Worst President Ever

Historian Sean Wilentz takes on the question of whether Bush is, indeed, the worst president in history for Rolling Stone. Instead of really giving a definitive answer, he compares Bush to presidents gone before and examines how the past might instruct us on the likely legacy of the current White House occupant. I’ve got to say, the case doesn’t seem to bode well for Mr. History Will Prove Me a Genius.

Calamitous presidents, faced with enormous difficulties -- Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Hoover and now Bush -- have divided the nation, governed erratically and left the nation worse off. In each case, different factors contributed to the failure: disastrous domestic policies, foreign-policy blunders and military setbacks, executive misconduct, crises of credibility and public trust. Bush, however, is one of the rarities in presidential history: He has not only stumbled badly in every one of these key areas, he has also displayed a weakness common among the greatest presidential failures -- an unswerving adherence to a simplistic ideology that abjures deviation from dogma as heresy, thus preventing any pragmatic adjustment to changing realities. Repeatedly, Bush has undone himself, a failing revealed in each major area of presidential performance.

Go read the whole thing.