If things continue to go down the crapper, Bush may very well be remembered as a figure equally bad to Buchanan. Basically we cannot see how bad Bush is until we see his legacy.

Buchanan certainly had a nastier hand of cards to start with than Bush did. So while its undoubted that he left a worse situation when he left office than Bush is leaving now, the question would be:
In relative terms did Buchanan cause the situation to decline as much as Bush will have done by the end of this year?

And that won’t be a question we can answer for another decade, maybe two or three. But it is certainly a possible outcome.

Bush frankly has made a gamble that even supporters of the WoT are doubtful of, like Robert Spencer from JihadWatch or Objectivist cartoonists Cox and Forkum. If we lose the battle for Iraq, for whatever reason, then Bush would easily qualify as being one of the worst presidents for the damage he has done to American interests. Simple as that. There’s nothing he’s done that can offset that kind of failure, even counting the positive effects of tax cuts on the economy and tax revenue. He certainly hasn’t done much to stop congressional earmarking or to promote small government.

For the most part, in today’s political climate, if someone comments about Bush’s presidency, positively or negatively, that’s partisan politics. If they make an observation about something that’s happening, it’s a fact or an opinion, and objective or subjective depending on their predispositions.

If someone says something about Buchanan’s presidency, that’s history. A historian will try to weigh the evidence at hand, identify key trends and their consequences, and try to identify the decisions that were made in light of the information they had available at the time. Understanding Buchanan’s decisions requires a lot of research into the intellectual trends of his time, something most people aren’t used to.

Basic fairness requires that we look at historical decisions in that light. Did companies use lead in plumbing and paints because it was cheap, effective, and easy to use, and had been used since the Romans, or because they knew it would poison children? In retrospect it’s a poor choice; at the time, the science wasn’t as clear-cut.

Not surprisingly, Bush gets a ton of criticism from people who have made decisions based on what other people might consider a hasty evaluation of the facts, without considering the irony of their knee-jerk condemnation of his knee-jerk acceptance of the pre-Iraq War WMD data.

One of the reasons he doesn’t get a lot of fierce defenders is because it’s hard to take a strong position on current events without that historical perspective. I think in ten years we’ll have a much better idea of his presidency, although the political parties don’t like that approach: Republicans want to focus on his achievements and paint a glowing future, and certainly the Democrats would rather gain political advantage at his expense now.

“”The attacks on President Bush, however, have caused me to reassess whether I would like your fiction.”

Why? Do you think I’ll be attacking George Bush in my fiction, which takes at least a couple hundred years in the future? That’d be a little like writing a contemporary war novel in which soldiers in Iraq got all het up about the John Adams, wouldn’t it? Damn Alien and Sedition Acts!

As I’ve noted numerous places, most extensively here, I write whatever I damn well please here, and I don’t particularly care if it results in a lost sale or two, not in the least because I think selecting one’s recreational reading on whether a writer’s politics are similar to one’s own is both silly and rather substantially limits one’s reading choices. Quite a few of my favorite writers have politics I find inexplicable, idiotic or intellectually slovenly, but as long as they entertain me in the writing that’s meant to entertain me, I couldn’t possibly care less.

IIf my politics keep you from reading my fiction, that’s your decision to make. Personally I think the relevant criteria should be if the politics in my fiction interfere with your enjoyment of the story, and I somehow doubt they will. If you check out the book, let me know if they do.

I first visited your website after Glenn Reynolds reviewed OMW. I have been impressed with your approach to writing, publishing, etc. My son is an aspiring writer and I’ve told him he should look at your site for advice.

The attacks on President Bush, however, have caused me to reassess whether I would like your fiction. These attacks appear to have been ghostwritten by the DNC. I can tell by the comments that most of your posters agree and probably lean far to the left themselves.

I consider myself libertarian, and certainly have differences with Bush on spending and some other issues. But I remember the Heinlein quote, “There is not always someone to vote for, but there is always someone to vote against”. The weaklings Bush ran against would have been far worse than he.

