Yglesias writes today that…well, I’m just going to quote the whole post, okay?
In a History News Network poll, 61 percent of historians say that George W. Bush has been the worst president ever. It’s very hard to know what to make of these kind of questions. How can you possibly try to evaluate someone like, say, Andrew Jackson in contemporary terms?
At any rate, it will surprise no one to learn that I think Bush has been a very bad president. More interestingly, I also take the view that Bush is probably correct to think that history will remember him kindly. American presidents associated with big dramatic events tend to wind up with good reputations whether they deserve them or not. One possible Bush analogy would be to Woodrow Wilson, who did all kinds of things with regard to civil liberties that look indefensible today and whose foreign policy ended as a giant failure, but who was associated with both big events and with big ideas that were influential down the road. Someday, I bet there will be democracies in the Middle East and some future Republican president will figure out a way to put meat on the bones of “compassionate conservatism” and Bush will be looked upon as a far-sighted figure who made some mistakes in a difficult period of time. Will he deserve a good reputation? No. Will he get one? I’d say yes.
Sure, because of differences in context — the composition of the federal apparatus, the demographics of the electorate, the shifting nature of geopolitics, etc. — it’s difficult to compare Andrew Johnson and Lyndon Johnson. But it’s not impossible. You could say, for example, that AJ, in service of sectional and partisan goals, fought to uphold white supremacy, while LBJ, despite being a southerner and knowing that his actions would have dire consequences for his beloved Democratic Party, struggled to extend the franchise to black people. And, given that I think that not being servile to Slaveocrats or Dixiecrats is, on balance, a good thing in a president, LBJ takes this round. See what I did there? I compared two presidents, both named Johnson, despite the fact that they served in different eras. It’s the magic of historical analysis. Plus: I’m just that good.
Moving on, I think Yglesias is either insane or experimenting with becoming a contrarian when he suggests that historians will, some day, smile upon George W. Bush. President Bush came into power at a time of peace and prosperity. Absent a visit from rainbow-maned ponies, pulling carts filled with, um, heaping piles of peace and prosperity, President Bush will leave office with the country mired in not just one but two wars and the economy in shambles. Not to mention: he stole an election, used 9/11 to divide rather than unite the nation, shredded the Constitution, polluted the air and water, refused to throw a drowning city a flotation device, institutionalized torture, and…ZOMG, HE’S THE WORST PRESIDENT EVER! WHAT IS YGLESIAS TALKING ABOUT?
Apparently, this: “American presidents associated with big dramatic events tend to wind up with good reputations whether they deserve them or not.” Yes, Polk rocks the house for his territorial acquisitiveness. And who doesn’t love the aforementioned Andrew Johnson for scuttling Reconstruction? Hoover, you know, secured his spot on Mount Rushmore because of his association with the Great Depression. Then there’s Nixon, whose Vietnamtastic escapades and Watergateliciousness keep him atop every list of America’s best leaders. I’m done now. But not because I can’t keep playing this game all day. Really, don’t tempt me.
All of that said, I’ll give Yglesias this: if the Middle East begins sprouting democracies like desert flowers some time in the next few decades, some historians will try to rehabilitate President Bush’s reputation. But it won’t be an easy task. Nor will their efforts go unchallenged. Also, one more thing: there’s an interesting argument to be made about how hard it is, once a president has achieved good standing in the history books, to tarnish his reputation. For proof, one need look no further than that that genocidal maniac, Andrew Jackson.
48 comments
April 8, 2008 at 12:23 am
foolishmortal
Oh, don’t get me started. This must be one of the least-considered posts he’s put up since whenever. Nevermind the other competitors, since when does Wilson make the bottom half? Income tax? The Fed? Please. Even WWI, as pointless as it often seems, cemented the transition from British to American power, BoP-wise. What TR talked big about, Wilson did, for good or ill.
April 8, 2008 at 2:11 am
drip
Don’t worry, its just a softer myth that gets you interested in these guys before you get the truth.
April 8, 2008 at 3:07 am
Matt W
Yes, Polk rocks the house for his territorial acquisitiveness.
Sez Douglas Brinkley, “On virtually every presidential rating poll, Polk is deemed a ‘near great’ president.” And, of course, immortalized in song. So I don’t think you win that point.
OTOH, as Brinkley points out, Polk’s war was immoral and deceptive (and as he doesn’t point out, had catastrophic medium-term consequences for the Union), but he won it. Which is more than W can say.
April 8, 2008 at 3:07 am
Matt W
Ahem. immortalized in song.
