Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Remember, the British voted out Churchill
Rasmussen Reports reports that voter confidence in the American war effort is at an all-time high:
Voter confidence in the War on Terror is at the highest level ever recorded since Rasmussen Reports began regular tracking in January 2004. Fifty-four percent (54%) of American voters now think the United States and its allies are winning the war. The previous high-water mark for optimism--52%--was reached a handful of times in September and October 2004.
Optimism about the situation in Iraq is also at an all-time high. Forty-eight percent (48%) now expect the situation in that troubled country to get better over the next six months. Only 17% expect things to get worse. In addition to being the most optimistic assessment ever recorded, these numbers reflect a remarkable turnaround over the past year.
None of this is redounding to the benefit of George W. Bush, however:
President Bush isn’t getting any credit from the changing political environment. Just 30% rate President George W. Bush’s handling of the situation in Iraq as good or excellent while 47% say he has been doing a poor job.
Effective leaders cannot, virtually by definition, always do the popular thing, and voters rarely reward effective leaders with popularity. See, for example, the British rejection of Winston Churchill in the wake of the Allied victory in Europe, or Harry Truman's incredibly low approval ratings (23% in November 1951) during the last year of his presidency. Both Churchill and Truman are, of course, now regarded by historians and amateurs alike as great leaders.
History tends to judge presidencies by one or two critical decisions. The place of the presidency of George W. Bush in history will almost certainly turn on the state of the Middle East in another generation. If the ruling class in the region remains a teeming hive of scum and villainy, then Bush will land in the lower ranks of American presidents (although not "the worst president ever," insofar as it would be virtually impossible for Bush to sink below James Buchanan). If, however, the major governments in the region have become more representative, more transparent, less corrupt and less oppressive, history will remember that George W. Bush was the first world leader to declare that end as his aspiration.
Sadly, Bush will not live to see the result. It takes around half a century for history to judge an American presidency. People have to die, records have to be declassified, and, most importantly, the judgment must be rendered by historians who were not themselves caught up in the partisan politics of the day. The book that first places the Bush administration into the context of history will be written by somebody who was born no earlier than 1998. If you are less than 50 years old, you may read that book in your dotage.
CWCID: Glenn Reynolds.
8 Comments:
By 
, at
Wed Aug 27, 12:57:00 PM:
Churchill was largely voted out because of domestic issues. He won the war, but Britain was broke and almost destitute. Chris Hitchens, the neo-con, crypto-Troskyite, doesn't think highly of Churchill, and wonders why many Americans do.
Truman came at the end of 20 years of the New Deal, and presided over the start of an unpopular war. People were tired of the New Deal and the war.
Bush may be seen as the end of the "Reagan Era", much like Truman at the end of Roosevelt's "New Deal" era. Or not.
I don't think history will be too kind to George (I voted for him twice), since the socio-political trends in the academy are running the other way, and I don't see that changing for at least another generation, if then. The historians who will write the definitive history of this time, as you said, will probably be born after 1998.
Just as a bench mark, my kids love Obama and hate Bush; they are impressionable victims of the propaganda of the age. At their ages (11, 14), the only president they have ever really been aware of is Bush, and their perspective is small and immature (which would also define much of MSNBC, Fox and CNN), and typical of their peers.
-David
By , at
Wed Aug 27, 01:13:00 PM:
Bush's legacy will owe a tremendous debt to the ultra-left wing media in this country, the very people who invented Bush Derangement Syndrome to cover the crimes of Willie Clinton.
The media has done what no normal Americans could have done, they knocked off Hillary and left little, almost helpless, Hussein Obama to face John McCain. Hilly could easily have beaten McCain.
But with McCain against Hussein, the normal people may take back both houses of Congress.
If Hussein had won, the left wing crazies in Congress and the media would have spent four years indicting Bush. With the McCain win, Bush's begin to gain the credit and luster it deserves. THANKS MEDIA AND LEFT WING LOONIES!!
By 
Dawnfire82, at
Wed Aug 27, 01:18:00 PM:
"If you are less than 50 years old, you may read that book in your dotage."
And curse at it, I'm sure.
'That isn't the way it was! God damned revisionists...'
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Wed Aug 27, 01:56:00 PM:
"The book that first places the Bush administration into the context of history will be written by somebody who was born no earlier than 1998."
The war in Iraq reminds me of the Spanish-American war. In 40 years, very few Americans will care one way or another. (That's a guess. I'm not a prophet.)
In my view, Truman was one of the two most overrated Presidents of the 20th century. The other one was JFK. (Yes, I have read more than a few books about the men.)
Years ago in Pennsylvania, I knew several Democratic big shots who had known Truman personally. They hated Truman. (They adored FDR. Interestingly, they seldom said anything negative about Eisenhower.)
By , at
Wed Aug 27, 02:28:00 PM:
You had me at "hive of scum and villainy." And here I thought you were solely a Trekkie.
By LGD, at
Wed Aug 27, 02:52:00 PM:
Sir Winston was not voted out; his Party lost its majority in the House of Commons. Churchill was leader of HM's Loyal Opposition in the very next Parliament, having won his own re-election and retained his Party leadership. He was PM again in 1951.
By Noumenon, at
Wed Aug 27, 10:03:00 PM:
It takes around half a century for history to judge an American presidency.
In my view this is how long it takes for the victors to write the history books and the people who know better to forget.
By Noumenon, at
Fri Sep 05, 02:57:00 AM:
It takes around half a century for history to judge an American presidency.
I just ran across an article saying that this is not true:
"History’s judgment of Harry Truman came early, not late. His greatest cold-war policies were recognized as triumphs from the start, and his failures remain failures to this day. Truman’s March 1947 containment speech to Congress was met with a standing ovation and press reports that instantly hailed it as a historic landmark in U.S. foreign policy. His European economic-recovery program, the Marshall Plan, also attracted widespread public support (thanks in large part to the administration’s own public-relations campaign) and produced impressive and fast results. In 1953, just five years after it began, the Marshall Plan formally ended, Europe was well on its way to economic recovery and Secretary of State George Marshall received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work. At the same time, history has not reversed judgment about Truman’s foreign-policy failures. Nixon may have opened China, but Truman still lost it. For starving North Koreans or anyone who worries about Kim Jong-il’s nuclear weapons and crackpot tendencies, the Korean War is still searching for a happy ending.
"Truman, like Bush, did face stormy opposition and plummeting public approval during his presidency. But his low popularity had many causes, and foreign policy was not the primary one..."
