Dime Store History
It's just a matter of time, two months at the most, that President Bush will be blamed for the sensationalized rise in obesity ravaging America's youth today. Frankly, during public interactions I do see a lot fat (weight-challenged) people of all ages, but no more than at any previous period in my lifetime. That's of no consequence to the army of Bush's detractors, of course, and should the Democrats win control of the House this November, the President's "incuriosity" on the subject of nutrition will likely be one of countless articles of impeachment leveled against him. Time and Newsweek can be expected at that juncture to run similar cover stories in the same week, probably with the same headline, "Top 100 Reasons to Give Bush the Boot."
The noted media critic James Bowman, in the April issue of The New Criterion, delved into the specifics of a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll conducted earlier this year that showed fully 37 percent of participants believed they could do a better job at the White House than Bush. (No doubt that number is higher today.) Bowman, taken aback, writes, "You might think a question like that would bring a person up short," and marvels-specifically targeting the Beltway/Manhattan/ Harvard crowd of pundits and academics-at the hubris of such individuals.
He continues, "Not only have those whom we judge been put into the dock by us, but their defense, such as it is, has also been conducted by us. We are judge, jury, and executioner, not to mention arresting officer, principal witness, and the attorneys for both the prosecution and the defense? Moreover, what we do believe is not just that the leaders are not decent, not acting in good faith, and woefully incompetent but also that, so far from being fiendishly difficult, the job is so ridiculously easy that you would have to be a moron to screw it up."
At one time, it was a given that a majority of U.S. senators assumed they could out-perform the current president, which isn't surprising because they're in the business of politics. Had Bush won the popular vote as well as the Electoral College during the heavily contested election of 2000, I'm convinced the country's "polarization" wouldn't be quite so severe-now, everyone's an expert. Hell, Martin Sheen had quite a principled run as president on the mercifully terminated West Wing, so why not the same for Richard Cohen, Neil Young, George Clooney, Jon Stewart and The New Republic's "best and brightest" crew?
The most comical attempt at evaluating Bush's presidency so far this year was a Rolling Stone essay by left-wing activist Sean Wilentz, who is an historian who teaches at Princeton University, and (probably most important to RS founder Jann Wenner) contributes to Bob Dylan's official website. Wilentz's May 4 cover article headlined "The Worst President in History?" is a critical artifact of this young century because, unlike wealthy celebrities or obsessed pundits, the author claims to take a "long view" toward history. Even as Wilentz acknowledges that some past presidents, such as Harry Truman, left office with low public esteem, only to find redemption from succeeding generations, he nonetheless asserts that the best Bush can hope for is being ranked among the "lowest tier of U.S. Presidents." (Wilentz doesn't mention Republican Dwight Eisenhower, a man ridiculed during the '60s and '70s, only to have his own historical renaissance years after he died.) He continues: "Many historians are now wondering whether Bush, in fact, will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history."
Never mind that Bush's second term won't expire until January 20, 2009, an amount of time that journalists and consultants, with annoying frequency, refer to as "a lifetime in politics." Wilentz mocks Bush for telling Bob Woodward that he's not concerned about his eventual historical standing since "we'll all be dead." Incurious, once again.
Bush is certainly at a low ebb in polls currently and may never recover public approval. I don't masquerade as a historian, but it doesn't take a Princeton sinecure to understand that Bush's legacy won't be known for years. It could be he'll share the ignominious fate of James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter, but just as likely, opinions will change in 15 years from now. For example, Bush wasn't successful at his plan for Social Security reform for two reasons: He couldn't articulate his vision for the public about a complicated transformation, and few politicians, living in the electoral present, wouldn't touch the contentious subject. Yet when FDR's antiquated entitlement goes broke in the future, Bush's idea of partial privatization won't be dismissed so arrogantly.
Likewise, Bush's foreign policy won't bear fruit, or utter disaster, for years to come. As for immigration reform, an issue that xenophobic Republicans ought to be deeply ashamed of, Bush's adherence to the American tradition of welcoming people from other countries to the United States, it's hard to imagine a guilty verdict.