How President Bush will be remembered

The Bush Administration has less than 24 hours left, and the “first draft of history” is already being written on it (and it’s not good).  Yet historians in future generations may – and probably will - think very differently about President George W. Bush.

We tend to forget how much perceptions of presidents can change with time.  Andrew Jackson was largely beloved when he left office in 1837; today the verdict on his two terms is mixed at best.  In 1849, James Knox Polk would leave office having accomplished each of his major objectives in one term, yet he is largely remembered more for helping destroy the country (by forcing a discussion of slavery in the Mexican conquest) than by enlarging it (just about everything west of the Rockies was acquired during his presidency).  Calvin Coolidge went from formidable to forgotten.  Even FDR, for years untouchable among historians, is coming under harsher review from those with some economic training for New Deal policies that are increasingly looking useless and even counterproductive.

Other presidents have seen their stature rise over time.  John Adams has been on a two-century long rehabilitation; his son regained is hallowed reputation while he was still alive (albeit for actions after his Administration).  Harry Truman’s reputation grew with every year after he left office.  His successor (Eisenhower) saw his reputation rise until his death in 1969, after which it began a glide downward.

So history’s “verdict” on President George W. Bush will likely take at least a generation to even be known.  Still, one can make some educated guesses.  So here we go.

Foreign Policy and Defense: Given 9/11, this will be the chief benchmark of the Bush Administration – the fact that no one saw it coming beforehand notwithstanding (it should be noted that the number of wartime presidents who were first elected during the war that would define their tenure was exactly one – Richard Nixon in 1968).  On the plus side, history will smile upon the fact that no attacks have occurred since September 11, 2001.  It will also note the success of Iraq.   While most contemporaries are focusing on the initial mistakes in Iraq, several presidents suffered setbacks in conflicts before righting the ship (Madison, Lincoln, and even Roosevelt saw victory – or in Madison’s case, an avoidance of defeat - only after battlefield issues that forced serious reassessment).  Historians will be less sanguine about Afghanistan, especially if his successor (Obama) stays the course and wins.

Meanwhile, Bush completely revamped our relationship with India, turning it into a close friend and ally.  As the global focus continues to shift from Europe to Asia, this will loom larger and larger as a triumph of farsighted statecraft.

The biggest failure of this Administration, in my view, is the paucity of effort to preserve political support for the war at home.  Every other wartime president took the time to convince the American people of the merits of putting their fellow citizens in harm’s way.  Lincoln and FDR were probably the best; Bush will likely go down as one of the worst.

The economy: This one is a little trickier to figure out.  We tend to forget that Herbert Hoover engineered the most dramatic economic intervention by government up to that time.  Of course, FDR quickly set his own mark in that regard.  Bush, as strange as this seems now, may have his own dramatic interventions forgotten – or discounted.  Remember, Barack Obama’s “stimulus” is already larger than Bush’s financial and auto bailouts combined.

Add to this the growing FDR revisionism, and it’s hard to say how anyonein future years will react to Obama or Bush.  Today. many believe Bush didn’t do enough to stave off recession, while other believe he should not have done nearly as much as he already did.  Either view could become future conventional wisdom.

Social policy: George W. Bush was the first Republican president for whom social issues were a defining partisan issue – and he may, ironically, be the last.  Again, however, it will be the future that will decide how the present is viewed.  Bush could b seen as ahead of his time or behind it on nearly every social issue.  Again, the past is precedent.  Anti-slavery was considered a farsighted and noble position in 1800, radical nonsense in 1830, both at once in 1860, and once again a farsighted and noble position in 1870.  Prohibition was was an idea whose time had come in 1920 – and had gone ten years later.  Even recent issues like gun control and abortion have seen ebbs and flows over the last twenty years.  How these issues are finally settled - if they’re settled – will likely determine how Bush is viewed.

In other words, it will be difficult to say just what verdict history will give to the Administration of Bush the Younger; odds are, though, hindsight will be kinder to him than his contemporaries on foreign affairs.