gets a positive reputation, it will be long after those of us who lived through him are dead. For all the bones some future president might put on a campaign phrase (more likely it'll just be forgotten) and for all ponies with purple fingers might get their own Middle Eastern country someday (and hopefully they do) the simple fact is that Bush has very nearly bankrupt the country. That might actually be remembered as a bad thing.

Perhaps a more interesting question might be what will Bush's retirement be like? I don't see no rehabilitation of his image coming any time soon. In fact I think he's going to need an extra-thick bubble to keep pretending he's anything but reviled.

Posted by Bullsmith | April 7, 2008 2:49 PM

Two things are possible:

1) All the "Big Events" will be re-investigated to find out what actually happened, as opposed to this endless game of Hide the Paper and Lose the Emails. When we actually know what really happened-there won't be any spin possible to exonerate this crime syndicate.

2) Bush/Cheny will have so successfully destroyed the evidence that in 200 years historians won't even know there was a "Bush Presidency". It will just be an urban myth.

And, I could be wrong, however history is still judging Buchanan, Harding and Hoover quite negatively. Neville Chamberlain too.

Posted by bcinaz | April 7, 2008 2:51 PM

Chris Fraud, you are a racist, anti-Semitic, vile disgusting, degenerate, stinking, creepoid. You are complete slime scum.

Posted by Jennifer | April 7, 2008 2:51 PM

Perhaps a more interesting question might be what will Bush's retirement be like?

This is something I've often wondered about. Is he actually going to try to stay in this country? I wouldn't if I were him. Maybe he can find a nice retirement home in Uraguay.

Posted by Jim W | April 7, 2008 2:54 PM

Matt,

Just curious -- but how many anti-semitic comments does Chris "Protocols of the Elders of Zion is my favorite book" Ford get to post before he gets banned? I'm not a big censorship guy at all, but wow, a single comment that uses both the terms "ACLU Jews" and "Media Jews" -- yikes -- that might fall into the area of "otherwise objectionable" material.

Posted by Sir Charles | April 7, 2008 2:55 PM

"the Soviet disinformation and propaganda campaign on Vietnam that used ideologically sympathetic members of the US media to help "win" Vietnam"

And all this time I'd been thinking that somehow the NVA and the Viet Cong and Ho Chi Minh and General Giap had something to do with it. But now the USSR is gone, who's responsible for planting stories about 4000 dead in Iraq ? Raul Castro ? Hugo Chavez ? Tom Daschle ?

Tell us more, we could all use a laugh these days as we wait to be foreclosed, drafted, or flooded.

Posted by Richard Cownie | April 7, 2008 2:56 PM

If he's starting in last place, then his worst case scenario is to remain there--he can't go down. He can battle with Buchanan.

I do think there's something to this--in future decades, with the details faded, people could say "Bush saw that democracies in the Middle East would transform it, and sadly couldn't quite succeed" without including all the disastrous reasons he failed, both external ones he failed to recognize and internal ones he disastrously enacted.

I don't think he'll get any compassionate conservatism cred, though--Huckabee has governed with that more than Bush ever did.

Posted by Deborah | April 7, 2008 2:57 PM

"I also take the view that Bush is probably correct to think that history will remember him kindly."

You're kidding, right? You must be. Hahahaha! Good one!

Posted by Doofus | April 7, 2008 2:57 PM

"But now I'm back to "Matt's on crack." Wilson has a good reputation (to the extent he has one) because his internationalism was eventually vindicated and because the U.S. won WWI."

What, exactly, did we win in World War I? As Obama might ask, how did it make us safer?

Were wide swaths of the world better off with the Communism, Nazism and assorted despotisms that flourished after WWI shrunk and decimated the old empires of Europe?

Wilson was naive and arrogant, and his "war to end all wars" instead teed-up the bloodiest war in history as soon as Europe grew another generation of fighting-age men.

Posted by Fred | April 7, 2008 2:59 PM

Oh come on. Chris and his crackpot posts are hilarious. Please do not ban him.

Posted by Gary Sugar | April 7, 2008 3:00 PM

Jennifer,

You are awesome.

Posted by Jim W | April 7, 2008 3:01 PM

I think a lot will depend on who suceeds him. After 4 to 8 years of President McCain and ruinous wars with Iran and North Korea, people will surely look back on W's term of office as the good old days. 'If only McCain had shown Bush's judgement and restraint' they'll be saying......

