The regime of Bush II will go down in the history books as the 5th worst (4 presidents ranked worst) in U.S. history, and the very worst modern president (nobody worse, including Nixon), so far: This year’s poll of 238 scholars found that President Franklin Roosevelt was once again ranked on top, joined by Presidents Lincoln, Jefferson, Washington, and Teddy Roosevelt to complete the top five. However, President George W. Bush did not fare well since the last poll was conducted in 2002. He dropped 16 places to 39th, making him the worst president since Warren Harding died in office in 1923, and one of the bottom five of all time, according to the experts:(Think Progress, Survey in PDF). This survey that has been conducted since 1982 indicates that the feverish rewrite of history being conducted by bushie propagandists is not working.Today, just one year after leaving office, the former president has found himself in the bottom five at 39th rated especially poorly in handling the economy, communication, ability to compromise, foreign policy accomplishments and intelligence. Rounding out the bottom five are four presidents that have held that dubious distinction each time the survey has been conducted: Andrew Johnson, James Buchanan, Warren G. Harding, and Franklin Pierce.Bush was rated second from the bottom on “intelligence,” “foreign policy accomplishments,” and “handling of U.S. economy.” This despite promises from Bush supporters that “history will be very kind” to the former president, as his Attorney General John Ashcroft put it.
The validity of the poll is bolstered by the very low scores for foreign policy Bush II received, one of which was "bringing democracy to Iraq":
Since Iraq’s parliamentary elections in March, killers in this violent northern city have stalked members of the Iraqiya Party, which won the most seats, part of a nationwide outbreak of violence directed at officials and other civic leaders.(NY Times). The bushies want the media to say "we won the Iraq war", probably because of the oil leases to BP by Iraqis, so one wonders what the joint would look like if we "lost the Iraq war".
Some 150 politicians, civil servants, tribal chiefs, police officers, Sunni clerics and members of Awakening Councils have been assassinated throughout Iraq since the election — bloodshed apparently aimed at heightening turmoil in the power vacuum created by more than three months without a national government.
During the past 72 hours alone, at least eight Iraqi police officers, an Iraqi Army general, a government intelligence official, a member of an Awakening Council, a tribal sheik, and a high ranking staff member of Baghdad’s local government have all been assassinated in either Baghdad or Mosul.
They will try the same propaganda on the Afghanistan war no doubt.
The U.S. lost a lot of respect and reputation in the world due to the Bush II policies, one of which was to send the 4th Fleet to the Americas south of us, another was wild war spending that damaged our economy and its reputation.
That does not seem to be "working out" (intimidating them) so far, seeing as how Venezuela just took over a bunch of U.S. oil wells via nationalization, and the U.N. is talking up getting rid of the dollar as the world reserve currency.
The big mystery question is: Why Is President Obama following the Dubya compass?
I think ol' Shrub and his supporters equate "influential" with "great," in which case Shrub was most definitely one of the most influential presidents of this century or any other. The problem is, his influence was almost universally negative, at least for about 99.9% of the world's population. If, on the other hand, you count yourself among the world's plutocrat oil and/or war profiteers, Shrub was the man! All depends on your perspective I guess.
ReplyDeleteToo bad Obama seems to have been cast from the same mold. Seems that the new political class marches in lockstep on all the major issues now, which means the days of political solutions is probably over for good. Funny, that with the demise of the USSR, it was only twenty years ago the US was celebrating its new found status as the global hegemon and self-proclaimed "greatest power for freedom in the history of the world." Now, only twenty years later we find ourselves going the same way as all the great imperial powers of the past. From a historical perspective, our only lasting legacy is that we may very well be the last imperial empire the human race ever produces. China doesn't have the stones, as they're merely following in our footsteps with the same exploitative and foolish exponential growth economic policies. The disastrous end of all that foolishness is now clearly in sight.
Those who are criminally insane, like Stalin, Hitler, and the like, are indeed "influential".
ReplyDeleteBut so are epidemics. ;)