This isn't the best way to start a post but let me first concede:
Someone more intelligent than me should probably write about
this. I welcome those who believe they are to comment (really,
I'm not being sardonic).
This
op-ed in the Buffalo News takes on the task of trying to
describe the Bush Legacy by basically saying: There have been ups
and downs. Some people like him, some don't. But it'll take
years for 'historians/us' to decide what the Legacy really is.
The piece describes those ups and downs in detail but what stuck
out to me is his repetition on what historians. scholars and
intellectuals think of the President and the rush to figure out
what they think.
While it is way too soon to make a final judgment on his
presidency, at this early writing we can say that he had some
minor domestic successes, two major domestic mistakes and an
ambiguous legacy on foreign policy that will likely take
decades to play out. Bush is leaving a mixed record that will
likely be very complicated for historians to sort out.
I suppose, at the end of eight years, it's normal to do that, to
sum up two terms in a paragraph fit for history books. Especially
with a Presidency like Bush's that is mixed.
But what exactly is the rush? History is still unfolding. Iraq is
still blooming/failing depending on who you ask. Whose deadline
are these guys on anyway?
And what, can someone please explain to me, is the obsession with
what all the scholars think? (Especially the one who said Bush
was the 'worst President ever.'). The reflexive Republican in me
wants to say, "Really, you try it," but that sounds as defensive
as it is.
Still: I tend to agree with Col Carl von Clausewitz'--the
Prussian soldier and historian himself:
There is danger in theoretical speculation of battle, in
prejudice, in false reasoning, in pride, in braggadicio. There
is one safe resource, the return to nature.
Bush, for better or worse, has never failed to do that.
