Americans Expect History to Judge Bush Worse Than Nixon

[RedEarth]

PRINCETON, NJ -- A mere 17% of Americans believe George W. Bush will go down in history as an outstanding or above-average president -- out of sync with Bush's own confidence that his presidency will be appreciated with time. Another 23% of Americans predict he will be remembered as "average" while 59% say "below average" or "poor."



The bleakness of Americans' current forecast for Bush's historical stature is highlighted by the contrast between their ratings of Bush and those of several former U.S. presidents.





http://www.gallup.com/poll/113806/Americans-Expect-History-Judge-Bush-Worse-Than-Nixon.aspx

[Alcibiades]

1. But isn't public opinion what matters

and not the opinions of PhD elite historians? Oh, wait, the votes from both sorts of folks are in, and it turns out to be nearly unanimous:

The hard right ideologically driven rule by Bush and his Republican cronies was bad for America.

[sharp_stick]

2. We will have to wait awhile

I'm convinced he will be cemented in as one of the very worst Presidents in history but I'll bet that within a few years his ratings will climb as the nanosecond attention span of the American public starts to view him through the lens of "the old days".

For some reason people seem to look back in time with really rose colored glasses no matter how bad it was. Kind of like old people yammering about how violent things are when they actually lived through the 30s and times when street violence was far worse in many places than it is today.

Hell, I'll bet in 20 years or less if they think they can get away with it the next generation of RW yapping heads will try to rewrite shrub's pathetic history in much the same way that assholes like Hannity, Coulter and Malkin now do with Nixon and even McCarthy.

on edit: I think this opinion only holds for the American public. I think true historians will always rank him among the very worst.