The Possibilities of a Bush Legacy

It may seem a little early to start speculating on the legacy that the presidency of George W. Bush will leave, but an interesting op-ed has just come out in the Washington Post which triggered a renewed interest for me in just that topic. I am referring to E.J. Dionne Jr.’s new article called End of the Bush Era in which he argues that the “Bush Era” as we know it is over. It ended because Bush was a president who was perceived to have epitomized the characteristics of “leadership, strength and security,” but his inability to portray any of these in the wake of Hurricane Katrina have formally ended this era.
The article is a good read from this perspective, but also because it succinctly points out the major shortcomings of this perception throughout Bush’s presidency. And Dionne also suggests that the best thing that Bush can do, considering he does presumably have three more years of a presidency, is realize that this has happened and reassess his situation entirely.
So the question becomes, what will Bush be known for. I feel that there are two distinct possibilities and that they create useful analogies to other past presidents.
First, let us agree that no matter what each individual thinks about Bush, it is almost certainly not apathetic or ambivalent, so it is safe to assume that he will not be known as a place-holder president like William Henry “Tippecanoe” Harrison or Calvin “Silent Cal” Coolidge.
Another option is that he will forever be associated with increasingly negative major events, and with his inability to handle them adroitly. This would put him in the despised category of the likes of Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon. But this assumes that looking back, the vast majority of people will 1)recognize these events (eg. 9/11, the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina) as having overwhelming negative consequences over the long term and 2) that they are intrinsically associated with the character flaws of George W. Bush.
In my view, the most likely occurrence will be one that only further strengthens the “cultural divide” that many political scientists illustrate, particularly in the wake of the last two election cycles. This would put Bush in the same category as such controversial presidents as Jimmy Carter and his immediate successor, Ronald Reagan. Just as Carter is known on the left for refocusing international relations on human rights and on the right for bungling the Iran Hostage situation, and just as Reagan is known on the right for “winning the Cold War” and on the left for ridiculous defense spending and drastically widening the rich-poor gap, Bush’s legacy will be divided. Among the right, he will be known for standing his ground against the threat of terrorism, rallying a nation in the aftermath of September 11, and refocusing policy on a basis of Christian morality. On the left generations from now, those who know nothing about Bush’s policies and have not lived to see them enacted will probably still curse his name as a political opportunist, a spurious moralist, a jingoist, and a corporatist.
The major component that provides a level of uncertainty in my mind is the coverage of the media. The media has had a very important impact on the perception of presidents throughout history, but especially in the television age. It largely explains why so many people loved Kennedy even though his presidency was one in which little policy was enacted compared to, say, Lyndon Johnson who did much in the way of social policy but is mostly known today for screwing up in Vietnam (a situation he at least partly inherited from JFK). I cannot objectively say how the media has portrayed Bush thus far (I have my own opinions, but they are hardly scientific), but much of what we consider the legacy of the man known in many circles simply by the letter “W” will be written by the media.
What does this mean? I don’t know. If anyone has an insight into how the media will shape the legacy of George W. Bush, share it with me.

Article by Dan