How will history judge this administration?

Great Debates
1

This thread could go anywhere. I started here at IMHO but it could be GD and will probably devolve to the Pit, but here goes.

America currently has an administration that has, to be perfectly honest, a less than stellar reputation both here and abroad. After the initial sympathy from 9/11 faded away, we have seen the following:
• False evidence to justify war in Iraq
• Civil rights abuses
• Allegations of torture
• Abuse of power (e.g. Attorney General Gonzales)
• Etc. You all know the tune.

Not to mention a Commander in Chief with all the polish and dignity of Barney Fife.

Twenty years from now, will people be calling this the most incompetent, corrupt administration in American history? Or is there another that was worse, with more scandals and failures than this one? I certainly know that it will never be called Camelot, but will it be called the Septic Tank?

2

Dubya will be remembered as a terrible President because of this major offenses: starting a war on false premises, losing that war, spending several trillion dollars that he didn’t have, promoting widespread torture, and launching the biggest attack on civil rights in more than fifty years. On the other hand, history tends to forget minor crimes such as the U. S. Attorney’s scandal, the betrayal of Valerie Plame, and even the destruction of New Orleans.

Many people make judgements of current events that are colored by their emotions. Historians are usually far removed from the emotions of the moment, and can analyze the events from a fully logical perspective. For instance, some folks may honestly believe that Bush attacked Iraq with the good intention of bringing in democracy and human rights, because they have an emotional attachment to Bush and don’t wan’t to believe that he did it for the wrong reasons. To the unemotional eye of history, it will be obvious that he launched the attack for economic reasons. Similarly, 110 years ago many held similar illusions about the Spanish-American war. From a historical perspective, it’s clear that the american government’s motives were not pure at all.

3

Isn’t this really pit material?

In any case, W’s administration is definitely going to be judged among the worst half dozen ever.

4

I am thinking possibly in World Court for War Crimes.

I think in the end, this will be looked at as a lower point in history than Nixon or Warren G. Harding & the Teapot Dome.

5

I don’t think it is fair to blame Bush for New Orleans. He may suck and is generally a major disaster but he didn’t cause the damage.

The delays in requesting assistance were caused by the bureaucratic pissing match between the mayor and the governor. The FEMA screwups were out of his control but his “Heck of a job, Brownie,” bit was pathetic and subsequent issues in NOLA can point back at him. Ultimately, though, Truman had it right. “The buck stops here.”

The legacy he will leave will not be a glorious one. I don’t envy whoever comes next (hell, the next 3 or 4 Presidents) for the PR work they’re going to have to do in order to rebuild our international reputation.

6

Events dear boy, events. Is GWB and co correct in their interpretation of which way the world is moving, or do they have it bass ackward? If they’re right (e.g. middle east completely fragments, widespread terrorism in the west), then they’ll probably be seen as a visionary collective who had the courage of their convictions in the face of a vociferous head-in-the-sand appeasment brigade. In hindsight, people will bemoan the restraint and pussy-footing about that went on in Guantanomo bay given what was about to come down the pipe. The fact that the president is a tit will not even merit a footnote in the history books.

OTOH, if the world enters a period of stability and optimism over the next 50 years, perhaps one where governments recede into the background at the expense of other organisations, then they will be regarded as an aberrant stain on US history.

To give a parallel: Margaret Thatcher was an extremely divisive leader in the UK - the 80s were a battleground of ideas and she was hated with a vitriolic fury by the left. The history books are already recording her as an extremely successful and powerful leader - not because she was a good enough politician to get things done, but because she was right. The evolution of politics in the western world has proven her right and her opponents wrong, such that the contemporary labour party in the UK is largely a thatcherite administration. The fact that she was a crass, narrow minded harpy is neither here nor there. The ideology of the left from that time has long since abandoned as having no attraction or meaning to how people want to live their lives in the UK.

7

We remember Harding with disparagement, but then he dropped dead in office.

Nixon, on the other hand, kept showin’ up for breakfast for another 20 years, grinding away at those axes until he was almost as good as a respected elder statesman.

Bush will be 63 when he leaves office, and if his dad is a genetic indicator, he’ll have at least twenty years to polish his image.

However, Bush isn’t as wily as Nixon, so there’s a good chance he’ll further diminish his chances for respect every time he opens his mouth.

8

Corrupt? That usually involves stealing money, and aside from giving jobs to Haliburton, this administration is reasonably honest. Incompetent yes, power mad definitely. Making a total mess of whatever they touched - the military, diplomacy, the economy, sure. I think stalling for 8 years on doing anything about AGW is going to be seen as their biggest crime, among many, though.

