how does it feel to be on the wrong side of History, Batman? [rquoter]History will show that George W Bush was right The American lady who called to see if I would appear on her radio programme was specific. "We're setting up a debate," she said sweetly, "and we want to know from your perspective as a historian whether George W Bush was the worst president of the 20th century, or might he be the worst president in American history?" By Andrew Roberts Last Updated: 1:18PM GMT 15 Jan 2009 George W Bush's supposed lack of intellect will be seen to be a myth "I think he's a good president," I told her, which seemed to dumbfound her, and wreck my chances of appearing on her show. In the avalanche of abuse and ridicule that we are witnessing in the media assessments of President Bush's legacy, there are factors that need to be borne in mind if we are to come to a judgment that is not warped by the kind of partisan hysteria that has characterised this issue on both sides of the Atlantic. The first is that history, by looking at the key facts rather than being distracted by the loud ambient noise of the 24-hour news cycle, will probably hand down a far more positive judgment on Mr Bush's presidency than the immediate, knee-jerk loathing of the American and European elites. At the time of 9/11, which will forever rightly be regarded as the defining moment of the presidency, history will look in vain for anyone predicting that the Americans murdered that day would be the very last ones to die at the hands of Islamic fundamentalist terrorists in the US from that day to this. The decisions taken by Mr Bush in the immediate aftermath of that ghastly moment will be pored over by historians for the rest of our lifetimes. One thing they will doubtless conclude is that the measures he took to lock down America's borders, scrutinise travellers to and from the United States, eavesdrop upon terrorist suspects, work closely with international intelligence agencies and take the war to the enemy has foiled dozens, perhaps scores of would-be murderous attacks on America. There are Americans alive today who would not be if it had not been for the passing of the Patriot Act. There are 3,000 people who would have died in the August 2005 airline conspiracy if it had not been for the superb inter-agency co-operation demanded by Bush after 9/11. The next factor that will be seen in its proper historical context in years to come will be the true reasons for invading Afghanistan in October 2001 and Iraq in April 2003. The conspiracy theories believed by many (generally, but not always) stupid people – that it was "all about oil", or the securing of contracts for the US-based Halliburton corporation, etc – will slip into the obscurity from which they should never have emerged had it not been for comedian-filmmakers such as Michael Moore. Instead, the obvious fact that there was a good case for invading Iraq based on 14 spurned UN resolutions, massive human rights abuses and unfinished business following the interrupted invasion of 1991 will be recalled. Similarly, the cold light of history will absolve Bush of the worst conspiracy-theory accusation: that he knew there were no WMDs in Iraq. History will show that, in common with the rest of his administration, the British Government, Saddam's own generals, the French, Chinese, Israeli and Russian intelligence agencies, and of course SIS and the CIA, everyone assumed that a murderous dictator does not voluntarily destroy the WMD arsenal he has used against his own people. And if he does, he does not then expel the UN weapons inspectorate looking for proof of it, as he did in 1998 and again in 2001. Mr Bush assumed that the Coalition forces would find mass graves, torture chambers, evidence for the gross abuse of the UN's food-for-oil programme, but also WMDs. He was right about each but the last, and history will place him in the mainstream of Western, Eastern and Arab thinking on the matter. History will probably, assuming it is researched and written objectively, congratulate Mr Bush on the fact that whereas in 2000 Libya was an active and vicious member of what he was accurately to describe as an "axis of evil" of rogue states willing to employ terrorism to gain its ends, four years later Colonel Gaddafi's WMD programme was sitting behind glass in a museum in Oakridge, Tennessee. With his characteristic openness and at times almost self-defeating honesty, Mr Bush has been the first to acknowledge his mistakes – for example, tardiness over Hurricane Katrina – but there are some he made not because he was a ranting Right-winger, but because he was too keen to win bipartisan support. The invasion of Iraq should probably have taken place months earlier, but was held up by the attempt to find support from UN security council members, such as Jacques Chirac's France, that had ties to Iraq and hostility towards the Anglo-Americans. History will also take Mr Bush's verbal fumbling into account, reminding us that Ronald Reagan also mis-spoke regularly, but was still a fine president. The first MBA president, who had a higher grade-point average at Yale than John Kerry, Mr Bush's supposed lack of intellect will be seen to be a myth once the papers in his Presidential Library in the Southern Methodist University in