Posted by Andy | April 7, 2008 3:06 PM

I think Bush Needs Obama to Save the Bush Legacy.

Posted by Mike | April 7, 2008 3:08 PM

The Iraq War, even though it's not the single most destructive American war of all time -- that would be the Vietnam War, is the single most cynical American war of all time. The war was begun and has been prosecuted as an adjunct to Republican domestic policies. The cynicism of all that death and destruction used to expand tax cuts is a source of despair.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | April 7, 2008 3:08 PM

Oh come on. Chris and his crackpot posts are hilarious. Please do not ban him.

Yes, indeed!

Strongly implying that Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul are "Lefty Jews" just isn't something you can otherwise find in the regular op-ed pages, and would be sorely missed here...

Posted by RKU | April 7, 2008 3:09 PM

In the future Bush will be compared to Presidents Harding, Buchanan, and Dewey.

Dewey?

Posted by Matt Stevens | April 7, 2008 3:13 PM

Buchanan and Hoover failed to manage crises they inherited. Bush created catastrophes, in Iraq, with the budget, and through relentless hackification of the executive branch. He deserves this categorization. I don't know if I'd put it quite as starkly as litigatormom does, but I agree with her broader point.

I hope that future historians won't be as shoddy as Matt thinks they will be.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | April 7, 2008 3:14 PM

I would call this the Timmy O'Toole theory of Presidential rankin'.

Homer: That Timmy is a real hero!
Lisa: How do you mean, Dad?
Homer: Well, he fell down a well, and... he can't get out.
Lisa: How does that make him a hero?
Homer: Well, that's more than you did!
-- ``Radio Bart''

I do not think it holds. First, Bush was not really involved in big dramatic events, or at least I think you are exagerating the perception of our own current events. The Iraq War is not so much a big event as it is a massive diversionary mistake. Vietnam was a more legit big event, and it was closely related to the truly big Cold War, and it has not covered LBJ with Glory (had LBJ not passed Civil Rights legislation he would not be remembered nearly as kindly).

The Iraq War will look worse over time. Katrina as metaphor for massive failure will take root. "Two-recession" Bush will become a signifier for utter incompetence. Expect people to use phrases like "He really Bushed that up!".

Posted by theCoach | April 7, 2008 3:24 PM

People don't care about Wilson's low regard for enemy rights anymore than they do that FDR was gleefully using the Constitution for toilet paper rather than value Jap and Nazi rights above Americans. Except ACLU Jews. Who else cares that FDR blatantly lied about violating the Neutrality Act and wiretapped dangerous subversives?

Huh? So are you saying FDR valued Nazi rights above Americans, or the opposite? Grammar check: "rather than".

Speaking of Nazis, "ACLU Jews" and "media Jews" are interesting terms. Thanks for reminding us why defeating the Germans in WWII was an important milestone in US history.

Posted by AKBY | April 7, 2008 3:25 PM

Hey, once the Neo-Confederate Sgt Rock crew saves us from the ACLU Jews, can they get rid of all that weird Jewish physics about quantum theory and whatnot? Damn them Joooz.

Posted by El Cid | April 7, 2008 3:29 PM

Woodrow Wilson was a good president because he allowed the creation of the Federal Reserve System?
George Bush will be remembered as a great President? I think it's time for me to disconnect from the Internet and turn off my computer. What's next? The Sun is cold? My head is going to explode!

Posted by renwa | April 7, 2008 3:33 PM

What, exactly, did we win in World War I?

What alternative are you offering?

Posted by Shaz | April 7, 2008 3:35 PM

Bush may yet get a reputation as a good president - after we are all dead, because none of us will forget,and most of us will have quite a few years to regale our children and grandchildren with tales of what happens when we elect an idiot as president.

Posted by edsbowlingshoe | April 7, 2008 3:41 PM

If anything remains of Wilson's corpse now that we have raised it on high then pulled it down repeatedly, it should be said that he must rate as one of our most extreme white supremacist Presidents, even taking his contemporary circumstances into account. And he acted on his views, for example by segregating the federal civil service. Consequently, his shortcomings and strengths make for interesting historical discussions.

But I've looked in vain in the above for some mention of Bush's strengths. There must be something . . . .

