The History News Network recently conducted a survey where 109 professional historians were asked just 2 questions. Has George Bush’s presidency been a success or a failure? And where do you rate George Bush among the 41 other American presidents? The historians could then elaborate as to why they answered the questions the way they did.
The results were that 61% of the professional historians that responded rated George Bush as the worst president in American history. Furthermore, an additional 35% of the historians rated the Bush presidency in the bottom 25%, ranking between 31st and 41st. Only 4 of the 109 historians ranked Bush in the top 2/3 of American presidencies.
On the question of success or failure, 98.2% of the historians rated the Bush presidency a failure, while only 1.8 rated it a success. Oh well, I guess you can look at this in one of two ways; the glass is 98% empty or 2% full.
One criticism of the survey is that in some areas it is too early to judge the presidents legacy. One historian who did not rate Bush the worst said “It is a bit too early to judge whether Bush’s presidency is the worst ever, though it certainly has a shot to take the title. Without a doubt, it is among the worst.”
I’m far from a professional historian but I do have a bachelors degree in history so I’ll chime in. I’ll skip the worst ever presidency bit because I am not a presidential historian but it’s clear to me that the Bush presidency has been an utter failure that certainly ranks amongst the worst. The embarrassing mishandling of Katrina will not be changed by time, neither will the cronyism, ignorance, massive budget deficits and the misguided Iraq debacle that Bush will leave for the following president to fix. Sorry Georgie, history will not absolve you, I promise this!
The Washington Nationals recently conducted their own informal opinion poll when they asked President Bush to throw out the first pitch at the first game in their new ballpark. Here was the result:
译文:
据61%的历史学家称，布什乃史上最差劲总统
历史新闻传输网进行了一项调查，109名职业历史学家被问及两个问题。乔治.布什的总统任期是个成功还是失败？同其它的41名美国总统相比，你把布什排第几？然后历史学家详细讲述为什么他们如此回答这两个问题。
结果是61%的回应调查的历史学家将布什列为美国历史上最差劲的总统。此外，另外还有35%的历史学家把布什列在靠后的25%内，排位在第31位到41位之间。109名历史学家中只有4位将布什归入美国总统排名的前2/3。
就是成功还是失败这个问题，98.2%的历史学家将布什的总统生涯定位成一个失败，只有1.8%的认为是成功的。好吧，我想你可以用两种方式来看待这个数字；这个杯子是98%空的或是2%满的。
针对这个调查的一个批评就是，在有些领域来评判总统们的遗赠还为时过早。一名没有将布什列为最差劲的总统的历史学家说“来评判布什的总统任期是否是史上最差的有点为时过早，虽然它显然很可能摘走这一头衔。毫无疑问，它是最差劲之一。”
我离个职业的历史学家差的远了，但是我确实有个历史的学士学位，所以我要插下话。我跳过史上最差劲总统这一话题，因为我不是个研究总统的历史学家。但我很清楚的是，布什的总统任期已是个绝对的失败了，肯定是最差劲之一。对于飓风卡特里娜的令人尴尬的错误运作不会随着时间的迁移发生改变，他的任用亲信，无知，巨额预算赤字也不会，还有被误导的伊拉克的崩溃，布什将留给下任总统来弥补。不好意思了，乔治，历史不能赦免你，我保证！
美国职业棒球大联盟最近在他们邀请布什总统在他们新的棒球场的第一场比赛中掷出第一球时，进行了他们自己的非正式的民意测试。这里是结果：