Bush Hopes History Will Put Him in the Company of Truman

So, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid proclaims George W. Bush the "worst president we ever had." Many historians agree. Bush departs with the lowest approval ratings in memory.

Bush professes unconcern. He evokes the memory of Harry Truman, who, polls show, also left office with three quarters of the public disapproving of him. Yet Truman ranks among the "near greats" in most accounts. Bush anticipates a similar verdict.

Part of the comparison Bush draws is apt. Truman's low public esteem resulted largely from the lack of progress in the Korean War. A half century later, with South Korea a vibrant democracy and an important ally of the United States, many argue that the sacrifices Truman committed Americans to make were worth the costs. (Nearly 38,000 American troops died in the three years of that war.) Bush hopes that, if history repeats in Iraq, his reputation will rise.

In 2009, Bush's dream appears a tall order. Korea came late in Truman's tenure. Iraq dominated most of Bush's. Unlike Bush, Truman had compiled a record of considerable accomplishments before he became mired in an unpopular war. V-J Day, the Marshall Plan, assistance to Greece and Turkey, the Berlin airlift, V-E Day, the United Nations Conference, and the reorganization of the nation's intelligence-gathering and defense capabilities were all behind him.

Nothing in Bush's record equals any of these. The war in Afghanistan, once considered a success, is problematic. On the upside, Bush's massive investment of American resources and know-how in Africa not only saved millions of lives but did more to enhance the image of the United States abroad than have any of Bush's haphazard "public diplomacy" efforts.

Domestically, Bush compiled a slightly better legacy than Truman. Barack Obama promises to retain Bush's No Child Left Behind and faith-based initiatives. Truman would envy Bush's success in enacting a new entitlement, the Medicare drug benefit.

"Old Harry" would be surprised that a Republican president would embark on an eight-year spending spree and cap it with bailouts of banks and automobile manufacturers. Bush's profligacy made it "safe" (Woodrow Wilson's term) for a Democratic president and Congress to spend even more.

Obama has acknowledged that high federal deficits—expected to exceed by 50 percent as a share of gross domestic product the previous peacetime peak under Reagan (after the last steep recession)—will continue for years. Bush seems oblivious. During the financial meltdown, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson called most of the shots, not the president.

Bush brought to the presidency a fatal flaw, which blocked his path to greatness: his lack of curiosity. Preferring to "get on with it"—whatever the particular "it" was at any given time—Bush proved too willing to take the word of experts, too reluctant to seek outside opinions, and too reticent to inquire as to why things did not work out as his advisers predicted. Such management practices are not taught at the Harvard Business School. If only he had paid attention.

No one will ever accuse Bush, unlike Franklin Roosevelt, of knowing more about what was transpiring within his administration than anyone else. It is hard to visualize Bush, in the manner of Lincoln, poring over news from the front in order to form his own assessment about situations on the ground. Bush awaited sanitized briefings. Had George W. Bush rather than John F. Kennedy been president during the Cuban missile crisis, there might not be a presidency to pass along to Obama.

Bush compounded his problems by retaining people whose careers he had made or would make rather than recruiting persons of distinction. This reduced the likelihood that he would receive independent, unvarnished advice. The advisory and staff systems Bush put in place all but ensured that he would be surprised so often by events (9/11, the Iraqi insurrection, Hurricane Katrina, and the financial crisis). The rest, as they say, is "history."

On his foreign travels, Bush eschewed sightseeing. At home, he shunned state dinners. He never "got it" that leaders gain perspective through such undertakings or that foreign populations might appreciate the most powerful person in the world putting himself out to get to learn more about them.

Together, President Bush's "can't be bothered" attitude and Vice President Dick Cheney's "been there, done that" cynicism helped erode bonds of trust between the president, his colleagues in and out of government, and those in whose name he governed. Instead of seeking to convince people of the rightness of his views and give alternatives a proper hearing, Bush's way was to assert a course and ram it through. Of course, Democrats, foreign leaders, and government professionals grew resentful. Rather than take the people into his confidence, as had Lincoln and FDR, and prepare them for hardships that lay ahead, Bush treated them like children.

He wasted valuable time claiming new rights and prerogatives for the presidency (even though its powers had been strong enough to enable Reagan to win the Cold War). Bush left people with the impression that he craved power for its own sake. He either forgot or never learned that Nixon, who similarly sought to expand the powers of his office unilaterally, left it weaker than he had found it. Or that Lincoln, who stretched executive powers the most, maintained that he intended his actions to be as temporary as they were extraordinary.

Warnings were abundant had Bush cared to heed them. He remains the only recent president to win re-election without increasing his share of the popular vote. He paid a steep price for his failure to reach out to independents and "discerning Democrats" (as Eisenhower called them).

Hurricane Katrina (in Obama-speak) was "the moment" when the American people tuned Bush out. Were this Britain, the government would have fallen with new elections called. Here, Bush was allowed to complete his term, less as a president than as a tenant with a four-year lease.

What would be a fair grade to assign him? C minus.

Alvin S. Felzenberg is author of The Leaders We Deserved (and a Few We Didn't): Rethinking the Presidential Rating Game (Basic Books).

• Read more about Afghanistan.
• Read more about George W. Bush.
• Read more about Dick Cheney.