Posted by
Always To The Right on Friday, November 28, 2008 9:07:00 PM
For the regnant “me generation,” each new problem requires both a radical solution and a bogeyman to blame. “The Hysterical Style”
Unemployment is still below 7 percent; it was around 25 percent when
Franklin Roosevelt became president. Less than 20 banks have failed,
not the 4,000 that went under in the first part of 1933.
George Bush is neither the source of all our ills nor the “worst”
president in our history. He will leave office with about the same
dismal approval rating as the once-despised Harry Truman. By 1953, the
country loathed the departing Truman as much as they were ecstatic
about newly elected national hero Dwight Eisenhower — who had
previously never been elected to anything.
As for Bush’s legacy,
it will be left to future historians to weigh his responsibility for
keeping us safe from another 9/11-like attack for seven years, the now
increasingly likely victory in Iraq, AIDS relief abroad, new expansions
for Medicare, and federal support for schools versus the mishandling of
Hurricane Katrina, the error-plagued 2004-2007 occupation of Iraq, and
out-of-control federal spending. As in the case of the once-unpopular
Ulysses S. Grant, Calvin Coolidge, and Harry Truman, Bush’s supposedly
“worst” presidency could one day not look so bad in comparison with the
various administrations that followed.