[QUOTE=athelas]
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.
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I don’t think so. Even those who think the Iraq War is a good idea now admit that it was incompetently managed. 20 years isn’t going to make the stagnation in middle class incomes we’ve been seeing look any better.
[QUOTE=What Exit?]
I am thinking possibly in World Court for War Crimes.
[/QUOTE]
Maybe that should happen, but it won’t. Ever.
[QUOTE=Slithy Tove]
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.
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A depressing thought.
Purely and strictly out of idle curiosity, do ex-presidents get Secret Service protection?
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
A depressing thought.
Purely and strictly out of idle curiosity, do ex-presidents get Secret Service protection?
[/QUOTE]
As I recall, historically they have, but there was talk of dropping it. That may have changed, given that Bush is likely to be at high risk for assassination from his victims and their relatives for the rest of his life.
Yes, they do.
[QUOTE=Voyager]
Hey, we got to be fair. He’s in a fight with Grant and Harding for the crown, after all.
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Heck, cut Grant some slack. James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson can represent the battle for incompetence, Harding for corruption. THEN comes Grant.
It will, as now, depend on who you talk to. If the middle east goes completely to shit it will be said by some that its because we didn’t let bush do everything he wanted. If the next president managed to bring peace there we be those who will insist that it was because of bushes actions while he was in office.
I don’t see people getting smarter any time soon.
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
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.
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There are a lot of things that Der Trihs says that I don’t agree with , but this isn’t one of them.
[QUOTE=Priceguy]
Maybe that should happen, but it won’t. Ever.
[/QUOTE]
Well, I tend to agree, but that was just suppose to be a little humorous snark playing off the word “judge” in the title of the Op when it was still in IMHO.
Nixon had the opening of China as well as his negotiations with the Soviets to fall back on after the Watergate mess. It took some time, but Nixon wasn’t held in the same kind of contempt in the 1980s and 1990s.
Bush will always be linked with Iraq. It is remarkable in an 8 year presidency, there really has been nothing else to remember the administration by. Outside of “War on Terror” issues, the administration has none nothing.
In fact, the only other issues I can even associate with him are: No Child Left Behind, the prescription drug bill, and the restriction on stem cell research. I guess we can still joke about color coded terror alerts and duct tape warnings.
Alito and Roberts weren’t who I would have picked for the Supreme Court, but I don’t associate them with this Bush like I associate Clarence Thomas with the first Bush or Scalia with Reagan
Lyndon Johnson minus civil rights.
As has been pointed out, Nixon was eventually sort of forgiven. The Johnson administration got the USA embroiled in Vietnam, a war vastly more horrible than Iraq, and he’s still regarded with a lot of respect for some reason.
Historically the “legacy” of Presidential administrations is judged by four factors, which, from what I can tell, fall more or less in order as such:
1. Achievement of an enormous accomplishment that is perceived to have saved the country.
Basically, this means George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and FDR, whose accomplishments transcend the next three categories.
**2. Whether or not the President was re-elected. **
Single-term Presidents are almost always regarded as failures by definition. Carter and Bush 1.0 are not regarded as great Presidents despite the fact that neither screwed anything up as badly as Bush 2.0 has, and even though both men have been respected for their work since leaving office. Losing their re-election bids, however, defined their administrations as failures in people’s memory; the l;ast thing they ever did as President was lose, and nobody likes a loser.
3. The performance of the economy during the administration.
Herbert Hoover was one of the greatest Americans of the early 20th century, a man of dignity, compassion and intelligence, who did more to help people than any other three Presidents I can think of. Look up his record on famine relief in Europe. But what do you remember him for?
There is a very strong correlation between economic performance and how people regard the President, even if the President didn’t really have much to do with it. Hoover is blamed for the Depression, though it really was not his fault. Clinton is credited with huge economic gains that really weren’t his doing. Carter is blamed for a recession that started under Nixon, while Reagan is credited for a natural recovery from that recession.
4. Scandal and corruption.
A lot of things DON’T seem to have much impact on historical regard of PResidents, but there is no doubt that big time scandals do seem to cause black marks in history books. Ulysses S. Grant was a war hero (in two wars), a re-elected President and instrumental in a number of critical recovery steps after the Civil War, a man of tremendous courage, but his administration was as corrupt as a game of Monopoly at the Gotti household, and it’s almost all anyone remembers about his Presidency. Nixon, as has been pointed out, actually had some accomplishments, including the biggest foreign relations coup in American history, but the word that defines him is “Watergate.”
So how does Bush stack up? Item 1 doesn’t apply, obviously, so let’s examine the others:
Conversely, there are some things that, from my observation, do not seem to have any effect on a President’s reputation:
1. Killing foreigners. Killing non-Americans has virtually no impact on a President’s memory. Johnson and Nixon don’t take as much flack as you might expect for killing at least two million Southeast Asians. Andrew Jackson, as Liberal/tarian likes to point out, murdered lots of American Indians (okay, they’re Americans, but weren’t considered such then) and he’s on the money. Nobody cares that McKinley killed lots and lots of Filipinos.
