Worst President?

I came across this article yesterday via Atrios highlighting it. I would say it's the best single article I've seen so far on evaluating Bush's Presidency: The Worst President in History? by Sean Wilentz Rolling Stone (dated 04/21/06; accessed 04/19/06). Wilentz is the author of a short 2005 biography of Andrew Jackson, wherein he shows that he really "gets" what Old Hickory's democratic movement was about. Always a major confidence-building item in the soundness of an historian's work.

Wilentz writes in reference to Bush's hyper-partisan response to the 9/11 attack:

No other president - Lincoln in the Civil War, FDR in World War II, John F. Kennedy at critical moments of the Cold War - faced with such a monumental set of military and political circumstances failed to embrace the opposing political party to help wage a truly national struggle. But Bush shut out and even demonized the Democrats. Top military advisers and even members of the president's own Cabinet who expressed any reservations or criticisms of his policies - including retired Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni and former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill - suffered either dismissal, smear attacks from the president's supporters or investigations into their alleged breaches of national security. The wise men who counseled Bush's father, including James Baker and Brent Scowcroft, found their entreaties brusquely ignored by his son. When asked if he ever sought advice from the elder Bush, the president responded, "There is a higher Father that I appeal to." (my emphasis)

He says that the only way the Bush can take the long view of the consequences of his actions is "insofar as a tiny trusted circle around the president constantly reassures him that he is a messianic liberator and profound freedom fighter, on a par with FDR and Lincoln, and that history will vindicate his every act and utterance."


And as far as those comparisons by Instapundit and others who compare Bush supporters to "Jacksonians" [gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes]:

Karl Rove has sometimes likened Bush to the imposing, no-nonsense President Andrew Jackson. Yet Jackson took measures to prevent those he called "the rich and powerful" from bending "the acts of government to their selfish purposes." Jackson also gained eternal renown by saving New Orleans from British invasion against terrible odds. Generations of Americans sang of Jackson's famous victory. In 1959, Johnny Horton's version of "The Battle of New Orleans" won the Grammy for best country & western performance. If anyone sings about George W. Bush and New Orleans, it will be a blues number.

The "eternal renown" of General Jackson. Now that's an historian who knows what's going on! Or what went on, as it were.

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