They would have spent as much or more than Bush on everything but defense, while not cutting taxes. This would have made the deficits even worse. If you want to be intellectually honest, how about looking up what has happened to tax revenues since the cuts. Just as under JFK and Reagan, they have increased tremendously. The problem is that Congress loves to steal our money and give it to somebody else in order to buy votes.

As far as the war in Iraq goes, do you seriously think that the reforms we are seeing in Lebanon, Egypt, etc. would be happening if Saddam were still in power. It’s easy to criticize Bush, but thank God (or whomever) that he was president on 9/11 rather than Kerry.

All that having been said, I plan on reading OMW, and will probably like it. I know it’s been compared favorably to Starship Troopers. If it’s half the book that ST was, it will have been worth the read. Good luck with your current and future books.

ps, You must not be old enough to remember Jimmy Carter!

Let’s be very clear about Bush – he’s not the brightest light on the Christmas tree, and he certainly grates. I like some of his prepared speeches (the message) but cringe when he chuckles, or takes Q&A with that annoying tone of voice. That said, compared to Carter he wins hands down – no contest (but see below about Iran). Carter did precisely ONE good thing while President, and that was to appoint Paul Volcker as Fed Chairman so we could beat stagflation – thankyou Paul. That was a true waste of four years of ‘malaise’, but what did we expect from a dark horse candidate chosen at the last minute because the Dems had no one else to offer? Who cares what he’s done since then? More recently we got offered Kerry, oh my. I really want a quality choice in ’08, from both parties.

What has Bush accomplished? I’d say any President who liberates quite a few millions and assists them on the road to a representative government deserves some credit, no matter how hard that road is. Whether we found WMD’s or not kind of pales next to the sheer moral good accomplished. Have Pakistan and India shot nukes at each other yet? For that matter has Pak gone Islamist? Has North Korea taken out Tokyo? Has Al Quaeda destroyed Denver? Has China taken Taipei? Has Saddam slaughtered more thousands? Has France sold him another reactor or the Russians more weapons? One can’t but notice a certain change of TONE in the pronouncements of the feared Arab Street these days. They know times are a ‘changin, they’ve started to notice that maybe there’s an alternative to authoritarianism and Islamist totalitarianism. Maybe there’s an alternative to bombers, beheadings, shredders and secret police visits. Maybe they can find salvation in the ballot box, just maybe. I count that an unmitigated good.

That said, things could still blow up, quite literally. We’ve lost a year in Iraq to a mistaken initial strategy which we should have spent disarming Iran rather than fighting insurgents, but now that task may fall to Israel as we are still busy. And our boys could use some R&R Murtha thinks (Did we need Petain’s advice in WW2? – old soldiers are meant to fade away for a reason!). It could all go quite bad still, as the plausibly deniable nuke Israel plants at an Iranian reprocessing plant goes boom. No way Israel can wait much longer. Hope the mullahs get the message though frankly they are doing the only thing they can to survive – Catch 22 for them, and for us. And if this happens then maybe the detractors will have their wish, and I’ll agree with them, and Bush will be remembered as the one whose strategy was too late to stop a nuclear war (or should I say ‘nucular’?).

So here we are, for better or worse. Unfortunately for us the Dems could only offer us Lurch, who also got C’s in skool, though was better at sounding pompously stupid – a real talent in politics. For all these reasons, I place Bush firmly (for the nonce) in the “satisficing” category of Presidents. Though his legacy is not yet fixed (unlike Clinton’s).

http://www.itsallgeorgebushsfault.com

Regards,
Notta Libb

John, I’d like to remind you that there’s a strong case to be made that Bush v. Gore already shattered the Republic.

Bush took power by a circumvention of the constitutional procedures in place for handling a contested election: the Republic has been shattered since December of 2000.

That alone puts him in contention for All-Time Worst: his unceasing parade of disasters since seizing power leaves Buchanan in the dust.

George Bush: Worst. President. Ever.