# Will Bush II be Regarded as a Great President? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 29, 2007, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-bush-ii-be-regarded-as-a-great-president/402093 "2007-04-29T22:16:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2007, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-bush-ii-be-regarded-as-a-great-president/402093/101 "2007-05-02T19:25:24Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] It would be fairer to cast the blame on Jeb Bush, Katherine Harris, and Antonin Scalia. [/QUOTE] That’s for 2000. In 2004, it was Kenneth Blackwell that made all the difference. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2007, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-bush-ii-be-regarded-as-a-great-president/402093/102 "2007-05-02T19:53:24Z")
[QUOTE=Wee Bairn] A rewatching of the “My Pet Goat” (Finally! A book he can read!) incident should convince anyone who thinks he’s a great leader. [/QUOTE] Be fair – what sort of book would you expect him to use for a photo op with kindergarteners or first-graders or whatever they were? ---
**Author:** ![SpartanDC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b2d939/32.png) [@SpartanDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpartanDC)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2007, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-bush-ii-be-regarded-as-a-great-president/402093/103 "2007-05-02T20:50:58Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Be fair – what sort of book would you expect him to use for a photo op with kindergarteners or first-graders or whatever they were? [/QUOTE] I don’t think the parenthetical insult is the point of **Wee Bairn’s** post, but rather the fact that Bush sat there staring into space for 7 minutes while the country was under attack instead of politely getting up, saying “Excuse me kids, but I have important presidential business to take care of” and then doing his job. ---
**Author:** ![Vimp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vimp/32/4186_2.png) [@Vimp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vimp)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2007, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-bush-ii-be-regarded-as-a-great-president/402093/104 "2007-05-02T21:31:17Z")
With all due respect to the warmongering that the current administration has engaged in, I think the longest lasting bequest to the American people will be the destruction of the concept of _habeus corpus_. We have now essentially retreated to the bad old days of the Star Chamber. Why do the actions of the so-called “Department of Justice” seem so Kafkaesque? ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2007, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-bush-ii-be-regarded-as-a-great-president/402093/105 "2007-05-02T22:52:01Z")
[QUOTE=chowder] Well first of all it was you who introduced the hypothetical prez into the picture, as I said earlier I responded in kind. Second: I moved no goal posts, I reiterated my earlier postings and feelings on the matter. [/QUOTE] Yes, I did introduce a hypothetical president, and I didn’t put any constraints on him other than that he’d face the same things beyond his control that Bush did, and that he be moderately decent. Those things that he’d face includes 9/11, Katrina, two SCOTUS vacancies, etc. **You** added the constraints of the current ME problems, such as Iraq, etc., Thus, moving the goalposts. > [@](#): > > Third: You state that I would have screwed up the ME situation the same as GWB. Believe me I am not as thick as he is…not by a long shot. No, I didn’t say you’d screw it up as badly as him, only that you’d make at least some of the same mistakes as him. As a supporter of the war, I think that’s a fair assessment, but feel free to point out which things you’d have done the same, and which different, and I’ll happily compare your actions to Bush’s. I’ll note that I’d consider it highly likely that I’d compare you favorably, but I’ll happily take the time if you wish to give me the necessary data. > [@](#): > > Fourth. In posts 86 I asked that you refer to “Maybe and Perhaps” . You didn’t, you evaded this by stating that I’ve moved the goalposts, which I have not. You’re the one who keeps telling me that I don’t know whether other hypothetical presidents would have done the same thing. Hell, I’m eligible for president and I can guarantee you that a preemptive invasion of Iraq would have been completely missing from my to-do list. > [@](#): > > Fifth: As **Tagos** states, the post by \*\* tomndeb\*\* was excellent, I have no reason to argue with anything contained in it. Cool, then is that a retraction of your earlier statements? > [@](#): > > Sixth: I was expressing a relief that the Americans I had met were not **all** possessed of the same dogmatic and irrational dislike of your president as you have. My dislike’s are neither dogmatic, nor irrational. In fact, after 9/11 I gave Bush far more benefit of the doubt than many of my liberal colleagues, and took basically a “wait and see” approach as to his presidential standing. > [@](#): > > Finally: He is your president, you elected him to serve the USA to the best of his ability. The fact that the man is a total plank is the electors fault, the people who placed him in office Neither you nor I voted for him, nor were electors who selected him. The only difference between us is that I never supported his screwups, while you did. You’re the one who keeps wanting to attribute stupidity to my hypothetical moderately decent president. You’ve just shown zero evidence that that would be the case, while I’ve shown pretty good evidence that even his direct competitor wouldn’t have screwed the pooch in Iraq. Basically, your argument that all hypothetical presidents might have invaded Iraq is so stupid that your continuing defense of it seems likely to have a dogmatic or irrational basis. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2007, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-bush-ii-be-regarded-as-a-great-president/402093/106 "2007-05-02T23:16:15Z")
