A lot of Truman’s unpopularity was due to decisions that later proved to be correct. He integrated the armed forces, he funded the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after WWII, he didn’t send troops into China to fight against Mao, he fired MacArthur for disobeying orders, he committed the United States to NATO, he didn’t invade East Germany during the Berlin Blockade - all of these decisions were controversial at the time they were made and had bitter opponents who forecast disaster would result.
Another factor was that Truman’s administration ended around the time the Red Scare was at its peak. People like McCarthy and Nixon and Eisenhower said that Truman wasn’t doing enough to root out Communist influence in the United States. Ironically, most people now feel that the actions Truman did take went too far in the opposite direction.
What about when documentation surfaces in 2057 that Bush had to blow the levies in New Orleans? The flooding destroyed the Earth side of the gate and stopped flat the pending Mi-Go invasion.
I agree. I have a hard time conceiving of how any of Bush’s decisions are going to turn out to look better in the long run then they do now. His response to the 9/11 attacks was fumbling. Invading Iraq is turning into Vietnam II. His economic policies have been bad all along. His penchant for secrecy and twisting the law will probably take decades to undo. His foreign policy record has probably been the worst of any President’s.
My prediction is that Bush’s reputation hasn’t bottomed out yet. I think a lot of his lingering suport is due to loyalty to a sitting president. Once he’s out of office and the public can start comparing his performance to how a new president deals with similar problems, the comparison is going to start looking real bad for Bush.
Truman got us into a war that Americans pretty much didn’t support, used nuclear weapons, fired an American war hero, tried to nationalize the steel industry without a single piece of law to justify his actions, spent billions on foreign aid, and failed to challenge Stalin before he consolidated Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe. Plus, as I have often said my opinion, Truman was not even as smart as George Bush.
And yet, somehow all of that turned out kind of okay, give or take some disagreements here and there. If Truman’s decisions can be rehabilitated, I just don’t see how one can say that Bush’s cannot. (Although I still don’t think they will.)
Redeemed from what? The only thing that he has severely screwed the pooch on is his failure to secure the border. Compared to Clinton, he’s a bloody saint.
So… you don’t look at the decision to got to war with Iraq, and the insane morass it has created for the US as rising to the level of intensive canine fornication?
Don’t bother, astro. This is Clothahump. He can’t debate. He doesn’t seem to understand what a debate is. He only ever shows up to give us all a chance to laugh at him.
You could make a long list of things boy George did the last 7 years. It has been repulsive. But historians will key on 2 things. A stupid war that has bankrupted the country and destroyed the army is a big one.
But he set up a financial division in the country that is inexcusable. He did everything from day one to make the wealthy into a new elitist class,above the people and beyond the law. The middleclass and the poor have been looted. America has become like an old fashioned European Royalty ,governed for the wealthy at the expense of the poor. That is a philosophical difference as well as a financial difference. He has remade the country into something new and dangerous. The world distrusts. us fears us and rejoices in its failures. We are alone now.
(But anyone thinking Gonzo’s posts are ‘Succinct and on point’ has not only jumped that shark, but gotten down and dirty with that bad boy as well. Just sayin…)