Dallas are available. Films such as Oliver Stone's W, which portray him as a spitting, oafish frat boy who eats with his mouth open and is rude to servants, will be revealed by the diaries and correspondence of those around him to be absurd travesties, of this charming, interesting, beautifully mannered history buff who, were he not the most powerful man in the world, would be a fine person to have as a pal. Instead of Al Franken, history will listen to Bob Geldof praising Mr Bush's efforts over Aids and malaria in Africa; or to Manmohan Singh, the prime minister of India, who told him last week: "The people of India deeply love you." And certainly to the women of Afghanistan thanking him for saving them from Taliban abuse, degradation and tyranny. When Abu Ghraib is mentioned, history will remind us that it was the Bush Administration that imprisoned those responsible for the horrors. When water-boarding is brought up, we will see that it was only used on three suspects, one of whom was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al-Qaeda's chief of operational planning, who divulged vast amounts of information that saved hundreds of innocent lives. When extraordinary renditions are queried, historians will ask how else the world's most dangerous terrorists should have been transported. On scheduled flights? The credit crunch, brought on by the Democrats in Congress insisting upon home ownership for credit-unworthy people, will initially be blamed on Bush, but the perspective of time will show that the problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac started with the deregulation of the Clinton era. Instead Bush's very un-ideological but vast rescue package of $700 billion (£480 billion) might well be seen as lessening the impact of the squeeze, and putting America in position to be the first country out of recession, helped along by his huge tax-cut packages since 2000. Sneered at for being "simplistic" in his reaction to 9/11, Bush's visceral responses to the attacks of a fascistic, totalitarian death cult will be seen as having been substantially the right ones. Mistakes are made in every war, but when virtually the entire military, diplomatic and political establishment in the West opposed it, Bush insisted on the surge in Iraq that has been seen to have brought the war around, and set Iraq on the right path. Today its GDP is 30 per cent higher than under Saddam, and it is free of a brutal dictator and his rapist sons. The number of American troops killed during the eight years of the War against Terror has been fewer than those slain capturing two islands in the Second World War, and in Britain we have lost fewer soldiers than on a normal weekend on the Western Front. As for civilians, there have been fewer Iraqis killed since the invasion than in 20 conflicts since the Second World War. Iraq has been a victory for the US-led coalition, a fact that the Bush-haters will have to deal with when perspective finally – perhaps years from now – lends objectivity to this fine man's record. Andrew Roberts's 'Masters and Commanders: How Roosevelt, Churchill, Marshall and Alanbrooke Won the War in the West' is published by Penguin[/rquoter]
Yeah it's just the elites who are giving him THE LOWEST APPROVAL RATINGS EVER. If there is any commonality that people in this country share from coast to coast, outside of the small and decreasing # places controlled by America's leading Southern Regional Party, it's a near universal distaste for GWB and a sense of giddy anticipation of the moment as to when he'll finally GTFO
Thank god you posted this article, basso. I was under the impression Bush was a terrible president. Thanks for setting me straight!
Oh, and I think it is sickening what i heard on Morning Joe this morning which is confirmed by this opinion, that the Bush Administration is actually going to start releasing information on thwarted attacks of terrorists to improve his legacy. unfreakinbelievable
The article reminds me of a rant my history teacher in high school went off on about "let history judge." I wasn't familiar than with this idea of letting history judge at the time, so I didn't know where the f he was coming from. But, his point was valid -- History can't do anything, it is an abstraction; people judge. You won't get some magical objectivity by waiting for events to pass into history. Cooler heads may prevail and more information may be available, is all. But, then I don't think he's even right about what cooler heads will think. I do think people in the future will not deem him to be as bad as he is considered now. But, he's off his rocker if he thinks: (1) that the geo-political importance of the oil reserves in Iraq had no bearing on our decision to invade, (2) that Bush was not eager to think the worst of Saddam, (3) that spy agencies the world over thought Saddam had WMD, (4) that torture was used on only 3 people, (5) that if it was only 3 people, then it is okay, (6) that the administration has no responsibility (for active direction of abuse or else complete lack of leadership and oversight) for the abuses at Abu Ghraib. And, he makes no mention of Bush's serious transgressions on the democratic process and civil rights. On those, I think criticism will get worse over time, not better.
