Toronto Star
Historians will argue over whether George W. Bush is the worst president the United States has ever endured. But that is not the point. Five years after Bush's ill-starred invasion of Iraq, three years after Hurricane Katrina and seven months into the unravelling of the U.S. financial system, the point is that the 43rd president of the United States – regardless of his ranking in the pantheon – is a unique and unmitigated disaster.
Whether Bush is more of a warmonger than James Polk, who in 1846 manufactured a crisis with Mexico in order to seize what is now California, more tolerant of cronyism than poker-playing Warren Harding (1921 to 1923), or more unlucky than William Harrison (he died after catching cold at his 1841 inauguration) is interesting but irrelevant. What we do know is that this president, this "decider" (to use his favoured term), decided his way into a war that has destroyed the nation he was allegedly trying to free, destabilized further an already rickety Middle East and given Islamic terrorism a whole new raison d'etre.
In short, the road to Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay was open well before Bush took office in January 2001. But the current president has soared to new heights. His predecessors at least had the grace to be embarrassed about dabbling on the dark side. By contrast, Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney positively gloat about their attempts to subvert human rights.
Part of the reason is ideology. Bush did little when Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans, in large part because he does not think governments should involve themselves in matters of social welfare. His efforts in the current financial crisis are equally half-hearted and for much the same reason.
But there is something else, something disturbingly feckless about Bush. This has nothing to do with his malapropisms ("The only way we can win is to leave before the job is done"), his insistence on snuggling into bed early every night or his alarming propensity for bicycle accidents.
At a very basic level, Bush is incompetent. He likes to play at commander-in-chief of the U.S. armed forces. But in any other country a commander-in-chief who orchestrated an adventure as disastrous as the Iraq war would be court-martialled.
In some public events, he seems fully at ease. But in others – particularly his infrequent, televised press conferences – he seems to be observing events from another dimension.
Among U.S. historians, it has become great sport to rank the country's presidents. Bush vies with many for the title of absolute worst – from Ulysses S. Grant, who oversaw a post-Civil War era so corrupt it was known as Grant's Barbecue, to Richard Nixon of Watergate fame, to Herbert Hoover, the hapless president in charge during the stock market crash of 1929.
But Grant, Hoover and even Nixon did not do as much damage worldwide. Americans may still be debating Bush's legacy. I suspect the rest of the world has made up its mind.
Why can't our newspapers tell it like it is like this Canadian one just did? Oh, I remember...
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