The Rehabilitation of George W Bush: A Sisyphean Task

Freddy Gray is quite correct: the drive to rehabilitate George W Bush is suspicious. It is also a dog that won’t hunt. It is true that recent opinion polls have reported that Dubya is more popular than when he left office but this is surely chiefly a consequence of the public forgetfulness. Returning to the spotlight can only be bad news for Bush’s reputation. It will remind people why they were so pleased to be rid of him in the first place.

Because, in the end, an administration bookended by the worst terrorist attack in American history and the gravest financial crisis since the Great Depression can’t be spun as much of a success. It just can’t.

True, presidential reputations change over time. Ulysses S Grant, long considered one of the very worst presidents, is in the process of receiving a historians’ makeover. His stock is rising.

There are other ways of measuring Bush’s impact.