At this point, and at this time, it seems hard to believe, but Bush could have gone down in history as one of the greatest presidents ever. Instead he is likely to be a laughing stock in history, along side such notables as Louis Bounapart, aka, Napolean III.

The fork in the road of course is 9/12. That’s right, 9/12.

On 9/12 the whole world stood ready to join by his side. Even in Tehran Iran, hundreds of thousands of people marched in solidarity with the United States. Our traditional allies, in Europe and the Far East, forgot and forgave Bush’s recent world tour of contempt that he had imposed upon them. They were ready to join, in lock step, with the United States, to fact the new threat to the international community of Nations and Trade.

Bush stood in a position to fashion a new “Super Nato” to address the war on Terror, as he began calling it. He was in a position to call for a draft – no one knew then how big a job lay before us in setting the world to right, and no one knew if their would be a theatre wide war, or even a multiple theatre wide war (as in WWII). Only a few months prior to 9/11 there had been a stand off with China in the South China Sea. Would an investment by the US and allies creat opportunism for rogue states elsewhere? China in the Straits of Formosa, Kim Jung-Il in North Korea? Would there be occupations of hostile nations?

No one knew. – So on 9-11, I predicted, that Bush would call for the draft on 9/12. It didn’t happen of course, much to my amazement. Most Presidents like the authority that comes with enlargeing the Army. So right away, on 9/12, I had my serious doubts about Bush’s response to 9/11.

A “super Nato” would have been a landmark event. Imagine if an Ant-Islamic-Terror organization had been crafted together including the members of NATO but also, the bulk of the Ex-Soviet states, China, Japan, South Korea, and India, and most of South East Asia and Australia/New Zealand. Not all states that Joined NATO had been democratic when they joined, but today all are Democratic.

A Super-Nato would have gone a long way towards forming global homogenity or at least incouraged Harmonic convergence in law, politics and economics. The security of operating insuch a wide net would create enourmouse economic boom.

Bush could have gotten credit for that.

The policies spawned should have been similar to the Cold war – where nearly every academic discipline was enlisted to fight that war. Every one should have been studying and boning up on Islam, its history, its beliefs, etc…. A massive program on what needed to be done to bring Islam into the modern world should have been innitiated (hint: introduction of a sharia jurisprudence to allow for separation of church/mosque and state, freedom of worship/conscience, jihad being purely an individual’s internal response to ones own soul, and a couple of tweeks here and there would probably do it).

These were the logical things Bush should have initiated on 9-12. And if he done so, we would, by now be already in a new global age of harmonic convergence and economic growth and development. People would have been measuring his head to see if it could be put on mount Rushmore.

What Bush has done will go down in in Infamy.

First thing he did was tell all our allies, to in effect, go fuck off. Then he never considered a draft. Then he outsourced the job of fighing on the ground in Afghanistan, then he let Bin Laden get away in the Tora Bora mountains, while simultaniously moving the key resources needed to get Bin Laden, Arab translators, on to the planning for Iraq.

Meanwhile he cut taxes while blowing up Government spending. With a $400 billion defense budget, he failed to give troops the armour they needed, and he failed to stop an invasion of over one million unarmed, underskilled, under educated illegal alliens from invading the United States every year. Simply put, he allowed the United States to become the safety valve for Mexico’s abhorrent social and economic model, which he is trying to reproduce here.

Given the choice between uniting the country, and the world, he sought to divide it. He looted the treasury and undermined stability and civility everywhere. Almost every program he’s initiated has been an abismal failure.

Had he persued the Super Nato response – we would be closer to Global peace and prosperity than anyone ever dreamed of. Had he pursued that, he would not only have been a great president, but perhapst the greatest President ever, and perhaps the greatest leader in history, globally.

He has, like the tower of Babel story in the old testement, served to disunite man kind and subject us to what may be perhaps another millenia of fighting, and perhaps a new dark age, after our own economic collapse ensues, and with it the global trading system and then economic prospects every where.

Truly, it is breath taking the President he could have been, and the President he instead chose to be. I submit to you that had any of the prior presidents of the 20th century had the opportunities he has had, with the knowledge he has had, they would have acted as I have laid out here.

The lost opportunity here is truly mind numbing. For what he has done, in this regard, he deserves the death penalty, for many, many thousands, maybe millions will die premature deaths, others maimed and wounded, others to live lives of squalor and ignorance for the choices this man has made, and the choice we, the American people, made in choosing him.

The world deserves better.

Of course, he’s the worst president in history. He’s olso a laughing stock. When he’s out of office, and the power of the presidency is gone, that’s when the true embarassment of his reign will start to be diceminanted. Right now, media needs access to power, to do its job. So it coddles him. But once that carrot and stick is gone from him, the attacks on his tennure will begin, and they won’t be pretty.

I hope he leads a long life of utter and complete humiliation for the decissions he’s made. But nothing, nothing will make up for what he’s done to all of us. All of us, who live on this globe who have to muddle on.

I’ll indulge in this awkward, silly excersize thought the President is not halfway through his second term.

The survey was actually conducted in 2004, a poll of 415 historians taken by the nonpartisan History News Network. 81% considered the Bush presidency a failure; 12% called it the “worst presidency ever” outright.

What makes this silly is that in November of that year, Bush won re-election in spite of these assertions. I liken it to the exit polling done on the morning of election day. Complete crap.

And in the article?

On September 10th, 2001, he held among the lowest ratings of any modern president for that point in a first term

Not so. President Bill Clinton had an approval rating on September 10 – 12, 1993 as follows:

50% NBC/WST
47% USA Today/CNN
47% Gallup

Ronald Reagan as follows:

September 18-21/1981

52% Gallup

I forgot to send President Bush’s ratings for comparison’s sake. 😛

(8/16-19/2001) Gallup, 57%
(8/10-12/2001) Gallup/CNN/USA Today, 57%
(9/4-6/2001) Democracy Corps., 54%

Wow. What Tim said.

Paul
Seattle, WA

I found this in response to that article.

http://betsyspage.blogspot.com/2006/04/problem-with-lists-of-worst-presidents.html

“Historians have a more complex view of FDR today than they would have had in 1945 when FDR died. Wilentz’s exercise in judging Bush’s presidency is silly and not a serious task for a respected historian.”