Have we misunderestimated George W Bush?
Four months before he disappears into the Texas sunset, Bush is the least loved president of modern times. He will step down with the US embroiled in two unpopular wars, up to its eyes in debt, its economy sliding into recession, its moral standing in the world deeply damaged.
Not even Harry Truman during the worst of the Korean war, or Richard Nixon as he sank in the morass of Watergate, matched Bush's current disapproval rating of 70 per cent. As early as midway through his second term, a panel of historians ranked him as America's worst ever president.
Already, his performance in the job can be book-ended by two "My Pet Goat" moments. The first came on 11 September 2001, as he sat in a classroom reading the book of that name to a group of Florida schoolchildren even after he was told of the two attacks on the World Trade Centre. The scene symbolises Bush as he is widely perceived to be, out of touch and for all his talk of being "The Decider", anything but the commanding chief executive figure he fancies himself to be.
The second occurred in Beijing last month. There was Bush sitting and joking with Vladimir Putin at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, at the very moment that Russia was going to war to crush Georgia, poster-country for the Bush mission of bringing liberty and democracy to every corner of the planet. Once again, in the dimming twilight of his presidency, he appeared completely caught out by events.
But just maybe the legacy Bush will bequeath his successor, whether Barack Obama or John McCain, won't be as bad as is made out. Normally, historical rehabilitation observes a decent pause after its subject has left the stage.
But even with Bush still firmly (if rather irrelevantly) ensconced in the Oval Office, some commentators here are revising their judgements of him – upwards. The reappraisals may be merely punditry's version of "dead cat bounce", as Wall Street charmingly terms a misleading rally in a market headed irreversibly downwards. Equally though, they might be a sign of things to come.
These Bush defenders are an eclectic bunch. Some you might have expected, such as Robert Kagan, neo-conservative turned realist, responsible in 2002 for the thesis that "Americans are from Mars, Europeans from Venus" to explain the tough-guys-against-wimps transatlantic rift on Iraq and much else besides. Now he argues that history, its lessons so often ignored by the neo-cons, is back, warts and all.
Others are less obvious, for instance David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter partly responsible for coining the term "axis of evil" which Bush used to describe that unholy trinity of Iraq, Iran and North Korea in his State of the Union Speech, also in 2002. Frum may have been a true believer once; he now believes that, thanks in part to Bush, American conservatism is in such a mess that Republicans this autumn could face a wipeout to match that of Democrats in the 1980 election that swept Ronald Reagan to power.
And what about Fareed Zakaria, international affairs pundit du jour thanks to his book The Post-American World, arguing that the rise of "the rest" – China, India, Russia and so on – spells the end of the unchallenged global supremacy of the US? Zakaria, firmly on the "soft power"/realism end of the foreign policy spectrum, last month produced an article for Newsweek, provocatively entitled "What Bush Got Right". Put the arguments advanced by these three gentlemen together and the short answer is that he may be getting quite a bit right. The tragedy is that the light has been so slow to dawn.
In domestic, but above all foreign policy, Bush's policy has been a tale of U-turns. He came to office an avowed free marketeer, deregulator, and advocate of small government. Even before boom turned to bust last year, he had presided over a stealthy expansion of government unmatched since the 1960s and 1970s.
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Not even Harry Truman during the worst of the Korean war, or Richard Nixon as he sank in the morass of Watergate, matched Bush's current disapproval rating of 70 per cent. As early as midway through his second term, a panel of historians ranked him as America's worst ever president.
Already, his performance in the job can be book-ended by two "My Pet Goat" moments. The first came on 11 September 2001, as he sat in a classroom reading the book of that name to a group of Florida schoolchildren even after he was told of the two attacks on the World Trade Centre. The scene symbolises Bush as he is widely perceived to be, out of touch and for all his talk of being "The Decider", anything but the commanding chief executive figure he fancies himself to be.
The second occurred in Beijing last month. There was Bush sitting and joking with Vladimir Putin at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, at the very moment that Russia was going to war to crush Georgia, poster-country for the Bush mission of bringing liberty and democracy to every corner of the planet. Once again, in the dimming twilight of his presidency, he appeared completely caught out by events.
But just maybe the legacy Bush will bequeath his successor, whether Barack Obama or John McCain, won't be as bad as is made out. Normally, historical rehabilitation observes a decent pause after its subject has left the stage.
But even with Bush still firmly (if rather irrelevantly) ensconced in the Oval Office, some commentators here are revising their judgements of him – upwards. The reappraisals may be merely punditry's version of "dead cat bounce", as Wall Street charmingly terms a misleading rally in a market headed irreversibly downwards. Equally though, they might be a sign of things to come.
These Bush defenders are an eclectic bunch. Some you might have expected, such as Robert Kagan, neo-conservative turned realist, responsible in 2002 for the thesis that "Americans are from Mars, Europeans from Venus" to explain the tough-guys-against-wimps transatlantic rift on Iraq and much else besides. Now he argues that history, its lessons so often ignored by the neo-cons, is back, warts and all.
Others are less obvious, for instance David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter partly responsible for coining the term "axis of evil" which Bush used to describe that unholy trinity of Iraq, Iran and North Korea in his State of the Union Speech, also in 2002. Frum may have been a true believer once; he now believes that, thanks in part to Bush, American conservatism is in such a mess that Republicans this autumn could face a wipeout to match that of Democrats in the 1980 election that swept Ronald Reagan to power.
And what about Fareed Zakaria, international affairs pundit du jour thanks to his book The Post-American World, arguing that the rise of "the rest" – China, India, Russia and so on – spells the end of the unchallenged global supremacy of the US? Zakaria, firmly on the "soft power"/realism end of the foreign policy spectrum, last month produced an article for Newsweek, provocatively entitled "What Bush Got Right". Put the arguments advanced by these three gentlemen together and the short answer is that he may be getting quite a bit right. The tragedy is that the light has been so slow to dawn.
In domestic, but above all foreign policy, Bush's policy has been a tale of U-turns. He came to office an avowed free marketeer, deregulator, and advocate of small government. Even before boom turned to bust last year, he had presided over a stealthy expansion of government unmatched since the 1960s and 1970s.