April 8, 2008 at 4:02 am
Matt W
As I think was widely pointed out at the time, this from Brinkley is ridiculous: “I also believe that [Bush] is an honest man and that his administration has been largely void of widespread corruption. This will help him from being portrayed as a true villain. This last point is crucial. Though Bush may be viewed as a laughingstock, he won’t have the zero-integrity factors that have kept Nixon and Harding at the bottom in the presidential sweepstakes.” So yeah, not good.
April 8, 2008 at 7:27 am
Levi Stahl
Ari,
I think it’s a sign of your success with this blog that my first thought on reading Yglesias’s post yesterday was, “Oh, Ari is not going to take this well.”
Far more likely than Bush being retrospectively viewed as a good (or even a not-catastrophic) president, I think, is the Democrats in general (and the next president in particular) being vaguely blamed for losing Iraq. Ain’t nobody gonna successfully rescue Bush, but the stab-in-the-back narrative is still strong, easy, and likely to make the American people feel better about themselves and their 2002-2004 fecklessness a decade down the road.
April 8, 2008 at 7:29 am
John B.
All great, bow down to the great Yglesias:
the corruption of Grant
the viciousness of Jackson
the mendacity of Buchanan
the cluenessness of Hoover
and the righteous zeal of Wilson:
George W the Great and all Powerful.
April 8, 2008 at 7:43 am
student
The reference to Hoover in the last entry points to another counter-argument vs. Yglesias. Herbert Hoover, who did some good things in his career, will forever be associated with the Great Depression and not to his credit. So the argument that presidents associated with “big dramatic events” get good reputations breaks down on this one as well.
April 8, 2008 at 8:21 am
Vance Maverick
MY writes,
…it will surprise no one to learn that I think Bush has been a very bad president. More interestingly, I also take the view that….
I think that transition there is the “tell”, so to speak. It makes it explicit that the point of the post is to draw attention to certain opinions he avows, because he expects you to be interested in the fact that he holds them.
He’s a good blogger, but not immune to certain forms of triviality and narcissism.
April 8, 2008 at 8:54 am
ari
foolishmortal, I’m pretty far afield when talking about Wilson. But I don’t think I’m as big a fan as you seem to be.
drip, thanks for the laugh.
Matt, yes, you’re right: Polk is relatively well regarded. And so, he was a poor choice on my part. But you’re even more right about why he’s well regarded: he won his war of choice.
Levi, I fear that your reaction to the Yglesias post says far less about the success of this blog than it does about the tangle of pathologies I put on display for the readers here.
John, that seems about right to me. May I steal that formulation?
student, I’m not sure we agree on Hoover’s merits.
And Vance, I think Yglesias is a great blogger, as you and I have talked about before. His output is incredible. And he’s very smart. So honestly, I don’t know what he was on about with the above post. My guess is that he was being glib, or a contrarian, or someone stole his identity.
April 8, 2008 at 9:11 am
Jeremy Young
Well said. Also, there’s the fact that terrible conservative Presidents tend to get a bum rap from generally-liberal historians unless they attracted considerable crossover support while in office, as did Reagan. Think of people like McKinley and Coolidge, popular in their own times but scoffed at today. On the other hand, Truman, scoffed at in his own time and barely reeleected, is now viewed by historians as one of the greatest Presidents ever.
Bottom line: if Bush wanted to ensure his historical legacy, he needed to win more Democrats during his two elections. Or else be a good President.
April 8, 2008 at 9:11 am
student
Ari, we probably do agree. I’m not saying that Hoover was a terrible president — we all learned in seminars and elsewhere that as president he proposed some innovative things, some of which presaged the New Deal. But his public reputation has not been good and his reputation among historians is certainly mixed. Certainly, he did nothing as president that helped him gain enough public confidence to get re-elected. He will be forever be remembered as the president who presided over the beginning of the great depression and failed to support spending bills that addressed the ills of mass unemployment. Hence my original point about Yglesia’s argument.
April 8, 2008 at 9:13 am
Percy Percy
Let’s not forget Bush’s criminal neglect of the climate crisis. Especially since Bush needs to be compared to the President Gore we never had, and especially since 9/11 gave him the perfect opportunity to focus on our addiction to fossil fuels. We’ve squandered eight years and he’s left us with so much mess for the next president to clean up that it’s going to be that much harder to mobilize people around the issue.
Bush’s energy policy is going to look like Chamberlain’s “peace in our time.”
April 8, 2008 at 9:38 am
Erik
Right, but this is the thing about Yglesias–he just throws shit out there and forgets about it. A lot of his posts you can’t take very seriously, even though he is an important writer on foreign policy.
