Worst. President. Ever.
This article is sure to win over the heavily conservative readers of Rolling Stone magazine.
Rolling Stone: The Worst President in History?-
One of America's leading historians assesses George W. Bush
All kidding aside, the article is a great read. It really covers all the important aspects of Bush's presidency (through a historical lens) while addressing the open-ended aspect of history which we can't know yet. However, as I said, this article won't convert any Bush Believers, as his core base would rather sneak the Koran into Sunday mass for a secret read than take a critical second look at their leader and protector.
Money quote for me-
Calamitous presidents, faced with enormous difficulties -- Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Hoover and now Bush -- have divided the nation, governed erratically and left the nation worse off. In each case, different factors contributed to the failure: disastrous domestic policies, foreign-policy blunders and military setbacks, executive misconduct, crises of credibility and public trust. Bush, however, is one of the rarities in presidential history: He has not only stumbled badly in every one of these key areas, he has also displayed a weakness common among the greatest presidential failures -- an unswerving adherence to a simplistic ideology that abjures deviation from dogma as heresy, thus preventing any pragmatic adjustment to changing realities. Repeatedly, Bush has undone himself, a failing revealed in each major area of presidential performance.
Yup.
[PS- The cover? An insult to well-meaning dunces everywhere.]
posted by BlueDuck @ 12:53 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
I cannot speak for whatever 'agenda' the author may have (and my sarcastic first sentence up there makes it clear I don't expect this article in a rock and roll magazine to do more than preach to choir), but I say that the article does a good job making its case, while also acknowledging we can't yet know which way history will judge Mr. Bush. There have been many others of greater repute (of varying political stripes) who have reached similar conclusions. One take on Bush that has always stuck in my mind is the one Ron Reagan did before the '04 election.
Now I am no historical scholar, though I do know my history well enough, but I do believe he is the worst President ever. The others who are routinely mentioned as the worst- Buchanan, Hoover, Andrew Johnson, etc- all are top contenders, but I believe Bush is worse. They are all remembered for one singular failure that defined their presidency, but I'm sure if we dig enough, we can find they had a good number of successes here and there that were overshadowed by their mistakes. Harry Truman for example wasn't exactly the world's greatest leader, but did he have integrity- the Truman Commission to investigate war profiteering is something we can use today. Richard Nixon, a recent candidate for some as 'worst', actually was a fairly successful President (and created many things liberals like- EPA, food stamp program, etc); it just turned out he was a criminal too.
What makes Bush stand out to me is that his whole Presidency is just a total failure. His domestic agenda is a failure, his foreign agenda is a failure, he is unpopular with the public, and he is embroiled in so many various scandals that may undo his presidency.
On the domestic front, I can't think of any major success he has or could be remembered for. No Child Left Behind was a nice idea, but his failure to fund it or help states climb through its bureaucracy have made it more hindrance than help to schools. His tax cuts have only increased the class divide, considerably increased the already balooning deficit, painted him as a friend of the rich, and are historically unheard of in a time of war (he's the first to do it). Social Security reform was a bust and thank God for that. And his smaller domestic pushes have failed too.
Other domestic disgraces flow his loyalty to the far-right religious movement. He is the first President to openly attack science and try to hinder its work. He has cut funding to AIDS work and otherwise denied potential cures for diseases due to his stances. This isn't just ignoring a problem like someone like Buchanan did with the south, he's actively making it worse.
And Katrina exposed how incompetent his administration is at responding to disaster (even one they saw coming in advance)- the true of test of leadership and he failed it. That is doubly horrible because his entire reelection pitch was "I can deal with crisis better than the other guy". And his lofty promises after Katrina ("one of the largest reconstruction efforts the world has ever seen") have turned out to be his specialty... empty rhetoric. On his watch, we practically lost an American city and not many Presidents can claim that. I believe that shot of him in Air Force One looking down on the disaster like a detached monarch after having avoided the disaster for days will be a lasting one of his presidency.
On the foreign front is where his legacy most lies and that's a failure. His goal of spreading democracy by the bomb has backfired and destablilized the MidEast, while also creating a new generation of terrorists we will have to contend with. His failure to finish the job in Afghanistan has left Osama free and left a fundamentalist regime in place only slightly better than the Taliban (who, by the way, are currently keeping our troops busy with an insurgency of their own). Iraq is the biggest failure of all, having been an unnecessary war and almost certainly based on lies and deceit. What can I say about Iraq that hasn't been said already? And Bush's "with us or against" go it alone policy before the war has alienated our allies and left us isolated in the world. That, combined with our embrace of torture and lack of concern for the law when it comes to running prisons, will take a generation for future US diplomats to heal. In addition, his recent statement that he won't bother to sort out the Iraq mess, but rather leave it to the following President, was a revealing one.
Perhaps his greatest mistake was his failure to properly take advantage of the post-9/11 moment. In that moment, he had 90% of the country on his side (including, to some degree, me), a historically unheard of popularity. He also had the world's sympathy and willingness to work with us on anything. He could've united the country which had been bitterly divided by the 2000 election, put an end to partisanship in Washington, and used the moment to create a great agenda for the future (ending on dependence on foreign oil should've been a top priority). He also could have helped heal some foreign wounds and had the whole world join together in denouncing terror as a tool of war. Instead, here at home, he combated and demeaned the Democrats (comparing those who would not serve his agenda to terrorist sympathizers), forced the Republicans to be 100% loyal to him, and bitterly divided the country again with his arrogant, selfish leadership. Abroad, he divided more with his "with us or against us" declaration and alienated almost all our allies. 9/11 was a golden opportunity stemmed from tragedy to make the world a better place. He and his cabal (Cheney, Rummy, etc) merely saw it as an opportunity to ram their preset agenda down the world's throats.
