Most historians will see Bush as a failed US President

New York, Jan.12 (ANI): In eight days, after eight turbulent years, George Bush will depart Washington, and leave behind a radically different country and a changed world.

And the inevitable wrangling will officially begin over the Bush legacy: How this man and this presidency will be viewed through the long lens of history.

"I think he'll be able to look himself in the mirror when he is done and say, I did my best, I made decisions based on principle," CBS News quoted former Bush communications director Dan Bartlett, as saying.

"As a judicial historian looking at what's occurred on his watch, it is almost void of genuine accomplishment," said presidential historian Brinkley

"In foreign policy where he has taken so much criticism, I think the assessment of history will be surprisingly positive," said former Bush speechwriter David Frum.

"I think President Bush might very well be the worst president in U.S. history," said Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Joseph Ellis.

"He's unusual. Most two-term presidents have a mixed record. Lyndon Johnson, one of the greatest achievements in the 20th century was civil rights legislation; on the other hand you have the extraordinary tragedy of Vietnam. Even Richard Nixon opened the door to China and had foreign policy credentials. Bush has nothing on the positive side, virtually nothing," Ellis added

And that's not a minority opinion. In a 2006 Siena College survey of 744 history professors, 82 percent rated President Bush below average, or a failure.

Last April, in an informal poll by George Mason University of 109 historians, 98 percent considered him a failed president. Sixty-one percent judged him, as Ellis does, one of the worst in American history.

"The Iraq War is the defining variable because it was his decision," journalist Bob Woodward said.

"No one has the illusion that a president is commander in chief of the economy, he is not. He is commander in chief of the military, and in the end you wind up getting judged and held accountable for what you're in charge of," he added

Woodward has written four books on the Bush presidency.

Opinions vary on the impact of these and other programs, but the consensus is Bush's legacy will largely rest on one event - 9/11 - and his response to the attacks. (ANI)