As he leaves the White House at the end of his second term, the President has a poll rating of only 23 per cent, and is widely disliked and even despised. His foreign policy has been judged a failure, especially in view of the long, painful, costly war that he declared, which is still not over.
He doesn't get on with his own party's presidential candidate, who is clearly distancing himself, and had lost many of his closest friends and staff to scandals and forced resignations. The New Republic, a hugely influential political magazine, writes that his historical reputation will be as bad as that of President Harding, the disastrous president of the Great Depression.
I am writing, of course, about Harry S Truman, generally regarded today as one of the greatest of all the 43 presidents, and the man who set the United States on the course that ended decades later in the defeat of Communism.
Via Flares into darkness [1], “History will say that we misunderestimated George W Bush [2]”
What? You thought this was about Dubya [3]?
Well, yes, it is.
And President Lincoln [4] was equally hated in his day [5]—14,000 protestors arrested, suspension of habeas corpus [6] and censoring newspapers [7]. And yet he has his own memorial [8] in Washington, D.C. (District of Columbia) [9] and is considered one of the best (if not the best) President we've ever had.
History has a funny way of working.
(Oh, and the title to this one? Reference to an email I sent back in May of 2001 to a now defunct mailing list in response to someone mindlessly sending political screeds against President Bush without even bothering to read said political screeds first. I don't mind political screeds, as long as the person screeding can back up their screeds, which this person wouldn't, or couldn't, do.)
[1] http://yargb.blogspot.com/2008/06/wednesday-links_25.html
[2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/06/22/d
[3] http://www.dubyaspeak.com/
[4] http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/al16.html
[5] http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=465
[6] http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=747