Majority say history won't be kind to Bush

[rodeodance]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-12-12-bush-poll_x.htm?csp=1


Majority say history won't be kind to Bush
Updated 12/12/2006 3:52 PM ET

Just 19% expect President Bush to be seen by history as being outstanding or above-average, less than any of his five most recent predecessors.
Enlarge By Kevin Dietsch, Getty Images
Just 19% expect President Bush to be seen by history as being outstanding or above-average, less than any of his five most recent predecessors.

By Susan Page, USA TODAY


WASHINGTON — History's judgment of George W. Bush will be harsh, Americans predict.

In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday, a 54% majority says Bush will go down as a below-average or poor president, more than double the negative rating given any of his five most recent predecessors.

Just 19% expect him to be seen as outstanding or above-average, placing him last among the six. Bush, re-elected in 2004, now trails three presidents who were rejected by voters when they sought second or full terms, including his father, George H.W. Bush.

"The public sees this war in Iraq as a failure, and that's at the center of it," says Robert Dallek, a presidential biographer and author of Hail to the Chief: The Making and Unmaking of American Presidents.

IRAQ POLL: USA growing more pessimistic........

[savemefromdumbya]

1. History will forget him

pretend that he didn't exist

[Miss Chybil]

2. As if it could.

How easily has history forgotten Hitler, Stalin or Mussolini?

[fujiyama]

16. Republicans would prefer we flush the last few years

down the memory drain...

But Bush's legacy of RW SC justices, crippling defecits, and thousands of dead soldiers, not to mention a destroyed city, and a war causing ethnic cleansing of thousands, will be remembered for many, many years to come.

[KansDem]

3. Who cares? Bush certainly doesn't...

He'll be sucking up gravy in Paraguay while all those "ivory-tower" liberals are assessing his "legacy."

I bet his presidential library will have coin-op toilet stalls...

[valerief]

9. LOL! And toilet paper in vending machines! nt

[LiberalFighter]

14. We can only hope... if they did the word would get out and

NOBODY would use the library. OR MAYBE they would find some other receptacle to deposit their waste.
I'm sure it will be carpeted and the urine will soak into the fibers fine.

[RedEarth]

4. 19% .... that is a scary group of people ....you don't want to be around them

[IWantAChange]

5. Please. Historians, the serious ones, will say Dubyha is amongst the worst.

There's simply no contest.

[badgervan]

12. Depends on...

... who writes the history, and who is in charge of saying which history books are used in future classes. Can you imagine, say, the Santorum kids becoming authors of "history" text books, and a repub education department that puts their "work" into all American classrooms?

[OrangeCountyDemocrat]

6. 5 Predecessors?

So that means he's going to be ranked lower than Ford & Carter.

I guess you have to go back to Nixon to find someone as poorly rated. He's in good company.

[dipsydoodle]

7. I'm guessing he'll just be remembered

as a four letter word.

[THUNDER HANDS]

8. My grandkids will know how bad he was

They'll be paying off his debt.

[buddysmellgood]

10. Worst president ever. That is his legacy.

[sam sarrha]

11. i hope his cell mate isnt kind to him either.. murderer of our soldiers

[superconnected]

13. If they give everyone a national day off when he dies

and laud him like they did raygun.... :puke:

I could just see a whole bunch of repukes doing that, because you know, america is so much better off now than say, when Clinton was president(if you're brain dead that is.)

[LynnTheDem]

15. Causing the deaths of 900,000 people (and no end in sight)

and ya get into the history books. As one MFer of a fuck-up.

George w. bUsh; his life story.

[jordi_fanclub]

17. There are a "little" difference between Bush and Nixon...

Nixon was an HONEST man by comparison!

Ok, now serious...
The BIG difference is about the worldwide perception.
With Nixon the rest of the world saw the crisis as an US problem.
Now with Bush he will be know as THE global mess-maker/trouble-maker/idiot-in-chief!

[JoFerret]

18. Nixon was a savior and a saint

compared with this crook.

[Joe Bacon]

19. President Peter Pan will be the first one to get a "Z" grade

While Nixon, Buchanan, Grant and Harding all get "F" on comparison.

Old Fart Bush is gonna do a lot more of the crying shtick, because it must suck to know your son is the most incompetent asshole in history.

[HughBeaumont]

20. It's gonna be WAY damned hard to bullshit the Chimp to greatness like they did with St. Reagan.

The reason being is the internet. Back then, it was far easier to hide the misdeeds of Presidents, as there were no real underground media outlets as there are now. We have tons upon tons of people uncovering dirt on the Bushes and Reagans nowadays, which is the main reason why Ronnie is no longer viewed as this untouchable diplomat that "brought down the USSR" (what a crock that was), but a overrated puppet for corporations and Poppy's group of spooks while taking an 8-year nap into Alzheimers. Why do you think Bewsh overturned the 1978 Presidential act as one of the first priorities of his first steal? 41's evil shit would have been unearthed that year.

Although Bewsh doesn't really care since he's the protected-by-pops bubble boy, he isn't going to have the same luxury of being historically coddled like Reagan was. The serious historians know enough that Bewsh is merely a means to an end. He's the "aw shucks, guys" frontman to a dangerous (but thankfully whittled down) corporate defense junta hellbent on American hegemony. Their failure to institute this plan thanks to American and world resistance while the American infrastructure and industrial/middle class economy crumbled thanks to two failed oil wars and crony tax cuts is the real legacy of the Bush administration.

[depakid]

21. Reagan will be the president history really decries

he and his administration basically put an end to the American enlightenment.

Tearing the solar panels off of the Whitehouse roof will come to be seen as a watershed moment.

[AngryAmish]

22. The present isn't being too good either...

[MurrayDelph]

23. I disagree, I think history WILL be kind to Bush

they can call him an incompetent dry drunk, frat boy, who never matured past sandlot bully,
who surrounded himself with criminals who drained the country's treasures for their own purposes,
who ended Habeas Corpus, encouraged torture, broke the Bill of Rights,

they can call him the Worst President Ever

and IT WILL STILL BE TOO KIND!!!!

[VegasWolf]

24. A drunken frat boy that thinks God is talking to him. What could possibly

go wrong?

[mcscajun]

25. He'll be rated The Worst Ever. No one else comes close.

The other candidates' terms in office:
Fillmore - one term
Buchanan - one term
Andrew Johnson - one term
Harding - two years in office (died during the scandals that would have destroyed his Presidency in any case)
Coolidge - six years (succeeded Harding)
Hoover - one term

Harding's the only one who comes close, IMO, and many historians already put Bush way out in front of Harding for the dubious distinction. http://www.alternet.org/story/11181

Other historians put James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson lower than Harding, but I doubt either of those gentlemen will ever rank anywhere but higher than Bush II.