Week of February 16, 2009

Being gracious winners, this week, liberals howled with delight at George Bush for coming in seventh-to-last in a historians' ranking of the presidents from best to worst.

This was pretty shocking. Most liberals can't even name seven U.S. presidents.

Being ranked one of the worst presidents by"historians" is like being called"anti-American" by the Nation magazine. And by"historian," I mean a former member of the Weather Underground, who is subsidized by the taxpayer to engage in left-wing political activism in a cushy university job.

So congratulations, George Bush! Whenever history professors rank you as one of the"worst" presidents, it's a good bet you were one of America's greatest.

Futurist: Everyone is terribly concerned about the global economy. Investors have seen their stock portfolios decrease by 30-40%. What do you see the global economy doing in the next five years?

Martin Wolf: The only honest thing one can say is that one doesn’t know. There are two or three very powerful reasons we don’t know. First, we really can’t forecast economies. Forecasters always miss turning points. They can tell you what will happen only if things remain as they are. Turning points are inherently unpredictable. The consequences when things do change are always unpredictable for the same reason, because a lot of other things are likely to change at the same time. That’s the first point.

Second point is that the forces now at work are unbelievably rare and, in this combination, have never been seen before. Ever. That makes looking back on anything that’s happened in history almost useless. It gives you some guidance; there are better and worse guides. But there is no clear guide that will give you more than a conceptual idea of what’s going on.

Not only was [Lincoln] America’s greatest president, I think he was America’s greatest political leader. He was so incredibly shrewd. Well, Obama has made — he was from Illinois and Lincoln was from Illinois and that’s fine. But in some ways, you know what was more like Lincoln in his presidency? George W. Bush.