Depend on how things goes in the future, his legacy could considered even worse than it is now as times goes on. He is not really a bad person, but he is definately an incompetent president who should never be given the responsibility to run the country.
A counter opinion. http://www.slate.com/id/2204488/?GT1=38001 The Enigma in Chief We still don't know how or why Bush made the key decisions of his administration. By Jacob Weisberg Posted Saturday, Jan. 10, 2009, at 7:08 AM ET Read more of Slate's coverage of the end of Bush's presidency. As George W. Bush once noted, "You never know what your history is going to be like until long after you're gone." What I think he was trying to say is that, over time, historians may evolve toward a more positive view of his presidency than the one held by most of his contemporaries. At the moment, this seems a vain hope. Bush's three most obvious legacies are his decision to invade Iraq, his framing of a global war on terror after Sept. 11, and the massive financial crisis. Each of these constitutes a separate epic in presidential misjudgment and mismanagement. It remains a brainteaser to come up with ways, however minor, in which Bush changed government, politics, or the world for the better. Among presidential historians, it is hardly an eccentric view that 43 ranks as America's worst president ever. On the other hand, he has nowhere to go but up. In a different sense, however, Bush's comment has some validity to it. We do not know how people will one day view this presidency because we, Bush's contemporaries, don't yet understand it ourselves. The Bush administration has had startling success in one area—namely keeping its inner workings secret. Intensely loyal, contemptuous of the press, and overwhelmingly hostile to any form of public disclosure, the Bushies did a remarkable job at keeping their doings hidden for eight years. Probably the biggest question Bush leaves behind is about the most consequential choice of his presidency: his decision to invade Iraq. When did the president make up his mind to go to war against Saddam Hussein? What were his real reasons? What roles did various figures around him—Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice—play in the actual decision? Was the selling of the war on the basis of WMD evidence a matter of conscious deception or of self-deception on their part? Bob Woodward, Ron Suskind, and I recently debated in Slate the issue of how much we really know about Bush's biggest decision. Woodward, the author of four inside accounts of the Bush administration, believes that we do know the most important facts. He argues that Bush decided to invade Iraq in January 2003, that the reason was 9/11, and that Bush himself was the real decision-maker. Suskind and I argued that we don't know really how, when, or why the decision was made—though we suspect it was much earlier. By the summer of 2002, administration officials and foreign diplomats were hearing that Bush's course was already set. The disputed dates and details go to the most interesting larger issues about what went wrong during the Bush years. Did Bush's own innocence and incompetence drive his missteps? Or was it the people around him, most importantly his vice president, who manipulated him into his major bad choices? On so many issues—the framing of the war on terrorism, the use of torture, the expansion of executive power—it was Cheney's views that prevailed. Yet at some point, perhaps around the 2006 election, Bush seems to have lost confidence in his vice president and stopped taking his advice. To reckon with the Bush years, we need to understand what went on between these two men behind closed doors. Yet despite some superb spadework by journalist Barton Gellman and others, we know very little about Cheney's true role. We have seen few of the pertinent documents and heard little relevant testimony. Congressional investigations and litigation have shed only the faintest light on Cheney's role in Bush's biggest blunders. The same is generally true of Bush's most important political relationship, with Karl Rove, and his most important personal one, with his father. Only with greater insight into these connections are we likely to be able to answer some of the other pressing historical questions. To what extent was Bush himself really the driver of his central decisions? How engaged or disengaged was he? Why, after governing as a successful moderate in Texas, did he adopt such an ideological and polarizing style as president? Why did he politicize the fight against terrorism? Why did he choose to permit the torture of American detainees? Why did he wait so long to revise a failing strategy in Iraq? It seems unlikely that the memoirs in the works from Rove and Rumsfeld will challenge Bush's repeated assertions that he was not only in charge but in control. As for the president himself, we're unlikely to get much: Bush has a poor memory and is too unreflective to have kept the kind of diary that would elucidate matters. In time, however, other accounts are sure to emerge. Congressional investigations will shed new light. Declassified documents and e-mails may paint a clearer picture. Once the country is rid of Bush, perhaps we can start developing a more nuanced understanding of how his presidency went astray. His was no ordinary failure, and he leaves not just an unholy mess but also some genuine mysteries.