[QUOTE=KatiRoo] With all due respect to the warmongering that the current administration has engaged in, I think the **longest lasting** bequest to the American people will be the destruction of the concept of _habeus corpus_. [/QUOTE] I hope it will not be long lasting beyond January '09, except as an unpleasant memory. I **hope.** ---
**Author:** ![Sunrazor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sunrazor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunrazor)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2007, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-bush-ii-be-regarded-as-a-great-president/402093/107 "2007-05-03T00:51:16Z")
Bush will never be considered a “great” president. And Truman really isn’t, either, except in popular American mythology. Working historians don’t count Harry S. Truman among the great presidents. He didn’t successfully prosecute an unpopular war to a successful conclusion, thus saving the republic (Lincoln); he didn’t serve reluctantly and then turn the reins of power over to an uncertain future, trusting in his fellow Americans to make the right choices (Washington); he didn’t preside over the greatest advancements of civil rights since the founding of the nation (Lyndon Johnson). (Pause while the screams of outrage over Vietnam die down) Nor did he preside over the greatest peacetime economic and technological advances in the republic’s history (Eisenhower and Reagan, both of whom knew how to preside brilliantly without doing a damn thing.) Harry S. Truman is mythologized and lionized because of one adage (“The buck stops here.”) and two hard decisons (bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki.) What his hagiographers fail to mention is that he repeatedly turned his back on Ho Chi Minh’s pleas for U.S. help in throwing off the shackles of French colonialism and that he sacked Gen. Douglas MacArthur for doing the same thing in Korea that George Patton was praised for doing in Europe. Those two monumental blunders cost our nation decades of goodwill in Asia and more than a hundred-thousand American lives. So yeah, Bush and Truman can be compared. Neither is worth a damn as a president. ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2007, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-bush-ii-be-regarded-as-a-great-president/402093/108 "2007-05-03T06:27:02Z")
**DMC** : My last words on the matter. What makes you think that: I would have made the same mistakes as Bush, that I support the war and that I support his screw-ups? In my original post I said that I doubted whether any US prez would come up smelling of roses given the situation in the ME. I still believe this ---
**Author:** ![Wee\_Bairn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90db22/32.png) [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2007, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-bush-ii-be-regarded-as-a-great-president/402093/109 "2007-05-03T13:18:49Z")
[QUOTE=SNenc] I don’t think the parenthetical insult is the point of **Wee Bairn’s** post, but rather the fact that Bush sat there staring into space for 7 minutes while the country was under attack instead of politely getting up, saying “Excuse me kids, but I have important presidential business to take care of” and then doing his job. [/QUOTE] Exactly- thanks. The fact that it was a kids book he could understand and enjoy was just a lucky bonus for him. And the brilliant explanation by his staff- he didn’t want to scare the children! How is “story times over, gotta go” going to scare them? Staring blankly like a psycho as he did is much scarier. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2007, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-bush-ii-be-regarded-as-a-great-president/402093/110 "2007-05-03T17:54:58Z")
> [@](#): > > What his hagiographers fail to mention is that he repeatedly turned his back on Ho Chi Minh’s pleas for U.S. help in throwing off the shackles of French colonialism and that he sacked Gen. Douglas MacArthur for doing the same thing in Korea that George Patton was praised for doing in Europe. Those two monumental blunders cost our nation decades of goodwill in Asia and more than a hundred-thousand American lives. There’s no chance that any President of either party would have supported Ho after WWII - Truman at least didn’t get America directly involved in Vietnam, a precedent which the next four Presidents failed to follow. And while I don’t see the connection you’re trying to make between MacArthur and Patton, I do know that Truman’s decision to fire MacArthur was one of the best decisions of his Presidency. It’s a simple rule: soldiers have to obey orders. Any country where the military starts considering itself as being independant of the government is heading for serious problems. You might also add to your list the founding of NATO, the Marshall Plan, the desegregation of the military, the Truman Doctrine, and the Berlin Airlift. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2007, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-bush-ii-be-regarded-as-a-great-president/402093/111 "2007-05-03T21:24:38Z")
We might also give Truman half-credit for the [Fair Deal.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_deal) He was able to get almost none of it through Congress, but it was an inspiration for LBJ’s Great Society later. ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2007, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-bush-ii-be-regarded-as-a-great-president/402093/112 "2007-05-03T21:32:19Z")
