Bush Relies on Future Historians to Tell Today’s Americans They’re Wrong

[babylonsister]

Bush Relies on Future Historians to Tell Today’s Americans They’re Wrong
By Bob Benenson, CQ Staff


Remember way back eight years ago, when Republicans mocked President Bill Clinton for his relentless efforts to shape his “place in history?”

Although most of Clinton’s two-term tenure was marked by economic growth and an avoidance of burdensome long-term military commitments for the nation, he lacked the kind of accomplishments that get you consideration as a fifth presidential face on South Dakota’s Mt. Rushmore.

Clinton maintained a 66 percent job approval rating in Gallup polling as he prepared to leave office, the highest among retiring presidents since World War II, but he could not live down the personal foibles that almost got him thrown out of office midway through his second term and eroded public opinion about him personally. So Clinton talked to just about anyone he could — the press, fellow politicians, historians, think tankers and possibly the White House kitchen staff — to emphasize the peace-and-prosperity side of his presidential record.

GOP critics who scoffed at Clinton back then have had much less to smile about as his Republican successor, George W. Bush , winds down the final days of his two-term presidency with a 34 percent approval rating in Gallup’s final measurement released this week — the lowest since Democrat Jimmy Carter lost his re-election bid to Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980 — and his party, which surrendered control of Congress just two years ago, reduced to its smallest numbers of both Senate and House seats in nearly three decades.

In what has been widely branded as a “legacy tour,” Bush has maintained a high public profile even as many fellow Republicans, stung by Democrat Barack Obama ’s comfortable victory for president and another round of deep GOP setbacks in congressional elections, would rather have seen him ride quietly off into the sunset.

And Bush has appeared to have gone beyond Clinton’s efforts to shape his place in history. He often sounds as though he is lobbying historians of the future to tell the world how wrong most Americans of his own day — including the 61 percent who told Gallup they think he’s done a bad job — were about him.

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http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docid=news-000003011733

[DemBones DemBones]

1. Dream on, George, dream on. nt

[aquart]

2. That's the entire point of the Bush library.

[patrice]

3. How much do you think the wealth of Middle Class Americans has declined on the average

during the last 8 years? How many people do you think that is who have lost money that MANY were counting on for retirement. No amount of historians for hire are going to be able to make these people forget what was stolen from them.

[LynnTheDem]

4. $2,000 per annum per person.

Heck of a job, bushie.

[patrice]

5. So for my 2 person household, Bush's 8 years, this would be $32,000. ?

[LynnTheDem]

7. According to the GAO, yes.

[Alcibiades]

6. The opinion of regular Americans

does not matter, but the opinion of elite PhD historians does, provided that they are from the FUTURE.

Now that's elitism--no one from the present day has an opinion that matters. To really matter, you have to be a historian from the FUTURE.

[Joe Chi Minh]

8. That's handy. Didn't he say, "I won't be here," when asked about the likely verdict of history.

[babylonsister]

9. Yes, he did; he's counting on not hearing the verdict. But he will. nt