2. Starting wars. Even if started on ridiculous pretenses, such as the Tonkin or Maine incidents, Presidents are NOT negatively viewed for starting wars. Kennedy and Johnson both generally get a pass for Vietnam, though many hated Johnson at the time; Johnson is now viewed more or less positively, and Kennedy has been raised to the status of demigod despite not really doing anything of note. McKinley isn’t reviled for his imperialist crusade against Spain. Reagan is widely admired despite his interference in Central America. James K. Polk isn’t reviled for the Mexican-American War.
3. Personal Indiscretions. People whined and bitched about Bill Clinton chasing skirts but he still got elected twice despite being a known philanderer and if it was still allowed and he wanted to, he’d be re-elected this year. FDR banged his secretary; Jefferson had jungle fever. Generally speaking such things get swept under the rug and people eventually stop caring, if they ever did.
It’s really quite impossible to say how history will regard the Bush administration, but I’m going to go out on a limb, based on the pattern of history to date, and make a prediction:
George W. Bush’s administration will be regarded more or less neutrally, much like the administrations of Eisenhower or Wilson. The Iraq War will not be heavily counted against him because wars are never heavily counted against the memory of a Presidential administration.
BTW, I’m always surprised at the number of posters who worry about US’s image around the world. I can’t think of a single country that, before Bush 2, was REALLY wanting to take any flak defending the US. France? Germany? Italy? Russia?(save UK)
Image means shit. All those countries with their holier-than-thou phrases towards the US are the same that jump to do business with Iran, Iraq and China.
…but it’s you country, so worry away if you want.
I think one of the worst legacies of the Bush administration will be his contempt for the rule of law. Bush has repeatedly shown he feels that one of his powers as President is that he can “interpret” any law in any manner that suits his purpose. He acts as if as long as Congress and the courts are unwilling to actually have him arrested or impeached, he can get away with ignoring them.
This is wrong wrong wrong. First off, we’re a republic - nobody, including the president, is above the law. Second, the different branches of the government were designed to work together not against each other - we lose if the President “beats” Congress and we lose if Congress “beats” the President.
There’ll be decades of problems from this issue. Future presidents will claim powers based on the precedents Bush has set. And future congresses will pass laws to deny power to the president - in some cases, powers the president actually needs to perform his or her duties. Both sides will waste time and energy trying to control the other until the proper relationship - a balance of powers - is restored.
[QUOTE=RickJay]
As has been pointed out, Nixon was eventually sort of forgiven. The Johnson administration got the USA embroiled in Vietnam,…
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Well, I loved that post Rick.
What if, in 50 or a 100 years, most of the middle east had in fact adopted democracy? And what if the roots could be traced back to the start of the 21st century? And what if, given all the death and pain and suffering, future historians agreed that the impetuous for change in Mesopotamia was due to the terrible war that GWB had instigated way back in 2002?
This, could in fact be the reality.
(Begin the flaming.)
[QUOTE=RickJay]
Historically the “legacy” of Presidential administrations is judged by four factors, which, from what I can tell, fall more or less in order as such:
[/QUOTE]
All those factors are about how average Americans feel; I was thinking more about how historians, or the world in general will feel. Given how near-sociopathic most Americans are, I expect that he’ll be regarded by them better than I said, because most Americans won’t ( and don’t ) care about little things like mass murder and torture.
The interpretation of history can change from time to time. If you asked how Custer’s life would have been judged by history in 1876 you’ll have gotten a far different answer than you would have in 2008.
Marc
[QUOTE=Leaffan]
This, could in fact be the reality.
(Begin the flaming.)
[/QUOTE]
I have no flame, but that seems like a lot of great big what ifs to me.
[QUOTE=glee]
Her major economic policies, such as privatisation (which sold off valuable state assets for peanuts) are discredited.
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Entirely wrong. Companies like British Telecom, British Airways, and British Gas are doing much better these days, and giving much better service. Do you remember having to wait for your telephone?
Do you remember exchange controls? Abolished by her.
It’s not Maggie’s fault that the Russians didn’t learn from her. And how are those companies doing these days, anyway. Very well, aren’t they?
And let’s not forget the more modern example of DERA / Qinetiq: you think the British Government, at leas, might have learned.
Not true: the oil was discovered in the 1960s and came online in 1971.
Very true. A totally correct tax, but one that was politically unsaleable. You’d have been better to mention the ERM.
You’re being disingenuous. The Falklands War was fought over a brief few months to recover territory forcibly taken by a foreign power. As a result, the Falklands are now free, the Argentine Junta fell, and Argentina became a democracy. There was also a major psychological impact in the West which speeded the fall of the Soviet Union.
Because all the major parties are busy implementing them. Free market, free trade…
Then in a hundred years, we’ll be wrong. But we have to deal with the evidence as it exists now in 2008 and looking at that evidence, it’s Bush who’s wrong.