Worst President in History?

I have maintained for some time now that Bush will readily be regarded as the worst president in American history. I mentioned this to my room mate and, being a history major, he was quick to spit out the “We’ll never know” & “Future generations are the only ones who can make that determination” lines, but I’ve always felt that such statements are gutless. Certainly historians in the future will have their own take on what happened now, but can any historian actually tell me what it was like to live in Rome during the reign of Julies Ceasar? Can they know what it felt like to be a citizen during the American revolutionary war? No.

150 years from now, historians may have more facts about Bush’s presidency (assuming Cheney doesn’t have everything shredded), but they will be no more qualified to evaluate Bush’s failures than I am right now - and I’m willing to say he’s failed monumentally.

An article titled 5 Presidents worse that George W. Bush made the front page of Digg today. I think the five presidents listed in the article can definitely be seen as failures, but I find it pretty ridiculous for them to say that any of them were worse than Bush. While their respective failures were, for lack of a better word, impressive, none of them can say that their disastrous economic policies led to a global recession that literally changed the face of the world political map (which is likely to be the outcome of what Bush has done).

Whenever a president dies, history seems to be re-written to show that person in the most favorable light possible. This is as it should be as being the President of the United States, in spite of the power and prestige, is a thankless job and and incredible sacrifice on the part of the President himself (and anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool). Even Nixon was kindly remembered as a master of Foriegn Policy who got us out of Vietnam and improved relations with China.

How will historians try to re-write Bush’s reign? Saddam was a cruel dictator who warranted removal and intervention in the Middle East was, at some point, an inevitability, so the Iraq war could very well turn out to be regarded as a success on some levels. Unfortunately I don’t see how it can ever be separated from the lies told to the American public in order to start it, or the incredible disregard for the need to supply our troops, or the crimes committed by immune contractors, or the unforgivable human-rights violations occurring in Guantanamo Bay.

A national disaster like 9/11 should be a shoe in for sympathy and support for a former president (and it certainly was for Bush during his first term). However, using it as a springboard for Iraq, as well as terrible mismanagement of other national disasters like Hurricane Katrina, not to mention a certain video of him reading a story about a goat, make it hard to imagine that an objective reviewer will be able to write anything entirely complimentary regarding his leadership during those troubled times.

So say what you will about hindsight being 20/20, or pull the old ‘Time will tell’ card if you’d like, but I have balls, and I’m not afraid to use them. I look at the Bush presidency, and I fail to find any lasting legacy other than failure.

Tags: 9/11, Bush, China, Digg, Fail, Nixon, Saddam

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 at 2:37 pm and is filed under Internet, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.