23 days and counting until George W Bush leaves the White House

As George W Bush prepares to leave the White House, his supporters are busy putting a positive spin on his eight years in office. Tim Shipman reports from Washington on how history will judge a 'consequential' presidency.

On Wednesday Mundtadhar al-Zaidi will go on trial in Iraq, charged with throwing his shoe at George W Bush. In Istanbul, entrepreneur Ramazan Baydan has had 300,000 orders for the same shoe. He is renaming it the “Bye Bye Bush.” In Washington, the President of the United States has just 23 days left in power and an approval rating of 28 per cent, the lowest in recent White House history.

There is much about his reaction to the shoe-throwing that illuminates the real George W Bush. If his initial response (“So what if the guy threw a shoe at me?”) smacks of the casual disdain for Arab customs that his critics blame for his foreign policy mistakes, there were also shades of the presidential candidate who charmed Americans with an easy humour eight years ago. “I didn’t know what the guy said but I saw his sole,” he quipped to journalists on his flight home.

Bush’s allies are already seeking to shape the first draft of a history that will judge the President positively, making the case that Bush helped prevent another terrorist atrocity after 9/11, successfully changed a failing strategy in Iraq, and did what was necessary to prevent total economic meltdown.