Kicking a Guy When He's Down

Like buzzards circling a doomed critter the Washington Post has brought out a gaggle of pundits to opine on whether George Walker Bush will go down in history as the worst American president of all time.

This guy can't catch a break. His allies are deserting him. Third world punks are standing up to him defiantly. At home they're writing his obituary or, more accurately, obituaries.

For the record, two Post pundits seem to believe Bush will win the 'worst ever' mantle, a third scores him as only fifth worst, another says history may salvage his rep. The guy has two years to go and he's already being branded a total loser.

You want to know what I think? I'll tell you anyway. I think George Bush is absolutely the worst president now sitting in the Oval Office. Remember when we were asked to pick "The Greatest Canadian"? We tended to choose people from our own time, those we knew best. That same factor is obviously in play in sorting out best and worst presidents.

Personally, I like the guy who puts Bush at Number 5 (from the bottom of course), Michael Lind:

"In the White House Hall of Shame, Bush comes behind four other Oval Officers whose policies were even more disastrous: James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Richard M. Nixon and James Madison.

Lind rates Buchanan, Lincoln's predecessor, as the worst for doing nothing to prevent the Civil War from breaking out. Number Two he reserves for Lincoln's successor, Johnson, a racist who was all in favour of reinstituting slavery. Third spot he gives to Nixon, enough said. Fourth and fifth he reserves for presidents who got America into disastrous, unnecessary wars - Madison and Bush.

"It might have been worse. In 1812, Madison wrote Thomas Jefferson to ask what the former president thought of waging war simultaneously against Britain and France. Alarmed, Jefferson replied that this was "a solecism worthy of Don Quixote." Instead, the United States fought only the British, who torched Washington, D.C., while Madison and first lady Dolley fled to Virginia. Gen. Andrew Jackson's victory in the Battle of New Orleans (waged two weeks after the United States and Britain, unknown to Jackson, had signed a peace treaty) helped Americans pretend that the War of 1812 was something other than a total wipe-out.

"By contrast, George W. Bush has inadvertently destroyed only Baghdad, not Washington, and the costs of the Iraq war in blood and treasure are far less than those of Korea and Vietnam. Yet he will be remembered for the Iraq conflict for generations, long after tax-cut-driven deficits, No Child Left Behind and comprehensive immigration reform are forgotten. The fact that Bush followed the invasion of Afghanistan, which had sheltered al-Qaeda, with the toppling of Saddam Hussein, will puzzle historians for centuries. It is as though, after Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor, FDR had asked Congress to declare war on Argentina.

"Why did Bush do it? Did he really believe that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction? Was it about oil? Israel? Revenge for Hussein's alleged attempt on Bush's father's life? The war will join the sinking of the USS Maine and the grassy knoll among the topics to exercise conspiracy theorists for generations, and the photos of torture at Abu Ghraib will join images of the napalmed Vietnamese girl and executed Filipino rebels in the gallery of U.S. atrocities.

"Like all presidents, George W. Bush wants to be remembered. He will get his wish -- as the fifth-worst president in U.S. history."