In Sunday's Washington Post, Douglas Brinkley opened the official public portion of the debate amongst historians as to whether President Bush has been the worst president in American history. Meanwhile, the debate on this topic has been on-going in the blogosphere for as long as I can remember. Brinkley writes that it's the Iraq War which will place George W. Bush amongst our worst presidents and most of us from the blogs can agree that it's one of the president's leading trespasses on a long, long list.
Iraq, in fact, is a terrible symptom of the president's horrifyingly awful reaction to September 11. It is his mishandling of 9/11, ultimately, that makes him not amongst our worst, but
THE worst American president.
I've always held that anyone -- even a child -- would've reacted similarly to President Bush during and after 9/11 in all aspects. His stunned inaction during My Pet Goat in Florida; his initial statements; his address before the joint session of Congress; the invasion of Afghanistan; everything. All predictable, all textbook, all ordinary. It was all too typical of President Bush's mediocre nature: do what is basically expected, but not much else. And then, rather than using 9/11 as a means to unify us all through humanitarian legislation and positive, uplifting acts to truly change the world for the better, the president instead exploited 9/11 with the goal of consolidating executive power and selfishly indulging the foreign policy whimsy of his associates.
Almost as tragic as the attacks themselves, President Bush turned the nation and the world down a path of darkness, tragedy and more death. America is more divided than it has been since the Civil War. Many former allies disdain and merely tolerate us. It's difficult to image now that the people of Iran -- an "axis of evil" nation -- held massive candlelight vigils honoring our fallen citizens. As a result of the president's 9/11 reactions, Republicans, in their defense of the president, have tossed aside intellectual honesty, rationality and thoughtfulness, while Democrats, with their patriotism constantly and wrongfully at issue, have either acquiesced or have allowed formerly important issues to sag under the weight of dealing with cleaning up the president's mistakes.
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