BUSH AND HISTORY. Ever since Bush turned unpopular and conservatives conveniently decided that Bush wasn't a conservative after all, a lot of liberals have been trying to nail down the argument that, no, the failures of today's GOP just are the failures of conservatism. I think Alan Wolfe writing in the new Washington Monthly does the best job I've seen yet. Among other things, the article just includes a lot of great quips. The lead quip, though, is actually something I have complicated views about: "Search hard enough and you might find a pundit who believes what George W. Bush believes, which is that history will redeem his administration."
I just may be that pundit. My view, unpopular though it is, is that the historical trajectory of Bush's reputation is going to roughly resemble what's happened with Woodrow Wilson, a pretty awful President who seems to be well-regarded because he basically put a lot of appealing-sounding ideas in play that later politicians turned into something useful and workable.
--Matthew Yglesias
