George W Bush: Top Ten EVER?!?

If a President puts forth an agenda, and that agenda fails miserably, you cannot claim that history will vindicate him.

In other words, if a President comes into office on a platform of reform, shrinking the budget, reducing the size of the government etc, and the opposite happens--in what reality to you need 250 years to assess his performance?

And in the case of GWB, he professed an emphatic opposition to nation building.

Even if GWB's Iraq policy succeeds beyond his wildest expectations, his domestic failures are so astounding that he could never be assessed as a great President. I'll grant you that much of his legacy will depend on the outcome in Iraq. But his ceiling is lowered, and failure in Iraq still has the potential to assess him as one of the worst Presidents ever. I suspect that won't happen, simply because any negative outcome in Iraq will be put on the shoulders of his successors. Lucky for him.

History could treat him kindly and consider him OK. But never, ever would there be justification for calling him great. He has not only failed to build consensus for his aims across party lines--he has rarely been able to build consensus among his own party.

He's only lucky that Harriet Miers wasn't confirmed for the Supreme Court. Put that one next to Brownie, and I think there's a pattern that historians would have loved.