If George Bush Jr. has any serious interest in how history will measure him in the Presidency, he needs to get ready for the bad news. Sixty-five historians have already given their opinions.
Bush left the Presidential suite to his successor, Barack Obama, less than a month ago and now has been scrutinized for what he did or didn’t do, and some
survey results are in.
Obama admires President Lincoln, and likely should everyone else; for historians rank him at the top of the list of Presidents. Just days after the nation honored the 200th anniversary of Abe Lincoln’s birth, he has been ranked as the country’s best president in its entire history. Areas judged included economic management, crisis leadership, vision and agenda setting, and equal justice for all. Lincoln was ranked in the top three in each of the categories the historians evaluated.
Former President George W. Bush is a study in contrast with the greatest President, ranked near the bottom as 36th out of the 42 men who have held that distinctive office. C-Span conducted the survey of the 65 historians who ranked him 41st in international relations, 40th in economic management, 25th in crisis leadership, and 24th in equal justice.
George Bush Jr’s father did much better, at position 18, Clinton at 15, Ronald Reagan 10 and Jimmy Carter 25. These positions have moved only a little in the past few years since the surveys have been conducted and illustrates, according to Edna Medford, one of the advisers and participants in the survey, that the reputations of Presidents are influenced by issues today.
The top Presidents, after Lincoln, according to the historians, include George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt and Harry Truman. The five worst, just under Bush Jr. include James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce, William Henry Harrison and Warren G. Harding, who have had those distinctions for some time.
Bush’s
position among historians is similar to where he stood among 415 historians in 2004. Then the nonpartisan History News Network found that eighty-one percent of those surveyed considered the Bush administration a "failure." One of them considered him to be the worst President in history.
According to
a CNN poll conducted at the end of 2008, Bush’s popularity stood at 31%.
The conservative edge placed him at the lowest point of any President in modern history, since the poll of presidents began.
In a few years, historians will rank the presidents again. We can only speculate the ranking the former President, George W. Bush, will receive at that time.
