It's official: George is dead last in the presidential annals of Worstdom

Last week there still may have been a handful of American historians unwilling to designate George W. Bush as "Worst President." But by now, I'm sure, they're up to speed with the rest of the universe.

The last straw, so to speak? The final proof? The concluding proximate cause that pushed them over the edge and found them frenetically dropping George into President James Buchanan's dishonorable place of dead last (or undisputed first, if you prefer) in the annals of Worstdom?

Let's just say that even the hapless Mr. Buchanan of antebellum infamy would have recalled having officially disbanded a vanquished army of hundreds of thousands, and sending it home penniless, jobless, well armed and full of resentment. And had he chosen to fudge his memory of such a strategic error, he almost certainly would have come up with something more inventive, more original and far less imbecilic than, "Yeah, I can't remember."

Yet that choice quotation was precisely Mr. Bush's wretched, red-faced, hand-in-the-cookie-jar response to journalist Robert Draper's query: "if he had been taken aback by the decision, or at least by the need to abandon the original plan to keep the [Iraqi] army together."

And it was more than that -- that particular, final-straw, "can't remember" tidbit -- that surely pushed those wavering historians into honoring Mr. Bush as worst ever, hands down, bar none. It was much more; namely, the president's childlike confidence that his stroke of instant and defensive genius could stand unmolested. To wit: "Yeah, I can’t remember, I’m sure I said, 'This is the policy, what happened?'"

What happened?

"A previously undisclosed exchange of letters shows that President Bush was told in advance by his top Iraq envoy in May 2003 of a plan to 'dissolve Saddam’s military and intelligence structures,' a plan that the envoy, L. Paul Bremer, said referred to dismantling the Iraqi Army.

Mr. Bremer provided the letters to The New York Times.... In releasing the letters, Mr. Bremer said he wanted to refute the suggestion in Mr. Bush’s comment that Mr. Bremer had acted to disband the army without the knowledge and concurrence of the White House."

What's more, not only did Mr. Bush know what happened, he wrote a note to Mr. Bremer praising and condoning the latter's strategic ingenuity: "Your leadership is apparent," wrote Mr. Dead Last. "You have quickly made a positive and significant impact. You have my full support and confidence."

Unlike Mr. Bush's defensive display of incredulous incredulity, Mr. Bremer noted to the Times that "This didn’t just pop out of my head." He then further uncovered and itemized the paper trail he had strewn from Washington to Baghdad -- correspondence referencing the Iraqi army's dismantlement not only to the president, but to Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith, coalition-forces commander Lt. Gen. David McKiernan, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The Bremer/Bush/Rumsfeld plan gave pause only to Gen. McKiernan and "other American officers" on the ground -- you know, the ones whose strategic lead Mr. Bush always takes his cues from.

But today, it's all news to Mr. Bush, says he.

The topper is this: One could make a plausible argument -- not that persuasive, perhaps, but defensible -- as Paul Bremer did, that the Iraqi army's dismantlement wasn't even much of a mind-bending decision. It was already scattered. Said Mr. Bremer: "The Iraqi Army had disappeared and the only question was whether you were going to recall the army. Recalling the army would have had very practical difficulties, and it would have political consequences. The army had been the main instrument of repression under Saddam Hussein. I would go on to argue that it was the right decision. I’m not second-guessing it."

So why didn't Mr. Bush offer this simple, Trumanesque defense, rather than "can't remember"?

Equally simple. Because he's the worst president ever, hands down, bar none.

***

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Comments

[Lyle G]

Well, I had heard all my life that Warren G Harding was the worst president. It was the only thing he was remembered for. Now the poor chap has lost even that distinction.

[Mark]

Yes, I think Mr. Bush has earned that dubious distinction--made even more shameful by the fact that he has had less right to be called President than most of his predecessors. In effect, he stole the Presidency, and then he trashed it.