On the heels of that shoe-throwing incident in Iraq (photo below), we’ll probably hear a flurry of wisecracks about shoes that fit and lame ducks ducking, but the Bush presidency is nothing to laugh about. America stands shamed before the world by the most contemptible leader in this nation’s history. The fact that an Iraqi reporter would even think of throwing his shoes at the President of the United States is just one sign of the scorn with which George W. Bush is regarded at home and abroad.

My own disgust makes it impossible for me to be fair to this man. So let me rely on supposedly objective historians to assess his presidency. Here’s one assessment as reported in U.S. News & World Report:

An informal survey of 109 professional historians conducted by the History News Network found that 98 per cent of them believe that Bush’s presidency has been a failure, while only about 2 per cent see it as a success. Not only that, more than 61 percent of the historians say the current presidency is the worst in American history.

The worst. Worse than dithering James Buchanan. Worse than corrupt Warren G. Harding. Worse than treacherous Andrew Johnson. Worse than stubborn Herbert Hoover. Worse than waffling Millard Fillmore… The worst president ever!

In my view, even that assessment is too kind. I think George W. Bush has been worse for America – and the world – than the other worst U.S. presidents combined. Here’s my (admittedly prejudiced) judgment..

Bush is at least as incompetent as Buchanan. And I strongly suspect he and his cronies have plundered the treasury as much or more than Harding. His subversion of America’s national interests in favor of globalism is a more damaging betrayal than (Andrew) Johnson’s subversion of the Union’s interests during Reconstruction. He has pursued a wrongheaded free-market ideology as stubbornly as Hoover.  And he has been at least as indecisive as Fillmore in times of national crisis…

No one before Bush has contributed so much to so many calamities…

– The tragic loss of thousands of American lives and the random slaughter of Iraqi civilians in a war of personal revenge and aggrandizement

– Devastation of the American environment and aggravation of global warming

– Decimation of endangered American wildlife

– Creation of a super-rich international elite at the expense of America’s working men and women

– Collapse of the international financial system resulting in the abject misery of a global economic recession that threatens to become a depression

– Callous disregard for victims of national and economic disasters…

How could one man wreak such havoc unintentionally? The unanswered question of the Bush Presidency is why? What possible reason would this man have for causing such widespread misery and despair? I leave that to the historians to figure out.