Posted by Russell | April 7, 2008 3:42 PM

It's even more amazing how brainwashed by Political Correctness people are. People are actually shamed and ridiculed for questioning the Jews? Americans need to step out of their social engineering. But, they don't even know they're being socially engineered. Have you people not read the Jewish Lobby? Am I a Jew hater for mentioning it? The slaves defending their masters. What has happened to America?

Posted by renwa | April 7, 2008 3:42 PM

What, exactly, did we win in World War I?

We got to stop fighting it, stop spending American dollars on it, and a lot of soldiers got to not die. That's way ahead of Bush.

Posted by Tom Nawrocki | April 7, 2008 3:44 PM

Actually, on the substantive level, I've always thought things might have worked out much better for the 20th Century if Wilson hadn't---rather dishonestly---pushed us into WWI.

Now it's possible that the Germans might have otherwise totally won, and dominated Europe, but I'm not so sure. On the Western Front, the trench lines had held for years, and although the British and French were completely exhausted, the Germans were as well. Hadn't the Kaiser already tried to make peace once or twice earlier?

Probably the result would have been a more or less a "tie", and all the different European peoples would have learned their lesson and been more careful about starting disastrous wars in the future. Meanwhile the Germans would have easily overthrown the crazy Bolsheviks in Russia, either directly or indirectly, and even if they thus extended their dominance in the East, would have thereby saved a minimum of about 25M lives.

Even if the Germans had won outright, they would have probably just annexed a few slices of territory here and there, and become Europe's dominant power for a couple of generations, just as France had been in previous centuries.

There certainly wouldn't have been any disastrous WWII, since the "dissatisfied powers" just wouldn't have been remotely strong enough to overturn German domination. In our own timeline, both Germany AND Russia---the two intrinsically strongest powers in Europe---were "dissatisfied", producing an extremely "unstable equilibrium" situation.

Anyway, I'm not a historian, but those are my casual thoughts.

Posted by RKU | April 7, 2008 3:51 PM

Matt, you are completely wrong and everyone here is nuts. Wilson did all sorts of things for civil rights, yea, Woodrow Wilson ordered the re-segregation of the federal government, he vetoed a clause on racial equality in the Covenant of the League of Nations, and in 1916 the Colored Advisory Committee of the Republican National Committee issued a statement that said: "No sooner had the Democratic Administration come into power than Mr. Wilson and his advisors entered upon a policy to eliminate all colored citizens from representation in the Federal Government."

On Wilson's racial policies, Land of Promise notes:

"Woodrow Wilson's administration was openly hostile to black people. Wilson was an outspoken white supremacist who believed that black people were inferior. During his campaign for the presidency, Wilson promised to press for civil rights. But once in office he forgot his promises. Instead, Wilson ordered that white and black workers in federal government jobs be segregated from one another. This was the first time such segregation had existed since Reconstruction! When black federal employees in Southern cities protested the order, Wilson had the protesters fired. In November, 1914, a black delegation asked the President to reverse his policies. Wilson was rude and hostile and refused their demands."

Read a book.

Posted by Matt Yglesias and his revisionist history | April 7, 2008 3:53 PM

Matt, you are completely wrong and everyone here is nuts. Wilson did all sorts of things for civil rights, yea, Woodrow Wilson ordered the re-segregation of the federal government, he vetoed a clause on racial equality in the Covenant of the League of Nations, and in 1916 the Colored Advisory Committee of the Republican National Committee issued a statement that said: "No sooner had the Democratic Administration come into power than Mr. Wilson and his advisors entered upon a policy to eliminate all colored citizens from representation in the Federal Government."

On Wilson's racial policies, Land of Promise notes:

"Woodrow Wilson's administration was openly hostile to black people. Wilson was an outspoken white supremacist who believed that black people were inferior. During his campaign for the presidency, Wilson promised to press for civil rights. But once in office he forgot his promises. Instead, Wilson ordered that white and black workers in federal government jobs be segregated from one another. This was the first time such segregation had existed since Reconstruction! When black federal employees in Southern cities protested the order, Wilson had the protesters fired. In November, 1914, a black delegation asked the President to reverse his policies. Wilson was rude and hostile and refused their demands."

Read a book.

