Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Stanley Fish In The New York Times On George W. Bush

The rehabilitation continues apace (thanks Mr. Obama!):

"I know you’re not supposed to, but I just love to say I told you so.

What I told you back on Sept. 28, 2008, was that within a year of the day he left office George W. Bush would come to be regarded with affection and a little nostalgia. The responses (over 300 before the comments were closed) to that prediction were overwhelmingly negative; even the very few who agreed with me attributed what they took to be a sad fact to the stupidity of the American people. The other 290 or so said things like “No way”; “Are you kidding?”; ”Are you mad?”;“What a ridiculous and insulting premise!”; “I’ll miss him like a rash”; “This must be a satire”; “Bush is a sociopath”; “George Bush has destroyed this country”; “History won’t forgive him”; and (a popular favorite) “I hate the man.”

Well it’s a bit more than a year now and signs of Bush’s rehabilitation are beginning to pop up."

He concludes:

"And the judgment of history? Well, I’m not that foolish, but I will venture to say that it will be more nuanced than anything the professional Bush-haters — indistinguishable in temperament from the professional Obama-haters — are now able to imagine. He will not go to the top of the list, but neither will he be the figure of fun and derision he seemed destined to be only a year ago. You heard it here."

I couldn't agree more (and have said so myself on numerous occasions).

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