It’s not Bush, Stupid! Polling “The Worst President”
Well before the ink had dried on Sean Wilentz’s article in Rolling Stone, lefty blogosphere’s were in meltdown sounding off the problem–plagued presidency of George W. Bush. This is compounded by the accompanying mala fideswebsite. Yet, since the Princeton historian’s piece ran last May we have been caught in a torrent of historians (a Nobel Prize laureate, Pulitzer Prize winner and a Mayor) that have taken to pouring their ink pens handcuffing him “to the bottom rungs of the presidential ladder”. We may “dismiss the findings as the mere rantings of a disaffected professoriate”, however, it does raise a more fundamental question–and one that historians seem loath to raise.
Arthur Schlesinger is the godfather of this scholarly spate. This professor–like pastime is as modish today near sixty years on from when the Harvard don asked 55 historians to rank US presidents. For in 2004, an informal survey of 415 historians conducted by the History News Network found that eighty–one percent considered the Bush administration a “failure.” The discomforting aspect of the appraisal lays in the sheer number of “failure” parallels (to illuminate Bush’s incompetence) from a catalogue of US presidents. Oxymoronically, the conclusion of Historians vs. George W. Bush reads that, “The reasons… historians cited… the Bush presidency as a disaster revolve around their perception that he is undermining traditional American practices and values.” Erm… have we not just endured a nauseating entrée to your “traditional American practices and values”?
Christian Reconstructionist Gary North callously posits that, “Historians will do to Bush what Bush said he would do to Osama bin Laden. They will bring him in dead or alive.” What is more, this college–cum–country club pursuit is no longer exclusive to your Ivy League workshops–for US midterm results have been the midwife to an academic ripple across the Atlantic (seeing as the Independent asked British–based experts–and readers alike–to similarly cast their votes).
Op–eds appearing in the Washington Post last December feature a repertoire of cerebral historians grading Bush’s performance. Nevertheless, stalwarts of the Bush administration are indulging in a touch of historical revisionism themselves. For next month’s Commentary contains a lengthy article by Joshua Muravchik on Jimmy Carter entitled: “Our Worst Ex–President.” Bush’s confidants must have whispered in his ear the latest scholarly shenanigans, given that he addressed this exact issue in his end–year traditional news conference:
Look, everybody’s trying to write the history of this administration even before it’s over. I’m reading about George Washington still. My attitude is, if they’re still analyzing No. 1, 43 ought not to worry about it, and just do what he thinks is right, make the tough choices necessary.
Stefan Halper, a senior fellow at Cambridge enunciates that (in the Independent vote), “It is easy for people to make strong emotional comments and to say, Bush is the worst president that the US has ever known…, but that would be pretty short–sighted. That would be ignoring the lessons of history.” The former presidential aide is spot–on. Though, we do not intend to correlate Bush’s performance with “the competition” here. Rather, the point now is that we cannot single out Bush as “The Worst President” for (in foreign affairs) he is not a revolutionary–but rather continues the US foreign policy tradition.
As a substitute, a poll could ask whether the US has “The Worst Foreign Policy in History?” For if one is to indict Bush they must homogeneously haul up (posthumously) an anthology of US presidents. Coincidently, the current edition of the Atlantic Monthly (January/ February 2007) runs as its chief piece, Carl Cannon’s “Untruth and Consequences: From Washington to FDR to Nixon, presidents have always lied. Here’s what makes George W. Bush different.” This is damning–indeed institutionally damning–evidence cataloguing the sweep of presidential misrepresentation. Nicholas von Hoffman's article ("The Worst President Ever") in the Nation mirrors the Atlantic Monthly's piece-highlighting that you have"had a whole string of bozos." However, considering the historic practice of regime change, ingrained presidential “Piety along the Potomac” and the Lockean “prerogative” of the commander–in–chief; one reasons that the label is obsolete and Bush cannot be found guilty of being “The Worst President” by a jury of historians. Ironically enough, it is history that serves as Bush’s defence–though history paradoxically incriminates “The Presidency” as an institution.
Let us now take each in turn.
Conscious of the matching rush of omnipotence experienced by both McKinley and Bush alike (in 1899 and 2002 respectively) it is not so straightforward to single out the latter to face impeachment. If modern events incriminate Bush we must affix his spiritual co–conspirator (McKinley) to the charge sheet–in view of the fact that Bush is nihil novi. The invasion of Iraq was not an isolated episode. It was the culmination of a 110–year period during which Americans overthrew fourteen governments (see Stephen Kinzer’s Overthrow). By considering these operations as a continuum rather than as a series of unrelated incidents, it becomes evident what they have in common. There was a man who peered over Bush when announcing the US invasion of Iraq. It was not The Messiah but rather McKinley from a grandiose oil painting on the wall behind him. Theobold Chartran’s historic print depicts the first American practitioner of “regime change.”
One does comprehend that labelling someone as “religious” is akin to calling them “radical” or “revolutionary” because the term often implies a certain lack of detachment and rationality. Yet, considered in the larger context of all the occupants of the Oval Office, Bush’s faith is neither revolutionary nor threatening to the Republic. History instructs us that Bush is not unaccompanied in his employment of moral and religious rhetoric. Walter Russell Mead in God’s Country? (Foreign Affairs September/October 2006) writes that, “Evangelical political power today is not leading the United States in a completely new direction. We have seen at least parts of this film before: evangelicals were the dominant force in US culture during much of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth.” Consequently, if Bush is to take the stand, then the presidencies’ of 1, 7, 15, 17, 26, 39 and 40 must (posthumously) be summoned to court where historical revisionism can begin in earnest.
Commentators and bloggers alike slam Bush for ostensibly riding roughshod over Congress resuscitating Nixon’s “Imperial presidency.” However, it is Harry Truman who is the genuine revolutionary breaking fresh ground with his interpretation of the powers of a president and commander–in–chief. In Korea, for the first time, the president had engaged the nation in major combat operations without the benefit of a prior declaration of war by Congress. Post JFK and the Cuban Missile Crisis there was an established pattern for future commanders–in–chief of freezing out Capitol Hill until decisions on strategy and tactics were formulated. Bush’s Lockean “prerogative” is only the latest in a long line of presidents, starting with George Washington and of all political stripes, to have pushed his interpretation of the role. This executive–legislative confrontation will endure long after Bush departs in 2009; for the debate is institutional not individual–again rendering “The Worst President” label archaic and stupid!
Unlike former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, we do not seek precedents to refute any allegations of wrongdoing; rather we refute the revolutionary brand and the verdict of Bush: “The Worst President.” As a corollary, “The Worst President” label must be consigned to the rubbish bin of history, along with the polls which most avidly fostered it.
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