Bush's courage

As all of us are well aware, President Bush's poll numbers are in steep decline, and even before the end of his term, some historians have already written him off as the nation's worst President ever. Some of the criticism directed against him is justified -- all Presidents incur their fair share of it -- but the depth and intensity of his critics' hostility and contempt toward this man is virtually without precedent in American history. The struggle in Iraq is the hinge upon which his historical reputation will eventually turn, and as I have confessed on this site, I myself have deeply ambivalent feelings about the war. But I also recognize that my ambivalence is fueled primarily by a media I have long since learned to view with a jaundiced eye, and I also have enough historical sense and perspective to know that Mr. Bush is not the first President to be regarded with widespread derision, and written off by the pundits as being an incompetent dunce at best, and a national disaster at worst. Among previous Presidents, the one perhaps most comparable to Mr. Bush was Harry Truman, whose approval rating dipped as low as 23% during his administration, but who now enjoys a deserved reputation as one of the great Presidents of the twentieth century. Truman, like Bush, was blunt and plainspoken, fiercely loyal to his friends, principled, single-minded, and tenacious. And polls? -- to hell with them.

It is obviously too soon to know how future historians, with a few decades of perspective behind them, will rate Mr. Bush, but this column by Michael Novak expresses a viewpoint which I, for one, can wholeheartedly endorse. Say what you will about him, but George W. Bush has guts.