This diarygot me thinking about that question above. What does truly make a horrible president? What makes a president great?
I might get a little long winded but join me below for perhaps the two lenses we might use to judge and evaluate, and how why historians are going to have quite a different look at the Bush administration than Dick Cheney does.
What is the position of POTUS?
Article 2 clearly defines the role of the president, but in its guidelines it seems perhaps vauge in its direction of the execution of said office. One thing is clear however is that the powers given to the executive branch were plenary. The framers clearly intended that the executive branch, indeed the one in charge of the army, was to heed its actions immediately to the direction of congress. These actions and laws to if necessary have review from the courts.
They never intended the position to be a supreme ruler, they clearly defined that the leader of a nation is directly subject to the people (congress). So in this role it is the job of the President to act on laws created by congress and, to execute those laws faithfully in accordance with the constitution. It is the POTUS Job Description if you will. To not do so would be an impeachable offense.
Indeed we have even seen that happen in our nations short history. In 1867 Andrew Johnson was impeached for not following the Tenure of Office Act. This act was passed to prevent a reformationist president from dismissing executive positions without approval from a then very powerful Republican controlled congress. It was one of the more ugly moments in our political history and eventually Johnson was acquitted, by one vote. I invite you to read about it, it’s a very fascinating time in our history after Lincoln’s assassination.
Indeed however his impeachment was a farse. He did not ignore the constitution in his actions when he vetoed legislation, dismissed appointees, and proclamations of amnesty for former confederates. Despite congress getting incensed at his actions, they technically speaking could do nothing about it. Johnson was acting within the law. This was cemented in 1926 with the SCOTUS decision in Myers v. United States, another watershed moment in history.
Because of this, technically speaking if congress passes a law given the president broad authority to regulate something and they disagree with how the president executes that order. They must then change the law or challenges its constitutionality.
This is one direct metric we can use to measure a presidents performance. Did they do everything they were told to? Or more rather did they go outside the boundaries and skirt the law for executive actions? We’ll examine this later with an example.
The other metric, one we tend to emphasize a bit more, is the general feel of a nation. This feel measured in both attitudes and emotions domestically and geopolitically, but also measured statistics and analysis with things like job growth, economy, etc… It is the general, and I’ll quote Regean here, “Are you better now than you were then” question.
Indeed it is this feeling that is important because this is exactly what got an Actor elected to the office. This is despite the fact that general growth was trending upwards and much of what had been lost had been recovered. Also fuel prices were trending down and our standing geopolitically was improving because of Carter’s excellent foreign statesmanship. However in the election the country was still suffering from the general malaise from the Nixon years and it was this general malaise that helped setup and carry forth one of the most destructive 30 years in our nations politics.
So with that in mind, let us take a quick look at the 8 years we had under Bush.
History is not going to be kind to Bush….period. Many historians are already putting him up there with the likes of Buchanan, roughly regarded as THE worst president in our history and almost directly responsible lighting the match that started the Civil War. Indeed its pretty easy using that latter metric.
Are we better now then we were then? Not by a long shot. I won’t hash over all the details again, the mentioned diary from above does more than an excellent job. I’ll focus on one very obvious moment where using the first metric, former president Bush should have been impeached for his actions.
Indefinite Detention.
For the entire length of the War on Terror as we called it, the Bush administration would detain people suspected of terrorism. Without any due process afforded to them people were detained in various locations the most famous of which being Guantanamo Bay. 779 men since January of 2002 were detained for various lengths and over 150 still are there. Even some children have been detained there which is in clear violation of International Law.
Detainment for the purposes of law enforcement is really nothing new. People are often held until trial. However our constitution is very clear in both the 4th and 5th amendments that spell out how that detainment should work with regards to due process. You are afforded the process of law when government steps into your life.
People argue that the detainment and actions does not apply to people detained at GITMO because they may not be US citizens. They argue that the constitution does not apply to non citizens. Frankly it’s entirely horseshit. The constitution applies to the Federal Government and how the government interacts with people not just its citizens. This blatant gloss over and trashing of the constitution was even cemented in Boumediene v. Bush.
So all the damage done aside domestically, our previous President ignored his duties as President of the United States and his actions were an impeachable offense.
And that to me is why he is one of the worst presidents in the history of this nation.