Where does Bush rank among all U.S. presidents? Is he the worst ever? The Washington Post today prints assessments by five historians/academics/thinkers that touch on the difficulties of such rankings, the liberal bent of history professors, and the validity or invalidity of doing this exercise when the Bush presidency still has more than two years left. The pieces also touch on several other presidencies in American history. Collectively they make for interesting reading.

This is a subjective parlor game with ambiguities. When evaluating a president, do you look at the man and his attributes and skills, or do you look at the results? Some good men are saddled with bad luck, and some incompetent men are saved by good luck.

Anyway, here are some excerpts.

Douglas Brinkley:

[A]fter six years in power and barring a couple of miracles, it’s safe to bet that Bush will be forever handcuffed to the bottom rungs of the presidential ladder. The reason: Iraq.

…

Though Bush may be viewed as a laughingstock, he won’t have the zero-integrity factors that have kept Nixon and Harding at the bottom in the presidential sweepstakes. Oddly, the president whom Bush most reminds me of is Herbert Hoover, whose name is synonymous with failure to respond to the Great Depression. When the stock market collapsed, Hoover, for ideological reasons, did too little. When 9/11 happened, Bush did too much, attacking the wrong country at the wrong time for the wrong reasons. He has joined Hoover as a case study on how not to be president.

Eric Foner:

It is impossible to say with certainty how Bush will be ranked in, say, 2050. But somehow, in his first six years in office he has managed to combine the lapses of leadership, misguided policies and abuse of power of his failed predecessors. I think there is no alternative but to rank him as the worst president in U.S. history.

Vincent Cannato:

What is disheartening is the tendency of many historians to rate presidents based on their support for liberal social policies. Just as frustrating is the inability to acknowledge the deep debates over law enforcement measures, such as the USA Patriot Act, enacted after 9/11. Rather than acknowledge the tough tradeoffs between security and privacy, we are left with the hyperbole that this administration is “trampling on civil liberties.” Sometimes wisely and sometimes rashly, Bush has steered the nation through the post-9/11 world. It has been an uneven trip so far, but the country has not suffered another attack in more than five years.

Much of Bush’s legacy will rest on the future trajectory of the fight against terrorism, the nation’s continued security and the evolving direction of the Middle East. Things may look grim today, but that doesn’t ensure a grim future.

David Greenberg:

Comparisons of presidents across different eras are typically the stuff of parlor games, not serious historical study. But if anyone can be said to deserve the mantle of the worst, it’s Nixon. Indeed, looking at his disastrous presidency may help put Bush’s failures in perspective.

Michael Lind:

It’s unfair to claim that George W. Bush is the worst president of all time. He’s merely the fifth worst. In the White House Hall of Shame, Bush comes behind four other Oval Officers whose policies were even more disastrous: James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Richard M. Nixon and James Madison.

As for that last one, I take issue with Lind’s comparison of Bush with Madison. I don’t see how the War of 1812 was worse than the current war.