I've had this same conversation with a friend of mine who works for the Republican party the other day. He felt that GW Bush's legacy will come down to how things work in Iraq and if things turn out great Bush will look good and if they don't he will continue to look bad. Another thing to consider is that Truman left as one of the nations most unpopular Presidents but is now frequently praised. Consider that Truman left with a war that is too this day unresolved yet the success of South Korea has ameliorated his image. Also Truman's containment strategy towards the Soviet Union was followed by other Presidents. Its possible that GW Bush's war on terror might be looked at positively if Obama and future presidents don't drastically change the strategy. One other thing that GW Bush might take from Truman is if a future biographer writes as popular a biography about him as the ones written about Truman.
That's one of the great moral questions we have about leaders isn't it? If the results are bad... and in this case, not just bad but incredibly tragic because so many of the bad things could have been prevented or lessened by an administration not so entranced by ideology and so corrupted by power... then does that make the leader a bad person or just something lesser, like an incompetent? Just to take a few examples... if your administration lies about air quality to the people trying to search the pile for survivors and you don't care, you're probably a bad guy. If your administration tortures and you both approve and defend it, you're probably a bad guy. If your administration allows an American city to drown and then lags in the recovery effort without any protest from you, you're probably a bad guy. If your administration outs a CIA agent for political purposes and you don't care, you're probably a bad guy. If you intentionally and openly ignore the laws passed by the Legislative Branch because you think the Executive Branch is something closer to a king, then you're probably a bad guy. And these are just a few. In summary, Bush is a bad guy and the epitome of the banality of evil.
Am I right that basso just posted an editorial from someone claiming to know the future and then unequivocally saying Batman is wrong because this guy said so. I'm curious why this guy is the 100% authority on what history will show us down the road. Isn't the point of waiting for history to judge that we don't actually know what history will show? If we did, why would we need to wait for history to show us anything?
I used to think that he wasn't a bad guy either. But I've come to see that he may be likable, but he's still a bad guy. When changed the requirements to use force on actionable intel from 90% to as low as 50%, I couldn't go on thinking he was a good guy. That means he's OK with being wrong, and killing innocent people half the time. That isn't a good guy. A good guy would be upset that 10% of the time he's going to destroy some family or a wedding of innocent people. A good guy would not decide that even odds would make it OK to attack and use lethal force.
anyone here even denying this? All you heard for years was a lack of housing, turns out those guys saying that (both sides) were on the payroll of banks.
Yes that has been refuted a long time ago. The bills which people point to from that state in them that it is not only unwise but unlawful to give completely unsecured loans. Search some of that stuff. I think Democrats do deserve some blame, because they were heads of the committees toward the end of the housing bubble. But look at the GOP deregulation which undoubtedly committed to the unwise loans going out because the apparatus that had been in place to check that was now gone.
Oh, and basso, prolly wanna dump the political sig... http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showpost.php?p=3913780&postcount=1
I'm not sure how much people would disagree - though the housing crisis actually was the result of far more than increased low-income housing. It started with speculative homes and condos on both coasts - not quite the areas that the community-development housing was focused on. But that said, the most interesting part of what you quoted was how blame/credit is distributed: The credit crunch, brought on by the Democrats in Congress insisting upon home ownership for credit-unworthy people, will initially be blamed on Bush, Part #1. Democratic Congress, Republican President = Blame the Democrats but the perspective of time will show that the problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac started with the deregulation of the Clinton era. Part #2: Republican Congress, Democratic President = Blame the Democrats Instead Bush's very un-ideological but vast rescue package of $700 billion (£480 billion) might well be seen as lessening the impact of the squeeze, and putting America in position to be the first country out of recession, helped along by his huge tax-cut packages since 2000. Part #3: Democratic Congress, Republican President = Praise Bush (despite his own party being the opposition in this case) Not biased at all.
You skipped rubber-stamp Republican Congress, Republican President, which was the situation for the majority of GWB's reign.
