On the Road to History...
"History takes a long time for us to reach," said George Bush nearly a year ago on a Fox News program. He was referring to the fact that in his mind, there is no way to predict how history will judge his place among presidents.
However, historians have already begun the journey to place this president within the context of history. And today's judgement of Bush's place in history is not good.
According an "unscientific poll of professional historians," more than 98 percent of historians polled view the Bush presidency as a failure. And more than 61 percent view Bush as the worst president in the nation's history.
Bush likes to point to Truman as why he hopes for a more positive place in history. Truman is, after all, the president who is now known to be not nearly as bad as we thought when he left office.
And Bush is right; we have no idea how history will regard the president who turned a budget surplus into an astronomical deficit, who presided over the biggest economic meltdown since the Great Depression, who advocated torture, who remained on vacation after Katrina hit, who launched a pre-emptive war when he sent troops to Iraq during of the War on Terror.
But it's clear that today's historians view him as a failure.
However, historians have already begun the journey to place this president within the context of history. And today's judgement of Bush's place in history is not good.
According an "unscientific poll of professional historians," more than 98 percent of historians polled view the Bush presidency as a failure. And more than 61 percent view Bush as the worst president in the nation's history.
Bush likes to point to Truman as why he hopes for a more positive place in history. Truman is, after all, the president who is now known to be not nearly as bad as we thought when he left office.
And Bush is right; we have no idea how history will regard the president who turned a budget surplus into an astronomical deficit, who presided over the biggest economic meltdown since the Great Depression, who advocated torture, who remained on vacation after Katrina hit, who launched a pre-emptive war when he sent troops to Iraq during of the War on Terror.
But it's clear that today's historians view him as a failure.
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