Historians Agree: Bush Sucked
The History News Network did an informal survey of 109 presidential historians and found that so far, history is not treating George W. Bush kindly. 98% view Bush’s presidency as a failure:
61% of the historians rated Bush as the worst president ever and an additional 35% rated him in the bottom 10.
The reason for the hesitancy some historians had in categorizing the Bush presidency as the worst ever, which led them to place it instead in the “nearly the worst” group, was well expressed by another historian who said, “It is a bit too early to judge whether Bush’s presidency is the worst ever, though it certainly has a shot to take the title. Without a doubt, it is among the worst.”
In a similar survey of historians I conducted for HNN four years ago, Mr. Bush had fared somewhat better, with 19 percent rating his presidency a success and 81 percent classifying it as a failure. More striking is the dramatic increase in the percentage of historians who rate the Bush presidency the worst ever. In 2004, only 11.6 percent of the respondents rated Bush’s presidency last. That conclusion is now reached by nearly six times as large a fraction of historians.
Go read the comments of some of the historians, but this one is my favorite:
One historian indicated that his reason for rating Bush as worst is that the current president combines traits of some of his failed predecessors: “the paranoia of Nixon, the ethics of Harding and the good sense of Herbert Hoover. . . . . God willing, this will go down as the nadir of American politics.” Another classified Bush as “an ideologue who got the nation into a totally unnecessary war, and has broken the Constitution more often than even Nixon. He is not a conservative, nor a Christian, just an immoral man . . . .” Still another remarked that Bush’s “denial of any personal responsibility can only be described as silly.”
He’s Nixon, Hoover and Harding without the good parts. There’s only two things I’d rate Bush as good at: shouting into a megaphone and leaving office. As one of the historians stated, people will look back to Bush as the beginning of the decline for America and Bush’s mess will take decades to fix.
“Bush’s mess will take decades to fix.” Heck, it may just take decades before we find all the time-bombs he planted, i.e. BP oilsplosion. How many other disasters are out there ticking away thanks to BushCo? You could use stupidity and incompetence as a sort of defense, but he was just so excellent at being evil.
Iranian historians regard him as one of the best US President at furthering Iran’s interests.
When it comes to civil liberties, Gitmo, Afghanistan, corporatism, and Justice, Obama is not doing much better than Bush. Don’t take my word for it, ask the head of the ACLU.
Hey that reminds me. How’s that “principled criticism of Obama from the left” blog you are working on going? Oh that’s right. You are a lazy, no talent ass-munch. Never mind.
The unrest from the left with Obama is growing, Jason. Maybe we can save Obama from joining Bush as one of the worst Presidents in history, particularly in regards to civil liberties. Why don’t you join us? Or is IOKIYD the rule with you?
He is right though. Everything that bush was bashed (rightfully) for, obama has continued. The Afghan war is expanding, as well as his use of special forces. Just more of the same while you get caught up in the “left vs right” struggle.
“Maybe we can save Obama from joining Bush as one of the worst Presidents in history, particularly in regards to civil liberties. Why don’t you join us?
Why don’t you suck my dick before you sit on it? Short of that, why don’t you start the blog and see if there is a market for your brand of principled criticism.
He certainly did run up the nations debt. I can’t imagine anybody will be able to touch him on that kind of spending, oh wait…nevermind.
Comment by jason330 @ 4:42 pm:
“Maybe we can save Obama from joining Bush as one of the worst Presidents in history, particularly in regards to civil liberties. Why don’t you join us?” – anonone –
“Why don’t you suck my dick before you sit on it?” -Jason330
Jason330,
Uh, If that’s the best you can do, cognitive dissonance from an empirically unwarranted belief in Obomba has obviously put your head in a very unhealthy place. Peace. – delacrat
“Everything that bush was bashed (rightfully) for, obama has continued.”
Please remind me which independent country Obama invaded and occupied.
well, he has stepped up operations in afghanistan, and his term isn’t over yet. I see either Iran or North Korea on his plate in the future.
But until then, I see bush ahead by one, with obama close on his heels.
delacrat doesn’t understand a what mother-fucking figure of speech is I guess. I don’t think he (she?) should literally suck my dick. I think he (she?) and maybe delacrat should stop being such big pussies and start a blog that offers principled criticism of Obama from the left.
Jesus H Christ. You have to spell shit out around here.
He certainly did run up the nations debt.
Actually, no he did not. The vast majority of the debt is still from tax cuts not paid for, wars not paid for, Medicare Part D not paid for. These were BushCo initiatives. Obama added to it via the stimulus, but that is about 20% of the problem. Of course, it took a Democratic President for your handlers to tell you that there was a debt problem. And it takes a repub — with your legendary innumeracy — to not be able to follow the numbers of that debt that you are so disdainful of.
I hate to defend the Shrub, but it’s far too soon to be making decisions about where to rank him among his historical peers. His long-term place in history will depend on how and when the American empire comes tumbling down.
Just three observations:
1) It generally takes a couple of decades to be able to objectively evaluate a presidency. After all, I’m old enough to remember when both Truman and Eisenhower were considered to be poor presidents, something which is generally rejected by historians today. Call me in 2030 and we’ll discuss the how Bush43 did.
2) Seems to me that you have at least one commenter here is pretty lacking in substance, given his need to resort to profane insults rather than intellectually supported argumentation.
3) If one wants to judge Bush so harshly at this point, isn’t it equally fair to argue that Obama is just as dismal a failure at this point in his presidency, with little prospect for improvement in sight?
isn’t it equally fair to argue that Obama is just as dismal a failure at this point in his presidency, with little prospect for improvement in sight?
In Republicanland, the most successful first term presidency is a dismal failure. You guys are so funny! Obama got health care reform passed, which Democratic presidents have tried to do since Roosevelt, he saved us from a Depression (although he was sabotaged by Republicans and ConservaDems because the stimulus was too small), he got financial reform passed, and will soon get rid of DADT. Oh, he doesn’t know how to stop an oil well from leaking. Failure!
You will seldom find a “conservative” or a republican historian, once you study history you learn an irrefutable fact, conservative republicans screw up everything, Herbert Hoover, the MaCarthy hearings, bad episodes in history are always caused by conservative republicans, dems have their brain freeze moments from time to time [Viet-nam] but with conservative repubs, dissatisfaction is almost a given.