April 8, 2008 at 9:54 am
jim
I think you’re underestimating the Mighty Wurlitzer of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. Look at the rehabilitation of Truman: using nuclear weapons, instituting loyalty oaths, going to war in Korea — of course he becomes in retrospect a great President. Just the sort of example that needed to be set. Or the praise that is customarily paid to Reagan, whose sole virtue is he kept us out of Iraq. Bush is going to have a fan-club based at SMU. They’ll feed out the party line. Lots of people will pick it up. Yglesias may be more prescient than you think (or can stomach).
April 8, 2008 at 10:02 am
ari
Yes, jim, there’s an argument to be made about collective memory and movement conservativism. I just don’t think Yglesias made that argument.
April 8, 2008 at 10:02 am
PorJ
Yglesias is a journalist acting like an historian; Ari is an historian acting like a journalist. Neither journalists nor historians have particularly stellar track records in predicting the future’s past (it would be easy to point out the folly of the Beards, or even historians I very much respect – like Robert McIlvaine whose terrific examination of the Depression concludes with the proclamation that the 1980s will repeat the 1930s. But instead, I’ll just refer to this book).
Journalists are too concerned with the transient variables of the present while historians are restrained by their often problematic – and debatable – understanding of the past.
And Bush? We just don’t know yet, as the future is the context that will settle the question. Any speculation is just that, as variables shift and contexts transform in ways that might be unimaginable in the present. Did anybody in January, 1953, foresee Truman’s rehabilitation?
April 8, 2008 at 10:08 am
Jeff Boatright
JY,
I don’t think that the Reagan myth-building can be ascribed to something as amorphous as some cross-over support from the electorate. There was real money put behind that effort by real people – a whole bunch by a relative few.
As to your examples of McKinley and Coolidge, when _I_ think of them, not that I do very often if at all, I don’t scoff. Coolidge in particular seems to me to have been (or is portrayed as) an actual conservative in the best sense of the word – small government and fiscally responsible. I’m uneducated when it comes to their real histories, so in that sense, maybe I represent John Q. Public more than others on this blog.
As to why Truman is popular today as opposed to at his time, well, putting it down to a few liberal writers seems to be too simplistic. For one, who would compare well with FDR at that time? As for how he is portrayed in modern times, whether by liberal or conservative writers, you can’t get around the facts that 1) he really did serve honorably in WWI, 2) he really did push unpopular oversight that was necessary, even during the ‘The Good War’ when everyone was just supposed to get on board, and 3) he really was as straightforward as a national pol can be both in personal life and in policy (some might say “simple”). So to the degree that modern, supposed-liberal writers espouse his virtues, an argument can be made that those virtues actually existed.
Even if he was a two-bit machine politician from Missouri… ;)
April 8, 2008 at 10:28 am
John B.
of course Ari
glad to be of help
April 8, 2008 at 10:43 am
ari
PorJ, you’re right — at least in part. Historians are lousy at predicting the future. And journalists often aren’t that great at writing about the past (though some are outstanding).
Which is why I’ve allowed that if democracy takes deep root in the Middle East, I have no doubt that some historians will make the argument that President Bush deserves the credit. Short of that, though, I’d like to hear some explanation of how the Bush myth will be constructed such that it has any resonance within the academy. Again, Yglesias wasn’t talk about collective memory in his post; he was writing about scholarly history. As a result, his glib comment about compassionate conservatism seems an unlikely candidate to help President Bush in the history books. And, based on all of President’s Bush’s sins, both of commision and omission, rehabilitating his reputation is not going to be an easy task. Particularly because there will be active opposition.
April 8, 2008 at 11:14 am
Davos Newbies » Blog Archive » Sober historical analysis
[...] The Edge of the American West: President Bush came into power at a time of peace and prosperity. Absent a visit from [...]
April 8, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Galvinji
Herbert Hoover, who did some good things in his career, will forever be associated with the Great Depression and not to his credit
When I first saw this, I assumed student was referring to Hoover’s pre-presidential career. I’m well outside my area of expertise, but I am under the impression he was instrumental in helping to rebuild western Europe after the first World War. Hoover has a pretty good reputation in Belgium at least (he founded an organization in Brussels that sponsors the Belgian equivalent of Rhodes scholarships and is well known as a relief planner).
Can’t say the same for the current occupant of the Oval Office (instrumental in helping to build The Ballpark at Arlington does not count as a significant pre-presidency accomplishment).
