Ross Douthat lays out a possible scenario in which George W. Bush manages to get some revisionist cred if the economy fixes itself and the Middle East becomes reasonably stable. Those are, to my way of thinking, pretty big ifs. But I think the flaw in the argument rests in one of George W. Bush's least heralded achievements--his creation of an entire generation of Democrats--Dems who came of age during the Bush years. Dems whose baseline for conservative arrogance and incompetence will always be George W. Bush. One never forgets how to speak in one's native language, even if one lives in another nation for a great length of time, and the next generation of liberal and moderate historians and political leaders--the ones who are among the 58% who now identify themselves as Democrats and loathe George W. Bush--are unlikely to forget that in my mind.
Then again, I have a nagging suspicion that Ross might just be right. Not much of one, though. I'll put the odds of a Bush revival at about 15%. I do agree that such a prospect is not a good thing, and largely for the reasons that Ross lays out in his article: celebrating activism for the sake of activism is silly. This is why I am such a huge fan of Ross's co-partisan Dwight Eisenhower--some might look at Ike's record and ask, why's this guy so special, what'd he do? I look at it and think, my God, look at all the potentially disastrous things he didn't do!