[QUOTE=chowder] **DMC** : My last words on the matter. [/QUOTE] Okay. > [@](#): > > What makes you think that: > > I would have made the same mistakes as Bush, that I support the war and that I support his screw-ups? I don’t think you’d have made all of the same mistakes as Bush. I do think you were a war supporter, but I guess we’ll never know since we’ve had your last words. By the same token, as a war supporter, I have no idea what you’d even consider a screwup by Bush (I consider the war itself a major screwup, for instance), so no way of knowing if you support them. > [@](#): > > In my original post I said that I doubted whether any US prez would come up smelling of roses given the situation in the ME. Yes, in response to my claim that another president who was handed the same issues that Bush was handed (not that he created himself) could have easily come out of the last six years looking very good. > [@](#): > > I still believe this But have provided no evidence to show that other candidates would have invaded Iraq, called Iran part of the “Axis of Evil”, sat on his butt during Katrina, etc. Feel free to continue believing it, though. ---
**Author:** ![BJMoose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5fc32e/32.png) [@BJMoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BJMoose)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2007, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-bush-ii-be-regarded-as-a-great-president/402093/113 "2007-05-04T01:06:36Z")
[QUOTE=Sunrazor] Bush will never be considered a “great” president. And Truman really isn’t, either, except in popular American mythology. Working historians don’t count Harry S. Truman among the great presidents. He didn’t successfully prosecute an unpopular war to a successful conclusion, thus saving the republic (Lincoln); he didn’t serve reluctantly and then turn the reins of power over to an uncertain future, trusting in his fellow Americans to make the right choices (Washington); he didn’t preside over the greatest advancements of civil rights since the founding of the nation (Lyndon Johnson). (Pause while the screams of outrage over Vietnam die down) Nor did he preside over the greatest peacetime economic and technological advances in the republic’s history (Eisenhower and Reagan, both of whom knew how to preside brilliantly without doing a damn thing.) Harry S. Truman is mythologized and lionized because of one adage (“The buck stops here.”) and two hard decisons (bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki.) What his hagiographers fail to mention is that he repeatedly turned his back on Ho Chi Minh’s pleas for U.S. help in throwing off the shackles of French colonialism and that he sacked Gen. Douglas MacArthur for doing the same thing in Korea that George Patton was praised for doing in Europe. Those two monumental blunders cost our nation decades of goodwill in Asia and more than a hundred-thousand American lives. So yeah, Bush and Truman can be compared. Neither is worth a damn as a president. [/QUOTE] Hokey smoke! Have you ever read a decent account of the Truman administration? There’s a post back on page one that lists a number of Truman achievements. I’ll repeat a few that readily come to mind: - The Marshall Plan - Desegregation of the military - The Berlin Airlift You have a point that old Harry has benefited some from mythologization. The image of Honest Harry, then recently deceased, inspired a lot of wistfulness in the latter years of the Nixon administration. Whether he would qualify as a “great” president depends, of course, where one draws the line. His stock _has_ risen with historians over the years and he now ranks fairly high. Truman once wrote a book on presidents, _Where the Buck Stops_. Could he come back and add a postscript, I believe he would rate GWB even lower than he did that string of nineteenth-century losers. Oh. Let me add one thing to the list: - Firing Douglas MacArthur MacArthur was, as Truman put it, an insubordinate son of a bitch. He _had_ to be taken down. ---
**Author:** ![gatorman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/96bed5/32.png) [@gatorman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gatorman)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2007, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-bush-ii-be-regarded-as-a-great-president/402093/114 "2007-05-04T01:16:26Z")
You know I was thinking about this today and I really think G. W. Bush is going to be regarded as the Nero or the Caligula of American history. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2007, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-bush-ii-be-regarded-as-a-great-president/402093/115 "2007-05-04T04:53:16Z")
My understanding is that Nero got a lot of undeserved bad press. ---
**Author:** ![Subterraneanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Subterraneanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Subterraneanus)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2007, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-bush-ii-be-regarded-as-a-great-president/402093/116 "2007-05-05T17:35:14Z")
George W. Bush and Niels Bohr both drank milk Niels Bohr was a great physicist Therefore, George W. Bush was a great physicist QED ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2007, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-bush-ii-be-regarded-as-a-great-president/402093/117 "2007-05-06T05:17:52Z")
[QUOTE=Subterraneanus] George W. Bush and Niels Bohr both drank milk Niels Bohr was a great physicist Therefore, George W. Bush was a great physicist QED [/QUOTE] Actually, I heard that Niels Bohr was lacto-intolerant…I’m not sure about Bush. About Bush being lacto-intolerant. Well, come to think about it, I’m not sure about Bush on general terms either now that I think about it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-bush-ii-be-regarded-as-a-great-president/402093.md?page=5)