Call Me a Historian

Big tip of the Generik hat to my majestic colleague the King of Zembla for this story about George Bush being rated as "unsuccessful" in his presidency by a large majority of historians contacted by the History News Network at George Mason University (338 out of 415 respondents). He was even called "the worst president ever" by many of them (50). This should come as no surprise to anyone who regularly reads this site; it is, however, always good to get affirmation.

As I mentioned in the comments section on the King's site, last week when I was in Virginia, I was engaged in business near and regularly drove past the Manassas campus of George Mason University. Had I known what invaluable research they were conducting there, I might have stopped in and offered to buy drinks for the entire staff.

Here are some of the relevant points from that survey:

This is what those historians said -- and it should be noted that some of the criticism about deficit spending and misuse of the military came from self-identified conservatives -- about the Bush record:

• He has taken the country into an unwinnable war and alienated friend and foe alike in the process;
• He is bankrupting the country with a combination of aggressive military spending and reduced taxation of the rich;
• He has deliberately and dangerously attacked separation of church and state;
• He has repeatedly "misled," to use a kind word, the American people on affairs domestic and foreign;
• He has proved to be incompetent in affairs domestic (New Orleans) and foreign ( Iraq and the battle against al-Qaida);
• He has sacrificed American employment (including the toleration of pension and benefit elimination) to increase overall productivity;
• He is ignorantly hostile to science and technological progress;
• He has tolerated or ignored one of the republic's oldest problems, corporate cheating in supplying the military in wartime.

But don't just go by me; check it out for yourself.

Worst. President. Ever.