April 8, 2008 at 1:32 pm
ari
Some argued to me, the other day, that President Bush has done relatively good things in Africa. Maybe that’s what Yglesias meant by compassionate conservatism.
April 8, 2008 at 2:38 pm
foolishmortal
rehabilitating his reputation is not going to be an easy task. Particularly because there will be active opposition.
But there will also be loads of funding.
re: Hoover’s pre-presidential career:
He also kicked the Mississippi’s ass in.
April 8, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Rob_in_Hawaii
Don’t get me wrong, while I enjoy picking at Yglesias’ decidedly odd predictions about how future scholars will view Bush, I also miss “what’s above the fold” in the Bee.
April 8, 2008 at 3:09 pm
ari
I also miss “what’s above the fold” in the Bee.
Me too! I’m not sure what happened to that innovation.
April 8, 2008 at 3:09 pm
student
On Galvinji’s point: Hoover’s pre-presidential caereer is exactly what I had in mind. He had a great reputation as a humanitarian for his relief efforts during WWI, etc. And he was a creditable Secretary of Commerce during the 1920s. All of that gave him an impressive resume, but his worldview inclined him toward voluntarism and “trickle down” solutions which didn’t help him find ways to address the social problems posed by mass unemployment.
April 8, 2008 at 3:12 pm
ari
Y’know, I meant to say way upthread, it matters that Truman desegregated the military — atters to historians, matters to the nation, just matters. Truman hasn’t been reclaimed for no good reason.
April 8, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Most underrated president? « The Edge of the American West
[...] 8, 2008 in history and current events by ari While Yglesias is busy prospectively pimping George W. Bush’s merits, Ilya Somin, over Volokh Conspiracy, asks: [...]
April 8, 2008 at 4:18 pm
michael
I don’t think that Yglesias was talking about how professional historians would remember Bush, but rather how he will be popularly remembered. I also think he could be very wrong, but who knows?
April 8, 2008 at 4:31 pm
ari
You may be right, michael, but that makes his decision to lead with the results of a poll of professoinal historians very odd indeed.
April 8, 2008 at 4:41 pm
michael
Sorry, I didn’t read all of the comments before I commented, so I missed this: “Short of that, though, I’d like to hear some explanation of how the Bush myth will be constructed such that it has any resonance within the academy.” I think that his intended message is not clear, although it would be if he had just used the phrase “collective memory”. I agree that historians won’t remember Bush fondly, but it is possible that popular culture will. So, in spite of it being a poorly considered post, I tend to give him the benefit of the doubt.
April 8, 2008 at 5:06 pm
jim
While Truman was clearly not as bad as Bush, one good deed does not wipe out all the harm he did. The Truman administrations were disasters for the American left. Let me quote from David Caute:
“When Harry S. Truman became President . . . the . . . statute books were already bristling with anti-Communist legislation. All that was required — and conspicuously lacking under Franklin D. Roosevelt — was the will to enforce it. . . .. Such inhibitions were not long to endure under that peppery little bustler, Harry Truman.”
“It was Truman . . . who produced the loyalty program, who codified the association of dissent with disloyalty and legitimized guilt by association.”
And that’s just from the opening pages. Truman started what McCarthy finished. Truman opened the door that Nixon walked through. Do not praise Truman
April 8, 2008 at 5:34 pm
PorJ
Which is why I’ve allowed that if democracy takes deep root in the Middle East, I have no doubt that some historians will make the argument that President Bush deserves the credit. Short of that, though, I’d like to hear some explanation of how the Bush myth will be constructed such that it has any resonance within the academy.
Paul Fussell’s great quote: “Understanding the past requires pretending that you don’t know the present.” Now, apply this to the future; i.e.: pretend you don’t know the future to write about the present.
Ari (and Yglesias) are basing their evaluations ENTIRELY on what is known in the present. There are so many hypothetical, imaginary futures that could completely alter the trajectory of historical memory that this whole guessing game can get ridiculous. I’ll give you 3 hypotheticals: A Democratic President is sworn in, and a terrorist attack worse than 9/11 occurs in the first year (after the illegal snooping ends); the economy tanks and xenophobic immigration restrictions emerge; American popular opinion forces a showdown, and war, with China. Now, each of these hypotheticals is a long-shot, but so was 9/11. And if any of them come to pass, GW’s presidency will look better. For instance: on China, remember the Hainan Island incident? That will loom much larger in history than it does now. And immigration? Bush wanted “comprehensive reform” (he would have signed Ted Kennedy’s bill).
I don’t think any of the above are particularly likely, but I will say that events have a way of surprising people (and humbling historians).
