George Bush and the "T" Word

Lately, there's been some comment on the left about whether George Bush is the worst president in the history of the United States. The bright yellow "W-Worst Ever" bumper sticker on my car says that I agree with Eric Foner and Douglas Brinkley in rating Bush the worst. However, it really is too early to tell.

It does seem likely that Bush will be listed either with the disastrous Presidents like James Buchanan, Herbert Hoover, and Richard Nixon or the weak but not quite disastrous presidents like Franklin Pierce. Whether Bush is dead last will depend on the priorities of the historians doing the rating. Reagan biographer Lou Cannon points out that future historians might lift Bush's ratings because of the success of No Child Left Behind or the Prescription Drug Benefit. But it's just as likely that that the future will make things worse for George W. For example, information may turn up that will lead either American or international courts to indict President Bush and members of his administration for crimes against humanity.

There's also the possibility that a shadow of treason will develop over the Bush administration. There was a time in late 2003 and early 2004 when the insurgency had taken root but was not as entrenched as it would be that the Bush administration could have dramatically increased the American military presence in Iraq in the attempt to defeat the insurgency before it got a lot worse. Certainly, John McCain and John Kerry were advocating significant increases in the number of troops on the ground in Iraq.

Of course, there might be several reasons why the Bush administration decided to stay the course with 137,000 troops. Given that Wolfowitz, Feith, and Rumsfeld were all still on board, the Bush administration might have sincerely believed that the troop deployment was adequate. Perhaps Bush's people thought that increasing the number of troops would be admitting that their initial deployments were a mistake and thus would be disadvantageous politically.

However, I have always had the sneaking suspicion that the Bush administration saw political advantage in the initial growth of the insurgency. Sure, they would rather that the insurgency not have come into existence at all, but some of the "unintended consequences" of the insurgency were good for the Bush administration. First, the insurgency could be used as a club to beat the Democrats in the 2004 election and beyond. Second, the existence and growth of the insurgency could remind the Shiites in control of the Iraq government that they still very much needed the American military and would do so for the forseeable future.

To the extent that the Bush administration decided that the growth of the insurgency was a good thing in some ways, they were coming close to committing treason according to the Constitutional definition of treason as providing "aid and comfort to the enemy." If the administration adapted a policy that knowingly allowed the insurgency to grow, that's as close as any government has come to aiding and abetting an enemy.

It will be interesting to see what emerges concerning the Bush administration's policy-making concerning the Iraq War. The thing that Bush's people have to fear most are war crimes accusations. However, it's conceivable that information could emerge that will make people start talking about the "t-word" in relation to the Bush administration's conduct of the Iraq War.