Posted by Matt Yglesias and his revisionist history | April 7, 2008 3:54 PM

Matt, you are completely wrong and everyone here is nuts. Wilson did all sorts of things for civil rights, yea, Woodrow Wilson ordered the re-segregation of the federal government, he vetoed a clause on racial equality in the Covenant of the League of Nations, and in 1916 the Colored Advisory Committee of the Republican National Committee issued a statement that said: "No sooner had the Democratic Administration come into power than Mr. Wilson and his advisors entered upon a policy to eliminate all colored citizens from representation in the Federal Government."

On Wilson's racial policies, Land of Promise notes:

"Woodrow Wilson's administration was openly hostile to black people. Wilson was an outspoken white supremacist who believed that black people were inferior. During his campaign for the presidency, Wilson promised to press for civil rights. But once in office he forgot his promises. Instead, Wilson ordered that white and black workers in federal government jobs be segregated from one another. This was the first time such segregation had existed since Reconstruction! When black federal employees in Southern cities protested the order, Wilson had the protesters fired. In November, 1914, a black delegation asked the President to reverse his policies. Wilson was rude and hostile and refused their demands."

Read a book.

Posted by Matt Yglesias and his revisionist history | April 7, 2008 3:54 PM

This depends a lot on what happens after Bush is gone (i.e. will Obama become President, will McCain, then what happens next?). And that's simply impossible to predict.

Posted by Korha | April 7, 2008 3:54 PM

That's very open minded of you Matthew, but I suspect wrong. Bush's failures are monumental and clear. And he has some distinguishing characteristics:

1) Bush is a war criminal who got a million people killed based on a gigantic hoax he perpetrated about WMD

2) Bush is responsible for worst strategic fuckup in American history

3) Bush stole the 2000 election

Once the current generation of media courtiers and cowardly Democrats passes away, reality will become quite plain for all to see.

Posted by Junius Brutus | April 7, 2008 3:55 PM

Though to be fair, it is difficult for Bush to really be worse than James Buchanan.

I have faith in the boy. This is one thing he can pull off without dad's help.

Posted by sglover | April 7, 2008 4:00 PM

Most bad presidents are either corrupt or they lead us into wars on false pretenses. President Bush is a zesty combination of the two.

making Bush's 9/12/2001-present streak look good in comparison

You're forgetting the anthrax attacks, which President Bush himself called "a second wave of terrorist attacks upon our country." I believe in holding people--especially the president--to their own words. In his own terms, we were attacked by terrorists using Weapons of Mass Destruction (the little vial Colin Powell shook during his UN presentation represented anthrax ) during the War on Terror. As with the 9/11 attacks, President Bush failed to prevent the attacks and failed to punish the people behind them. Doesn't look so good.

Posted by croatoan | April 7, 2008 4:10 PM

Will he deserve a good reputation? No. Will he get one? I'd say yes.

Even though I'm twice your age, Matt, I'm planning to stick around until midcentury, give or take. I bet historians don't rehabilitate GWB by then.

Posted by low-tech cyclist | April 7, 2008 4:24 PM

Wilson was a disaster, not just because he was a racist but because he put his racism into practice with the wacky idea of giving every identifiable group their own country, leading directly to the rise of Hitler, WWII, and the ongoing unraveling of the world into ever-smaller separatist groups.

Truman was pretty bad too. It had been official US policy since the end of WWII that Korea was an area of no strategic importance that would most likely devolve into the Soviet sphere of influence, and no one cared. Harry and Dean Acheson changed their minds on the spur of the moment, throwing soft occupation troops with obsolete equipment in front of the Soviet-equipped Norks. We spent money at the rate of 19% of GDP (Iraq is running about 4%), killed about two million people (including nearly 40,000 GI's) in order to achieve a tie that left the aggressors in control of all the territory they started with which is now the world's largest concentration camp, and working on nuclear weapons.

Iraq would have to get FAR worse to be in the same ballpark. Given the same amount of time, it's more likely to look like South Korea, with much higher stakes, and at a much lower cost.

Posted by Robert Powell | April 7, 2008 4:28 PM

Just because your POV is "contrarian," Matt, doesn't mean it's accurate. After a few more decades, there'll be nobody left who recalls those romantic 1950s TV westerns -- or derives a cultural thrill from Bush's faux-gunslinger, dead-or-alive Decider pose. Unlike more distant Presidents, he can be YouTubed to our survivors -- who will observe what, in his manner and speech? And what "successes" might a future Civics or history teacher hoist to counter that on-screen image?

