HNN Poll: 61% of Historians Rate the Bush Presidency the Worst Ever.
Bush has always stated that he does not worry how history will judge him as this judgment will occur after he is dead.“As far as history goes and all of these quotes about people trying to guess what the history of the Bush administration is going to be, you know, I take great comfort in knowing that they don’t know what they are talking about, because history takes a long time for us to reach.”— George W. Bush, Fox News Sunday, Feb10, 2008
However, an informal poll taken amongst 109 professional historians has come up with results which don't bode well for Bush if they are any indication of how history will eventually judge him.
On the basic question of whether his presidency is a success or a failure, a whopping 98.2% said the Bush presidency was a failure with a mere 1.8% saying it was a success.
The only place where there appears to have been any disagreement amongst the historians is in whether the Bush presidency is actually the worst ever with a mere 61% deciding that, indeed, there hasn't been a worst presidency ever than that of George W Bush.
Asked to rank the presidency of George W. Bush in comparison to those of the other 41 American presidents, more than 61 percent of the historians concluded that the current presidency is the worst in the nation’s history. Another 35 percent of the historians surveyed rated the Bush presidency in the 31st to 41st category, while only four of the 109 respondents ranked the current presidency as even among the top two-thirds of American administrations.Now, whilst this study is in no way scientific it did include amongst it several of the US's most respected historians, including Pulitzer and Bancroft Prize winners.
At least two of those who ranked the current president in the 31-41 ranking made it clear that they placed him next-to-last, with only James Buchanan, in their view, being worse. “He is easily one of the 10-worst of all time and—if the magnitude of the challenges and opportunities matter—then probably in the bottom five, alongside Buchanan, Johnson, Fillmore, and Pierce,” wrote another historian.
The reason for the hesitancy some historians had in categorizing the Bush presidency as the worst ever, which led them to place it instead in the “nearly the worst” group, was well expressed by another historian who said, “It is a bit too early to judge whether Bush's presidency is the worst ever, though it certainly has a shot to take the title. Without a doubt, it is among the worst.”
And whilst the question of whether or not he was the worst president ever is still open to debate, I think only the most partisan hack would even attempt to defend the Bush presidency as a success.
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