Miserable Failure

I couldn't help but comment on this story. In an informal poll of 109 of the nation's professional historians - Pulitzer Prize and Bancroft Prize winners among them - 98.6% rated George W. Bush's presidency as a failure, with 1.4% rating it a success.

The poll itself was self-selective, meaning people were free to respond or not respond. There were only two questions:

"1. On balance, do you consider the presidency of George W. Bush to have been a success or failure?
Success ___
Failure ___

2. Forty-two people have been president of the United States. At this point, where would you rate the presidency of George W. Bush in comparison to those of the other men who have held the office?
Best Ever ___
2-10 ___
11-20 ___
21-30 ___
31-41 ___
Worst Ever ___"

Beyond the overwhelming belief that this presidency has been a total and complete failure, 61% of respondents felt that George W. Bush is the single worst president this country has ever had (or suffered through), 35% rated him in the bottom 10 - with at least two respondents putting him at the second worst ever, while 4% rated him somewhere between the top 2 through 30 presidents.

The historians' comments that accompanied their responses sum up what the 64% of Americans who feel Bush is doing a lousy job as president, and the 81% of Americans who feel the country is off on the wrong track. Allow me to highlight a few here:

“No individual president can compare to the second Bush,” wrote one. “Glib, contemptuous, ignorant, incurious, a dupe of anyone who humors his deluded belief in his heroic self, he has bankrupted the country with his disastrous war and his tax breaks for the rich, trampled on the Bill of Rights, appointed foxes in every henhouse, compounded the terrorist threat, turned a blind eye to torture and corruption and a looming ecological disaster, and squandered the rest of the world’s goodwill. In short, no other president’s faults have had so deleterious an effect on not only the country but the world at large.”

“With his unprovoked and disastrous war of aggression in Iraq and his monstrous deficits, Bush has set this country on a course that will take decades to correct,” said another historian. “When future historians look back to identify the moment at which the United States began to lose its position of world leadership, they will point—rightly—to the Bush presidency. Thanks to his policies, it is now easy to see America losing out to its competitors in any number of area: China is rapidly becoming the manufacturing powerhouse of the next century, India the high tech and services leader, and Europe the region with the best quality of life.”

“Bush does only two things well,” said one of the most distinguished historians. “He knows how to make the very rich very much richer, and he has an amazing talent for f**king up everything else he even approaches. His administration has been the most reckless, dangerous, irresponsible, mendacious, arrogant, self-righteous, incompetent, and deeply corrupt one in all of American history.”

But the best part of the article was this comment by "Brandy Lewis":

"All you liberals think the same. With all your books, you don't recognize a great leader when you see one. Iraq War is making the country safer because Ben Ladin and the other are there like hornets. And they would be here if not for the war. Sure some people die, but it's war, dummy. Saddam Insane attacked us on 911 and now you guys want to coddle him and read him his rights. I am not rich, but I know that God made Bush president for a reason, and that is to make the country better for us. You guys are just mad that you didn't get elected and didn't win. I still have my W sticker on my bumper."

Priceless.