Posted by Sophie in VA | April 7, 2008 4:42 PM

Actually, on the substantive level, I've always thought things might have worked out much better for the 20th Century if Wilson hadn't---rather dishonestly---pushed us into WWI.

I'm really on the fence about this. Wilson was thoroughly dishonest about our entry into that war, and along with the war itself he goosed the country into one of its uglier xenophobic spasms.

On the other hand, the Hindenburg/Ludendorff junta that was de facto 1917 German government was a different kind of beast than the Kaiser's bonehead regime. If you look at the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and German administration of Ukraine, it's pretty clear that the post-Barbarossa atrocities a generation later didn't just come out of the blue. The German government of 1917/18 didn't make the extermination of Slavs a formal goal, but it sure didn't mind if that happened as a side effect of official looting.

Granted, the Germans had treated their African colonies pretty much the same way. As did pretty much all the other European empires.....

Posted by sglover | April 7, 2008 4:49 PM

Bush will be remembered as the president who, at long last, brought democracy to the Arab world. It can only grow. The world will be better for it. Instead of the failed policies of the past of tolerating homocidal dictators for the Kissenger/Scowcroft model of "stability", Bush boldly fought for a new order of democracy in a very backward part of the world. We have a struggling democracy in both Afghanistan and Iraq to show for it. The US democracy took 100 years to overcome its very fragile and violent state, and it resulted in the deaths of millions of American citizens, billions of dollars in destruction (and those were 1860's dollars) and the suspension of the most basic civil rights (habeaus corpus, martial law, executive fiat disregarding the Supreme Court, arrest of elected officials without charge or trial) and in the end, the US came out stronger and more unified and with an end to the pernicious practice of slavery.

After 5 years of war and only about 3 of democracy, leftists like the above are whining that Iraq, with zero tradition of human rights or democracy, has not mastered the art of popular sovereignty and its government does not control the country, there are acts of violence and dissent.

Bush has changed the world, and in a positive way. There can be no argument that Iraqis are on a path to a better life than they were in 2003, and if the US troops had not been there, even if Saddam had fallen from popular revolt, there would have been a bloodbath that would have dwarfed the turmoil of the last five years.

Bush will be seen as a visionary and someone who truly changed the course of history, for the better. God bless our brothers in Iraq, and good luck to them. Its getting better, quicker, than anyone could have predicted.

Posted by jones | April 7, 2008 4:56 PM

Since the odds are that the next President - or at best, the one after that one - will likely be even worse than Bush, I'd say predicting Bush will end up with a "good reputation" will be a no brainer.

After all, in the race to the bottom, the guys who aren't actually AT the bottom when the bottom hits usually come out looking better than the guy AT the bottom.

Meanwhile, nitwit Powell thinks Iraq is going to end up looking like South Korea. Given another fifty years, maybe. So this means Powell wants us to stay for another fifty years, like his hero McCain wants us to stay for 100. This makes Powell fifty percent less stupid than McCain - which isn't saying much. Fifty percent of stupid is still stupid.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 7, 2008 5:01 PM

On the other hand, the Hindenburg/Ludendorff junta that was de facto 1917 German government was a different kind of beast than the Kaiser's bonehead regime. If you look at the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and German administration of Ukraine, it's pretty clear that the post-Barbarossa atrocities a generation later didn't just come out of the blue.

Yes, but on the other hand, Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime was a different kind of beast than the Hindenburg/Ludendorff junta. If Germany hadn't been defeated in WWI, then Hitler would never have come to power.

Posted by Stefan | April 7, 2008 5:06 PM

Re jones

I think that Mr. jones has been partaking of the nose candy for far too long. Dubya has about as much chance of being labeled a great president as he has of winning the Tour de France this June.

Posted by SLC | April 7, 2008 5:19 PM

Yes, but on the other hand, Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime was a different kind of beast than the Hindenburg/Ludendorff junta. If Germany hadn't been defeated in WWI, then Hitler would never have come to power.

Well, without American entry into the war, a victorious Hindenburg/Ludendorff regime might have starved as many people as Hitler. I can't really come down hard on either side of this argument...

Posted by sglover | April 7, 2008 5:21 PM