...Versus the HISTORIANS
You said in your post: "They were asked to critique each president based upon several parameters including leadership, success in foreign affairs and the state of the economy during their tenure. The individual rankings of each historian were then averaged with those of the others and a composite ranking was given."
Well, while you seem to be very anti-Bush, keep in mind the above quote is the key to it all. Presidential historians are always looking at different factors...they have their own reasons for reaching their assorted (and often differing) judgments... and, in the end, they just might not come to the same conclusion that you personally did. Given the rankings, as you've already seen, that's certainly true about Bush.
For example, you said he[ I]"ran roughshod over civil liberties, destroyed our standing abroad"[/I], but I'm not even a "Presidential historian" and I don't agree with that. You also said "he embroiled the country in two wars", yet one of those wars is a conflict that now-President Obama is fully behind and supports, in fact he's even increased troop strengths towards that war (Afghanistan). So that's a good example -- when you say Bush got us embroiled in two wars, are you saying BOTH were wrong? Meanwhile, some historians will say both are wrong...some historians will say "Well, one of them is valid"...and yet other historians will say "No, both actually had merit. Hence, Bush deserves credit for waging them."
Back in January, when the ranking of the 52 Historical authors came out, they listed the top 10 in this order...
1. Abraham Lincoln
2. George Washington
3. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
4. Teddy Roosevelt
5. Harry Truman
6. John F. Kennedy
7. Thomas Jefferson
8. Dwight Eisenhower
9. Woodrow Wilson
10. Ronald Reagan
And they listed the bottom 5 as...
38. Warren G. Harding
39. William Henry Harrison
40. Franklin Pierce
41. Andrew Johnson
42. James Buchanan
At the time, I saw 3 of the historians on a news show on MSNBC (which certainly leans Left) and they noted why they felt Bush DIDN'T deserve to be at the bottom, in fact why he DIDN'T even deserve to be in the bottom 5 (I think they had him ranked at 29 or so). When asked about Bush's placment, they noted that Bush HAD changed the course of history in terms of the war on terror... Bush HAD inherited a recession from Bill Clinton and not only pulled America out of it, but Wall Street and personal finances for the average American citizen hit all-time record highs... and Bush HAD done many other things that many don't even give him credit for. For example, for all your condemnation of Bush, did you know he actually pushed for, won, and signed into law the largest maritime preserves in history? That involved banning offshore drilling or development of any kind in order to protect marine life and to create some of the largest underwater sanctuaries ever?
And in the end, one historian noted: since Bush was our most recent history, it was therefore TOO SOON to really rate and rank him accurately since we just don't know yet "how" things will turn out. I recall him basically saying: "Look, if 10 years from now it turns out that Iraq really is functioning as a democracy or is in stable condition and not having TOO much radical infighting, that's one you have to give Bush. The removal of a murderous dictator like Saddam Hussein and the establishment of a new country that is now living peacefully within its own rights will show that Bush's actions weren't necessarily wrong and they had a positive outcome overall -- and thus his ranking points on Iraq go UP. So it's just too soon to tell where history will rank George Bush."
Of interesting note -- this same historian then noted that a perfect example was Dwight Eisenhower. Ike was well loved at the time of his election...he went out of office on a basically good note...BUT over the years that followed historians only ranked him middle of the pack (at best) for his accomplishments...
...And yet in recent years, as the Ike Years have been reflected on, most Presidential historians have now bumped him into the Top 10. So as this one historian noted, the one thing that everyone has to keep in mind is that history is ALWAYS changing it's view on people due to ever changing views of people, conditions in the world, and simply the way certain Presidential decisions can ultimately affect people (and the world) DECADES after the fact.
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