Bush’s Legacy: not pretty
By Nick Ragone | Related entries in News
Lost in this week’s market craziness (and with good reason) is the minor issue of President Bush’s legacy.
Two term president’s usually begin thinking about their place in history during the final months of their administration. After all, there’s not much left for a lame duck but to run out the clock and ponder their legacy.
In the case of President Bush, this can’t be a pleasant experience. I’ll probably delve more deeply into Bush’s legacy after the election, but in my book I ranked him 34 out of the 42 presidents. “It’s too soon to take a serious cut at President Bush’s place in history,” starts the chapter, “but it’s not too soon to call the invasion of Iraq one of the worst decisions in presidential history.”
My basic contention was that the invasion of Iraq completely negated what would otherwise had been a decent record. Among his successes: the immediate handling of Afghanistan and the aftermath of 9-11, the strengthening of domestic security, and creating a strong economy. It’s easy to forget that President Bush inherited a recession and tech bubble implosion, which was then compounded by the devastation of the 9-11 attacks, and yet still managed to avoid a deeper recession. The economy grew at a solid pace from 2003-2007, and even the housing bubble seemed to be just a blip on the radar.
And now all that’s changed. Turned out the economy was running on borrowed time and bad loans, and millions of Americans were living way beyond their means. While President Bush isn’t completely to blame — truth be told the President holds little sway over the economy — the bottom line is that the worst financial collapse since the Great Depression occured on his watch. And because of that, it accrues to his legacy.
So now he can put the worst presidential blunder and arguably the worst financial calamity in history on his resume. He’s in a tight competition with Ulysses S Grant for the worst two-term president in history. That’s a contest you don’t want to win.
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October 11th, 2008 at 10:01 am
Generally when it comes to historical rankings of the presidents, I think you have to judge slowly… it can be decades before you may be able to tell if a presidency was an overall success or failure.
And before the current financial crisis, I felt that way about Bush. Sure, he was unpopular with Iraq and his stubborn attitude… but I figured that there was a chance, slim as it might be, that his actions could potentially have benefits one day, and so I refrained from saying that he was the “worst” or a “failed” president.
But the financial situation changes that a bit. When looking back on his presidency, it’s going to be especially difficult for historians to give weight to an aspect of his presidency other than Iraq, Afghanistan and the Subprime Mortgage Failure. The degree to which the next presidential administrations can fix these problems won’t matter. If things do get better in a few years, people will contrast their successes with the failures of the Bush administration. If things don’t get better, people will blame Bush for initiating a crisis that got worse over time. It’s probably going to be a lose/lose for him. Look, we don’t even remember what the hell President Hoover did in the 10 months of his administration prior to Black Tuesday… all we know is that he presided over the stock market crash and failed to fix it. We forget about Grant’s hawkish approach toward Reconstruction and his grand tolerance of former slaves and advocacy of having them serve in government, and instead only remember that Grant was incredibly corrupt. Anything positive that Bush has done is likely to be overshadowed by Wall Street and Iraq.
I still do keep a degree of skepticism in ranking his presidency… we could all be wrong. But I think the likelihood of being wrong about Bush’s below-average performance is becoming increasingly remote. If I were to make a prediction though, I would guess that Bush’s performance will be ranked lower than Grant’s… but unlike Grant, Bush’s presidency is more likely to be closely identified with the failed presidency… maybe even more so than Nixon (who in my opinion was a fairly decent president who was destroyed by personal flaws).
Theoretically, Bush’s legacy could squeak out intact and it could go through a renaissance fifty years down the line. But it’s going to take a miracle for that to happen.
October 11th, 2008 at 10:16 am
If it turns out that the we achieve complete success in the Iraq war, does this mean you would rank president Bush as one of the more decent presidents?
October 11th, 2008 at 11:25 am
How could we “achieve complete success in the Iraq war” after eight years? An important criterion for its success was the speed at which it would be concluded. The definition of “success” has never been clearly defined and now desperate warmongerers will claim any remotely positive development as “success”.
You cannot “succeed” in a war that was justified on completely false and immoral precepts. There is no such thing as “success” when you invade a country because you feel like it.
October 11th, 2008 at 11:43 am
If it succeeds at this point, the president in power will be the one to take the credit. Bush will be seen as the one that screwed it up, so that it took years after he left to fix it.
I also give him no credit for Afghanistan, if he knew what he was doing we OBL would have been killed at Tora Bora.
You also need to factor in that the country became more divided among itself and despised by the world. Only a true knucklehead could accomplish that after the good will of the US people and the world after 9/11.
October 11th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Hoover had the Crash of 1929 on his legacy, not to mention the start of the Great Depression. But because, among other things, he was a pretty good economist, he did a lot after he was President to amend that.
Carter did not cope well with bad economic times and high inflation. But he, too, accomplished something after he left office which will be part of his place in history.
One might wonder what, if anything, Mr. Bush will attempt after leaving office.
October 11th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
I understand he is busy practicing chewing gum and walking….
Bush has been an complete failure as a president.
He inherited a mild recession brought on by 9-11 and the tech bubble burst–they are not three different things. He gets no credit for mild economic success of 2003-2007–it was built on a house of cards, propped up by a housing bubble pushed by idiots ignoring the underlying house of cards and damage they were doing by overspending and cutting taxes like wreckless drunks.
He should have never gone into Iraq, his handling of Iran and S Korea have been a shambles, his foreign relations with our allies have been embarassingly shameful.
He did one thing right and that was go into Afghanistan and he even screwed that up.
You want to know his legacy? Throughout our history, whenever we were attacked by an outside power, Americans have set aside our differences and come together to be more than the sum of our parts.
I never had any expectations of this man…a drunk and a coke head, a poor student and a failed businessman, fate (I am being kind) put him in the presidency and gave him an opportunity to rise above his station and become a great leader.
Instead, he abandoned his pledge of compassionate conserviatism, he threw aside the very notion of fiscal responsibility, he drove a wedge between the people of this nation to consolidate power, and he selfishly enriched himself and the rich people who put his lazy, incompetent butt in office. In so doing, he has deeply harmed the social and financial fabric of this nation, all the while laughing in the face of the rest of the country and he is still laughing at the 95 percent of us who who aren’t among those he calls his base, including most of the conservatives who still think he is worth a spit.
That is his legacy.
He is worse than Millard Fillmore. Worse than Andrew Johnson. Worse than Franklin Pierce. Even worse than James Buchanan.
George W. Bush. Worst. President. Ever.
October 16th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Admitted alcohol and drug abuse also can be said for Obama, so add his inexperience at anything remotely that remotely involve being a President, I guess you’re all saying he is unqualifed as well?