From Dan Drezner, listing reasons why George Bush’s legacy may improve over time:
First, he’s been a great ex-president. For such a polarizing political figure, it’s remarkable how successfully Bush has receded into private life.
Can’t argue with that! There’s not much question that doing nothing puts Bush in his best light.
(Reason #2: The Republican Party has gone so crazy that Bush looks almost good by comparison. I’d buy that one too if Bush himself weren’t substantially responsible for this shift.)
(Reason #3: Bush responded halfway decently to the 2008 financial collapse. I guess so, though as near as I can tell, Bush himself played almost no role in this. He was clueless about what to do and just let his economic team run the show.)
Drezner admits that this is all pretty thin beer. His final conclusion:
At best, George W. Bush was a well-meaning man who gave the occasional nice speech and was thoroughly overmatched by events. At worst, he was the most disastrous foreign policy president of the post-1945 era.
Am I missing anything?
Nope. He’s still the Frat Boy President and always will be.