9

I know it’s politically incorrect to say it, but it’s what we’re all thinking, isn’t it? George Bush proves that white people don’t have the intellectual capacity to govern.

10

>Corrupt? That usually involves stealing money, and aside from giving jobs to Haliburton, this administration is reasonably honest…

Well, don’t forget that the Plame affair resulted in a felony conviction. There was one proven criminal in the administration and the strong appearance of more.

I think they will be judged harshly, more so than Nixon, who did have some very good accomplishments, such as his opening with China.

11

Those screwups were not “out of his control”; they were part and parcel of his love for appointing incompetents to positions of authority. And driving competent people out of government in general.

As for how future historians will judge him, I think he will be regarded as one of the major causes of America’s collapse as a world power. And as someone who did a great deal of damage to the world in general. And as someone who was an utter failure who destroyed everything he touched. AND as a murderous, sadistic egomaniac.

12

Wow! That is some ringing praise! :smiley: I changed my mind. I like Dubya now.

13

It would seem that historians are leaning hard toward pronouncing Ronald Reagan a good president. In such a strange world, who can say where W will end up?

I’d almost agree with The Cocky Watchman, except that if the middle east disintegrates, I’d think Bush would be seen more as a cause of that disintegration, rather than as a visionary.

Anyway, from a US perspective…

Right now he is regarded unfavorably: carrying on the Bush legacy is not a big rallying cry for most Republicans. History seems to take a jaundiced view of presidents who were not popular at the ends of their terms. How jaundiced that view remains is unpredictable, however. It looks like Jimmy Carter is forever going to be the ineffectual bumbler, and Nixon, for all his attempts to polish his image, will remain a crook. On the other hand, the Johnson presidency, when it’s talked about at all, seems to devolve into something like, “Yeah, he caused one of the biggest debacles in US history, but he was all conflicted about it. Poor tragically-flawed Lyndon.” Or something like that. The fact that he was a scheming, arm-twisting egomaniac steering by the same moral compass as Nixon seems to have been largely forgotten.

One thing about Bush is that, as far as I can tell, he’s done absolutely nothing right. Johnson had civil rights in the plus column, Nixon had China, Carter had the Egypt/Israel accord. Bush, it would appear, has absolutely nothing.

Also, he hasn’t done anything that can be pointed to as really awful for the US. That could change, of course, depending on how the mid-east and Afghanistan play out. And so far, Iraq has not been in the same league as Vietnam in terms of political disaster. A few thousand lives lost is no big deal to history, especially if there’s no wholesale rioting.

The upshot of all this rambling is that, as things stand now, he’s likely to end up as a bland president who’s not really worth spending a lot of time on. It’ll take quite a few years, though, before the emotional upheaval he’s caused is forgotten.

From the perspective of non-American historians, the Brits may go light on him, because he suckered Blair (he really bullied him, but Blair was apparently ripe for bullying). Unless, of course, Blair’s legacy is of being the guy who was suckered by Bush, which at the moment seems to be the case. Most other countries will, I think, regard him as the waste of flesh he really is.

14

Moving thread from IMHO to Great Debates.

15

In order to predict how Bush will be viewed, it’s first necessary to predict what’s going to happen for at least the next 20 years.

16

For three decades, I never thought I’d live to see a worse President than Richard M. Nixon. And then along came Dubya.

17

I’ll buy criminal too. And I agree, Bush is much, much worse than Nixon. Besides China, Nixon started EPA, and did some other good stuff. I lived through the Nixon terms, and he was Abe Lincoln compared to Bush.

18

You can certainly argue that Blair moved the Labour party to the centre (although he’s going to be remembered for Iraq more than anything), but you must be kidding about Thatcher!

Her major economic policies, such as privatisation (which sold off valuable state assets for peanuts) are discredited. Where do you think Roman Abramovich got his billions from? - following her example Russia blindly sold off its huge oil and gas State companies and enriched a handful of businessmen.
Her Governent was only saved financially by the lucky discovery of North Sea oil.
Her crazy policies included the Community Charge, which typically she imposed despite all advice to the contrary, inlcuding from her own Cabinet.
The Falklands War, a terrible waste of lives, was hyped up as ‘support our troops’ - an eerie foreshadowing of Iraq.
Following her own party throwing her out, her successors proved incompetent and corrupt. John Major and Norman Lamont (two of Thatcher’s top lieutenants) lost the country £3.4 billion in a spectacular display of financial stupidity.

So Thatcher’s legacy was that her own party became unelectable for well over a decade and that nobody dares suggest we bring back her economic policies.

19

President Bush Chimed in of this recently:

20

Hey, we got to be fair. He’s in a fight with Grant and Harding for the crown, after all.