Speaking of Cheney, no other Executive has been so subservient to his second in command.
His history of lies and mistruth have also taken him from that historically high 90% to record low disapproval. He has proven untrustworthy and has had his hand in many evolving scandals. Whatever ends up becoming of scandals surrounding the case for war, the Plame leak, pre-9/11 mistakes, wiretapping, etc; it is clear to the American people he is an untrustworthy leader. His declarations of unlimited executive power (not just in one act, like Lincoln and habeus corpus- but all encompassing) are frightening in their implications. In addition, his obsession with PR (endless town hall speeches with pre-picked audiences, the 'Mission Accomplished' photo-op, endless sloganeering) show his incredibly misplaced priorities.
That's just the Cliff Notes; I can go on for hours.
In short, our greatest leaders (Lincoln, FDR) have inherited bad situations and made the country remarkably better in their wake. Mr. Bush inherited a divided country and made it worse, creating numerous new problems for his successors to clean up in their wake. His presidency has been a failure on every measurable level. It will be a shame if history glosses over that.
Worst ever? Yea, I think so.
Can't believe Bush made the cover of Rolling Stone...
So did the Dixie Chicks.
He is finally in some damn decent company.
Did you even read my first response? I quite clearly laid out where I am coming on my 'worst ever' opinion and provided other resources- notably the Ron Reagan article from 2004- that make similar conclusions.
Your response is merely a collection of recycled talking points. Most of it is absurd...
I mean, trying to pawn off any failures of No Child Left Behind on Ted Kennedy and the Democrats? That's Bush's signature domestic issue (he had to work with the Democrats on it, because coming off the 2000 election mess, he had little national credibility), next to the tax cuts. And while you are quick to throw around numbers on the tax issue, you fail to respond to either the moral issue of providing billion dollar tax cuts in wartime or how they have helped balloon the deficit to record levels after the Clinton surplus.
And comparing the Bush administration's attacks on science to the Democrats' use of 527s (note- both parties use those) is the weakest argument of the whole reply. You didn't even respond to the issue. We are the laughingstock of the world's scientific community now. Every other major nation has surpassed us. And the scientists who have been doing great work are being undermined by GOP partisans pandering to the religious right. This is unprecedented.
And then with Katrina, you try to pass the blame onto Democrats there as well. Newsflash, the Democrats do not control a single branch of power in the federal government; they are not the ones running this country. The Republicans have been and yet you do not seem to find them of more than passing consequence.
The President was personally briefed on the danger to New Orleans and remained on vacation, completely unaware of what was happening. His staff had to make him a DVD of news reports to get him to understand the severity of the situation. That is the not the adult leadership the President promised in his campaign.
Regarding whose job it was to deal with the disaster and prepare for it, it is the federal government. As the Homeland Security website states- "In the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other large-scale emergency, the Department of Homeland Security will assume primary responsibility on March 1st for ensuring that emergency response professionals are prepared for any situation. This will entail providing a coordinated, comprehensive federal response to any large-scale crisis and mounting a swift and effective recovery effort." They asked for that primary responsibility after 9/11 because they were gonna be the crisis managers. Crisis came. And they failed. As Newt Gingrich said in September, "If we can't respond faster than this to an event we saw coming across the Gulf for days, then why do we think we're prepared to respond to a nuclear or biological attack?"
That was a failure of government at the highest level. Every investigation into it- even the one done by the GOP Congress- found the White House to be at fault.
Finally, on the foreign front, I am genuinely shocked by your optimism. The vast majority of the American people do not share it. The foreign arena is perhaps where the President's most historic failures lie.
He has not created fledging democracies in the Middle East... or at least none that we recognize by our definition of that word. Afghanistan is controlled by a group of religious extremists only marginally better than the Taliban (who are still running an insurgency there). Osama bin Laden- Bush's one time enemy #1- remains at large. In Iraq, we have given birth to a Shiite majority beholden to their fundamentalist dogma and aligned with the leaders of Iran in common ideology. The ripple effects of our war created the rise of Hamas in Palestine and other changes in the area that will haunt our foreign policy for years to come. Iraq is bogged down in a sectarian war that can't be quelled by meeting any artificial political milestones. That region was a hornet's nest and the President swung it at with a big bat without a plan for dealing with the aftermath. After 9/11, he promised he would bring down Al Qaeda. I support that. But instead of doing that, he led us into a war of choice (a preemptive war, which violates international law) with a nation that was of no threat to us. This war has left countless dead, our treasury depleted, and our international credibility destroyed. Even Bush ally Tony Blair is seeking to distance himself from the neoconservative philosophy which caused this mess.
In the end, I support my initial response. I took a broad view of this presidency and how I believe history will judge it. The President got lucky that a tragedy united the country behind and the ensuing fear kept his support high. Numerous failures and missteps burst that bubble and it's been downhill for the President ever since. I do not see him recovering.
At the end of yours, you try to paint me as some 'doom and gloom' America hater. This is the easy way conservatives find to marginalize what liberals say. I love this country, I am immensely proud of it and the role that we can play in this world. It is because of my love for my country that I cannot stand to see it being led by a group of people who are so incompetent and obsessed with their own ideology over the country's needs. The Republicans want us to forget that they attempted to remove the previous President over his lies about a personal indiscretion and yet we are now told to believe that the current President is pure in all his motivation. It simply defies logic. Bush's failures are well documented; I won't waste time recounting them more than I have already.
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else."
-Theodore Roosevelt (1918)
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