How the Bush presidency will be remembered

What happened

President Bush said Tuesday that with a little “less politics” on Capitol Hill he should be able to reach a deal with Congress on helping Americans avoid foreclosure. (Reuters) Bush also said that, as his time in office nears an end, he favors diplomacy over force to curb Iran's nuclear program, and remains committed to reviving the stalled Doha Round global trade talks. (The Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire blog)

What the commentators said

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President Bush “has spent us deep in a hole, gotten us into a disastrous war, blithely ignored the long-term best interests of the country,” said Garrison Keillor in Salon, and our children will pay for his mistakes. For the sake of 10-year-olds everywhere, I hope the next occupant of the White House is “a better president than the disgusting incompetent we've wasted eight years of our national life on.”

You know who’ll really be glad when Bush is gone? said Mark Davis in The Dallas Morning News. Kim Jong-Il, Hugo Chavez, and the “terrorists and their millions of fans” in the Middle East. Soon “the devil George W. Bush will no longer be there to impede their goals.”

Bush's reputation is far from sealed, said Jonah Goldberg in National Review Online. He’ll look good if Iraq becomes a successful democracy, and bad if it turns into another Lebanon. The irony is that if Barack Obama wins and has a successful presidency, he’ll help make “Bush’s memoir a success story.”

“The end is near,” said Hartford Courant columnist Jim Shea in The Philadelphia Inquirer, “but there is still plenty of damage ‘The Decider’ could do in his last six months.” Fortunately, Bush doesn’t seem fully engaged, and that’s a good thing. “Maybe the best course at this point is to just let sleeping presidents lie.”