April 8, 2008 at 7:24 pm
ari
I don’t think any of the above are particularly likely, but I will say that events have a way of surprising people (and humbling historians).
This is entirely true. Or, as I’m fond of saying to my graduate students, events have a way of intruding upon inevitablities. Nothing like a good platitude to brighten everyone’s day.
April 8, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Ben Alpers
Moving on, I think Yglesias is either insane or experimenting with becoming a contrarian when he suggests that historians will, some day, smile upon George W. Bush.
Pardon my lateness to this party, but perhaps it’s the company he keeps?
April 8, 2008 at 9:35 pm
ari
Holy crap, that’s funny. Honestly, I’ve always assumed that Megan must be a very, very nice person not to be shunned.
April 8, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Matthew Yglesias
I was thinking of popular/journalistic memory rather than reputation among professionals (I don’t really know much about how professional historians approach this sort of thing) and I’m not trying to be cheeky — I think people who believe that Bush will be remembered poorly simply because he was/is, in fact, a terrible president are being too naive.
Consider that popular memory of our imperial misadventure in the Philippines eventually became so distorted that George W. Bush specifically, and in public, cited U.S. involvement there as a precedent for his own policies in Iraq in a formal speech. The world is a crazy place.
In retrospect, though, I suppose more weight should be given to the possibility that Bush’s reputation will follow a Polk-esque trajectory where he’s fundamentally obscure notwithstanding having undertaken significant and morally questionable military projects.
April 8, 2008 at 11:03 pm
ari
Matthew Yglesias! For reals? Yes, for reals. Don’t you ever sleep?
April 8, 2008 at 11:12 pm
andrew
On Polk and Bush, this looks interesting.
April 8, 2008 at 11:13 pm
andrew
(I haven’t read it, though.)
April 8, 2008 at 11:13 pm
Matthew Yglesias
Matthew Yglesias! For reals? Yes, for reals. Don’t you ever sleep?
For reals! And, yeah, I should probably stop reading blogs and go to bed.
April 8, 2008 at 11:28 pm
ari
Sleep is for the weak (says the aging history prof. who’s only awake because he lives on western edge of the American West). And even with that comparative advantage working in my favor, I, too, must go to bed.
April 8, 2008 at 11:30 pm
urbino
That’s funny. Ari never asks if I ever sleep.
April 8, 2008 at 11:32 pm
ari
[Insert homoerotic reply to Urbino here.]
April 9, 2008 at 8:00 am
eric
Consider that popular memory of our imperial misadventure in the Philippines eventually became so distorted that George W. Bush specifically, and in public, cited U.S. involvement there as a precedent for his own policies in Iraq in a formal speech.
Cue silbey….
April 9, 2008 at 8:50 am
silbey
our imperial misadventure
And the goading continues.
I’m not sure I disagree with Mr. Yglesias, though, at least in one major way. I’d actually identify taking the Philippines as one of the worst strategic blunders in American history, because it put the U.S. on a direct collision course with Japan in the Pacific with some obvious and large-scale consequences[1].
Having said that, on the military side of things, the Philippine-American War was a remarkable success for the United States. I think it’s the last sustained counter-insurgency that we, you know, actually won. It ended in three years [2], with large-scale surrenders by the insurgents and the capture of the insurgency’s main leader, and it led to essentially uncontested dominance of the United States over the archipelago. And it did this with a relatively low level of casualties, on both sides.[3]
As a moral precursor to Iraq, the Philippines would be appalling. As a military precursor, it would be informative indeed.[4]
[1] I’m not arguing that taking the Philippines *by itself* led to the War in the Pacific.
[2] No, the Moro Rebellion does not count as a continuation of the main insurgency.
[3] When I say relatively low, I mean compared to other wars. And yes, it wouldn’t be terribly comforting to those who actually died. Probably would be comforting to those who lived, though. And, no, Gore Vidal remains wrong, despite his polished prose. That letter’s worthy of an entire comment to itself, as Vidal seems to be making the argument that it doesn’t matter whether he can document his numbers, as he and everyone know the truth anyway.
[4] Informative, too, would be buying and reading this, now available in paperback. My daughter’s college fund would be grateful.
April 10, 2008 at 11:23 am
herbert browne
Re “counter-insurgency that we… won” How about Guatemala?
and as for the Bush-League question, I have this:
Why won’t Bush be remembered as “the Pretty Face” that made possible a Dick Cheney Presidency? That’s how I’ll prefer to remember his smirkin’ sorry ass… ^..^