George Bush often voices the wistful hope that his reputation will improve with time the way Democratic Pres. Harry Truman’s has. The similarity between the two presidencies is that, like Bush, Truman was very unpopular while he was in office. But now Bush has officially “won” the unpopularity contest between them:
At 39 months in the doghouse, George W. Bush has surpassed Harry Truman’s record as the postwar president to linger longest without majority public approval.
Bush hasn’t received majority approval for his work in office in ABC News/Washington Post polls since Jan. 16, 2005 — three years and three months ago. The previous record was Truman’s during his last 38 months in office.
There are crucial differences between Bush and Truman, of course. For starters, Truman’s record included some successes: He ended Japanese aggression by dropping the atomic bomb. He desegregated the armed forces, presided over the founding of the United Nations and instituted the Marshall Plan. And Truman’s “the buck stops here” approach to government was diametrically opposite of the responsibility-averse approach of George Bush.
The good news for George Bush is that he has escaped impeachment, and his likely fate is, like Richard Nixon, to grow old in disgrace.
Except, of course, for those pesky war crimes charges…
Bush NOW has a “legacy” . . . but unlike Truman, NOTHING of good has been done in his Failed Administration to add an “asterisk” to his vaulted accomplishment.
Maybe a War Crimes Tribunal could as a paragraph or two to his otherwise unremarkable bio, but the sooner removed from memory the better - for the World.