It's not too soon to judge George W. Bush's presidency on key issues
In the six years since he left the White House, President George W. Bush has often claimed that it is too early for historical judgments about his presidency. “It's too soon to say how many of my decisions will turn out,” he wrote in “Decision Points,” his presidential memoir.
In this, Bush was indulging in what we will call the Truman Consolation. President Truman was deeply unpopular during most of his time in the White House and in the years immediately afterward. Only decades later did historians begin to rate his presidency highly for the actions he took in the early years of the Cold War. At one time or another, when their poll ratings are slumping and their media coverage is biting, most modern American presidents like to believe they will eventually be vindicated, just as Harry Truman was.
But Bush is largely wrong: In some of the most important areas of his presidency, it's not too soon to draw conclusions. Just by judging against Bush's own forecasts, some of the most far-reaching and important initiatives of his presidency didn't work — or turned out poorly.
At the top of the list is the war in Iraq. Bush and his advisors badly misjudged what it would entail. They overestimated the international support the United States would be able to obtain for military action. They asserted before the war that American troops would need to stay in Iraq for no more than a couple of years. The administration's public estimate before the war was that it would cost less than $100 billion; instead, it cost $2 trillion.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0205-mann-assessing-george-bush-20150206-story.html
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Intertwining Religion and Politics, Shooting the Nation's Debt Load Through the F'ing Roof (And To The Moon And Back), Going To War On Prefabricated Lies, etc.
