In the run-up to the 2006 election, Senator Hillary Clinton said that George W Bush would be seen by history as one of America's worst presidents in history. A year ago, in January of 2006, USA Today's publisher Al Neuharth criticized her in a piece titled Hillary has it wrong, Bush not the 'worst':
Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. [...] charged that the Bush administration "will go down in history as one of the worst that has ever governed our country." She's wrong.
Neuharth provided his own list of the worst presidents in our history, adding that Bush would not make the list:
- Andrew Jackson, (D) 1829-37
- James Buchanan, (D) 1857-61
- Ulysses S. Grant, (R) 1869-77
- Herbert Hoover, (R) 1929-33
- Richard Nixon, (R) 1969-74
It's very unlikely Bush can crack that list in his remaining three years in office.
... but now, he is retracting that statement.
A year ago I criticized Hillary Clinton for saying "this (Bush) administration will go down in history as one of the worst."
"She's wrong," I wrote. Then I rated these five presidents, in this order, as the worst: Andrew Jackson, James Buchanan, Ulysses Grant, Hoover and Richard Nixon. "It's very unlikely Bush can crack that list," I added.
I was wrong. This is my mea culpa. Not only has Bush cracked that list, but he is planted firmly at the top.
In his new op-ed, Neuharth gives us a new list: the phrases to remember Bush's Iraq debacle with.
- "Shock and Awe," early 2003.
- "Mission Accomplished," May 1, 2003.
- "Stay the Course," June 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006.
- "New Strategy," 2007.
- ... and, of course, "The Decider"
Bush admitting his many mistakes on Iraq and ending that fiasco might make many of us forgive, even though we can never forget the terrible toll in lives and dollars.