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Historical view won't be kinder

George W. Bush was an awful president. It's good he'll likely live to hear history's verdict.

President Bush gave his final televised address to the nation Thursday night. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)
President Bush gave his final televised address to the nation Thursday night. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)Read more

"History. We don't know. We'll all be dead."

- George W. Bush

Dear President Bush:

I am glad you are, at 62, still a relatively young man. I am glad you are in robust health. This means there is a good chance you will be with us for decades, and I dearly want that. You see, history's verdict is on the way, and I want you to see it for yourself.

We've been hearing the h word a lot from your surrogates and you as you make your final rounds. History, we are told, will render the truest verdict on your time in office. History, it is implied, will say you were a far better president than we gave you credit for.

You said it again Monday in your farewell news conference. History will have the final say. It is a curious position for someone who has been, as the quote above suggests, dismissive of history's judgment. It occurs to me that, as patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, history is the last refuge of the failed president.

But you and yours keep returning to it, reminding us how Truman left office not much more beloved than you are now, but history took another look and decided he was a better president than anyone thought at the time. Frankly, the very fact that you repeatedly invoke the 33d president is rather telling.

Hail Mary

That's not a defense; it's a Hail Mary pass. It's hoping against hope. Truman enjoyed an extreme makeover, yes. Most presidents do not.

Yes, history does refine our assessments of a given president. But those refinements usually move in increments.

You would need more than increments of movement, sir. You would need a football field. I don't see it happening.

Credit where it's due: You were the best U.S. president Africa ever had. Your work to reduce AIDS rates on the continent never got as much attention and praise as it deserved.

But there the list ends. I find it impossible to think of another praiseworthy achievement. The failures, though, rush readily to mind: Katrina, Abu Ghraib, Justice Department scandal, torture, Iraq war, Social Security, immigration. . . . You leave a legacy of regression and division, and a nation worse off by multiple measures than before you took office.

nolead begins

The worst?

But that's not even the worst of it. The worst is how you turned our government into a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Republican Party, disdained objective truth in favor of ideological fiction, treated dissent as disloyalty, and repeatedly poured sewage on our heads and swore it was spring water.

So I'm happy you'll likely be around in 20 years. Because it doesn't take centuries to get an initial sense of history's verdict. It takes about a generation. When history weighs in on your presidency, you'll probably be here to see it. And I don't think you're going to like it.

Yes, I'm stepping out on a limb here. The future is unknowable. But it's inconceivable to me that history will judge you anything but harshly. Frankly, I think it will judge us all that way, will marvel at the things we let you get away with, the principles Americans can betray when they're scared.

As with the internment of the Japanese during World War II and the McCarthy excesses of the 1950s, I think fear will be the defining statement of this era. Fear, and the terrible things we did, condoned and became as a result.

Godspeed, then, Mr. Bush. Good health and long life. I hope you live to hear history itself tell you what an awful president you were.