Posted on 04/20/2013 7:22:00 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
George W. Bush is victim of a rush to judgment
By Stephen F. Knott, Published: April 19
Stephen F. Knott is a professor at the U.S. Naval War College and the author of “Rush to Judgment: George W. Bush, the War on Terror, and His Critics.”
The George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum will be dedicated Thursday at Southern Methodist University, an event that will draw all of the nation’s living presidents to Dallas. Despite the coming fanfare, many Americans consider Bush’s presidency a failure. There is little evidence that scholars, including the influential historians who pronounce the success or failure of an administration, are having second thoughts about their assessment of Bush as a failed chief executive. Unfortunately, far too many scholars revealed partisan bias and abandoned any pretense of objectivity in their rush to condemn the Bush presidency.
Many academics branded Bush a failure long before his presidency ended — and not just fringe elements of the academy, such as Ward Churchill or Howard Zinn, but also scholars from the nation’s most prestigious universities. In April 2006, Princeton history professor Sean Wilentz published an essay in Rolling Stone titled “The Worst President in History?” Wilentz argued that “George W. Bush’s presidency appears headed for colossal historical disgrace” in part because he had “demonized the Democrats,” hurting the nation’s ability to wage war. No other U.S. president “failed to embrace the opposing political party” in wartime, Wilentz claimed, despite numerous examples to the contrary, such as when Franklin D. Roosevelt compared his Republican opponents to fascists in 1944.
Not to be outdone, in December of that year Columbia history professor Eric Foner proclaimed Bush “the worst president in U.S. history”....
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Rushing to judgement is probably better than having no judgement at all.
Yeah, and that overpaid crook-mouth dyke Rachel MadCow had the Timothy McVeigh name sprawled all over her screen last night, just in case we forgot. She couldn’t have had these two muslim pigs’ names on the screen . . . no no . . . we must remind everybody about McVeigh. Shameless to no end.
LOL, Obama is looking really, really bad right now so they bring out their favorite whipping post, Bush. Obama is a complete failure and NOTHING is going to change that fact.
He left the presidency with the country in much worse shape then when he started. The buck stops there. W was a failure.
Criticism from the communist Eric Foner is a form of praise to any decent person.
Despite that we've been forced to listen endlessly to the drool-flecked mantra that "he's always the smartest guy in the room" as paid lip-service by his giddily self-prostrating rump-swabbing apologists and butt-sucking enablers, O'Bungwad is in truth so repugnantly ignorant there arises serious doubt that he could, absent instruction from his Teleprompter, figure out how to stack the crates to reach the bananas hanging from the ceiling.
The only real judgement possessed by O'Blowhard will in time be proven by historical perpective, and that will fing him lacking in every facet of cognizance except perhaps for arrogance, narcicism, and delusional self-congratulating. And, of course, the final "judgement" that it is he, and not his predecessor, who provably lays claim to the title of "Worst President In U.S. History."
But then I digress... did anyone see where I left my monacle? As you were.
8^O
The fault id "W" was that he simply refused to engage the democRATS. When they took control of congress in 2007, their goal was to crash the economy and thereby damage Bush and the republicans. They succeeded.
I don't think there was any "rush"....
The loony-lefty-libs and their MSM apparatchiks had been laying this political ambush for quite a while...
Waiting for the opportune moment in the tempo of fast-moving developments & WOT strategies /troop deployments...
When the lefty's & their propaganda machine perceived any sense of strategic flaws /tactical errors....
They pounced and devoured the Presidency of Bush43....
JMO... enjoy your day
Scholarship is not the path to tenure and the easy life in modern universities. Preaching the dogma of the hard left is a guaranteed ticket to a tenured position.
He was middle of the pack. He did a lot of good and a lot of bad. Great on keeping us safe. Bad on No Child left behind, drug program, and Homeland Security.
Naw....he put all his chips on the war terror. He left the budget up to hacks like Denny Hastert and Tom Delay. They porked up those bills something fierce. Energy bill, Farm bill,...highway bill. It was a free for all and a disgrace.
The Bush clan destroyed the Reagan Legacy. Only a total idiot or a liar could POSSIBLY call Islam a “peaceful” religion
W. Bush was definitely a mixed bag.
On the good side, the creation and the management of most of the *foreign* War on Terror was conducted admirably, with the exception of Afghanistan, which should have been given the reconstructive attention that was given Iraq, and more, since it had no modern systems of organization and government. Trying to “salvage” their archaic and defective ones was a terrible idea. It needed to be treated like Japan after WWII.
However, W. Bush also conducted a horrible *domestic* War on Terror, with the American people treated as “the enemy”, depriving us of our civil rights, and building a huge domestic intelligence-police complex state that will take decades to deconstruct even with a popular imperative.
And, though he had an impressive Republican majority in congress, he allowed the Republicans to go hog wild in embarrassing and abusive ways, spending vast amounts of money on stupid and wasteful things, and personally conducting themselves like inebriated fraternity boys. An absence of party discipline wasting what could have been a golden opportunity to restore our economy and national power.
He set the stage for Obama’s abuses.
Worst of all were W. Bush’s “internationalist” tendencies, his bizarre and unwholesome fantasies such as turning North and perhaps central and some of South America into the equivalent of the European Union, as a political-cultural-social and economic bloc. In all fairness, the architect of much of this disgusting scheme was Vincente Fox, former Coca-Cola executive and president of Mexico, who also shared in the ambition.
This seems to be a Bush family eccentricity, and why none of their family should ever be allowed political power again. They honestly do not seem to comprehend that a feudal form of elite government ruling over the masses, is not an American value, and would certainly not be an improvement.
Likewise, his RINO enablers in the Republican party probably understood and appreciated this approach. Pestiferous and undermining of American and conservative values since they were called “Country Club Republicans” in the Eisenhower Administration, they truly want most of the same ends as the Democrats, the only difference being that they personally detest the Democrats as people below the RINO social class.
I was proud and happy to have have George W as our President. He respected all points of view, and if anything, got into trouble when he veered leftward. Were it not for the economic crash brought on by democrat housing policies and fed policies, he was on the way to leaving the country far better than he found it? As for the war, did we want to leave ourselves susceptible to more terrorism? How did democrats vote on those war measures? History will be kinder to George W than the partisan political hacks referenced in the article.
when I see her, I always think “how can jon stewart be on two different stations”?
But the WaPo's idiotic method of dropping-down the list and putting the newest at the top makes it impossible to follow.
Credit the Pelosi/Reid Congress......and the constant beat of the MSMs anti Bush drum.
Hmmmm...
As one who has considered Bush a failure since it became clear that he had no intention of securing the Mexican Border and enforcing US laws, in violation of his clear responsibility and oath of office to do so, perhaps I should re-evaluate this.
Any time I find myself in agreement with US "academics", especially "scholars from the nation's most prestigious universities", I re-evaluate my position, knowing that it must be a long way from the truth. Any truth seeker does. Any opinion that coincides with these people's is suspect if not prima facie false.
Good on tax cuts, too. Pretty good on pro-life and weak on marriage issue. Horrible on bailouts.
I go back and forth on this issue. I guess I just don’t like the sound of Bush. Rhymes with squish.
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