Submitted by John Rich, Dec 10, 2006 14:27

Eric Foner may be an idiot and a charter member of the Angry Left, but that's not the fundamental problem with his response. The entire notion of ranking presidents while they are still in office, and from an historian's perspective yet, is fatally flawed.

President Bush may, or may not, be among the worst, but neither you nor I should live to see any authoritative judgment on that issue. Not that I don't wish you and I to live to 120; just that it will take many years, if not decades, to properly inform a valid answer on Bush's performance. Put another way, one can not properly have the calm, objective perspective of history when the chattering classes are raising such a ruckus, day in, day out, in the media. For this reason alone, one mustn't attempt to rank Bush's presidency just yet.

For certain, Iraq is a disaster, and while hindsight is usually quite good, in foresight Mr. Bush did the right thing: a heinous dictator like Saddam should not have been allowed to live, let alone thrive. So Bush 43 did what Bush 41 should have done, and for reasons that virtually everyone seemed to agree with prior to our invasion n 2003.

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