George W. Bush: Evaluating the President at Midterm

Preface

Preface Evaluating presidents is a compelling and an important exercise. Whether it occurs on political talk shows, among colleagues standing around the office water cooler, by the political cartoonist’s pen, or through the act of voting, evaluation is something we all do on a regular basis. The process of rating and evaluating presidents by presidential pollsters or scholars has far-reaching consequences . Presidents and members of Congress watch the presidential approval ratings closely, with an eye to how changes in popularity impact the commander in chief’s ability to govern. Such polls are now taken on an almost daily basis, and any change in one direction or the other may have dramatic consequences. Indeed, the news media devotes considerable attention to the opinion polls and the periodic presidential rankings by scholars. It is natural to want to know how the president has performed, and it is unavoidable to compare the performance of presidents. So too do the stakes remain high even after a president leaves office. A president’s standing is then subject to frequent reevaluations by historians, whose hindsight benefits from the release of documents, new interpretations of events, and the passing of time. This book is dedicated to evaluating the presidency of George W. Bush. Presidential assessment is an exciting and a challenging enterprise, made all the more difficult by the fact that, as we write, the president is still in office. The evaluation contained herein was conducted at midpoint in an effort to provide one of the earliest scholarly assessments of President George W. Bush. However, this evaluation does not pretend to provide an exhaustive and a conclusive assessment of Bush’s presidency. It only begins what will be a long process.The utility of this early rating is that it provides us with an important analysis of his first two years in office—the time of the key transition to governing and first “100 days,” the period of greatest appointment and nomination activity, and his initial attempt to set the legislative agenda—and the momentous events that surrounded Bush’s first two years. This early assessment further allows us to begin to ask the kinds of questions that will shape future discussions and that will eventually help evaluate Bush’s presidential performance, while producing information for later comparative analysis. Most ratings of presidents occur long after they leave office. Such ratings are done through ranking polls whereby presidents are placed in categories such as “great” and “failure” or rank-ordered from top to bottom by presidential historians .This book offers an evaluation of George W. Bush that goes beyond such evaluative tools and public approval ratings by employing political, historical, and ethical assessments of the Bush presidency and his leadership, ethical record, domestic policy, foreign policy, national security policy, and team of advisors.The assessments are balanced and probing, and every effort was made by the contributors and the editors to produce scholarly yet highly readable chapters. We believe the book is thus suitable for students—undergraduate and graduate—beginning their study of the presidency. Scholars and researchers from various disciplines should also find the book valuable. The book concludes with a graded “report card” of George W. Bush at midpoint. This project is the by-product of a scholarly conference convened at the Gulf Coast Campus of the University of Southern Mississippi on November 22 and 23, 2002. Thirty experts on the presidency from around the country and world, with a variety of viewpoints, and representing such fields as history, political science, and philosophy, participated in the conference. The work of fourteen of those participants is included in this book. Of course, without the quality scholarship of these contributors, this book would not be possible, so to our valued colleagues we offer our appreciation for sharing our enthusiasm for evaluating President Bush. The editors wish to thank the administration of the University of Southern Mississippi-Gulf Coast for hosting the conference, in particular, Dr. Denise von Herrmann for her encouragement and support. Generous financial support was provided by the Center for International Politics and Ethics, and we are in their debt. We would also like to thank Jack Covarrubias and Sharon Meyers for their assistance with the project, and we express our appreciation to James D. Buffett for his assistance with manuscript preparation. Others—the staff at the Library of Congress, the Congressional Research Service, and office of congressman Robert Wexler—provided assistance in collecting data. To Michael Rinella and the staff at State...