What do you make of Bush's statement, "Whatever the verdict on my presidency, I'm comfortable with the fact that I won't be around to hear it."?

Oh… it says “he believes it will be decades before a judgement on his presidency can be rendered.”

Too quick on the trigger, it seems. My apologies.

Similar to this from 2004 – ‘Asked by [journalist Bob] Woodward how history would judge the [Iraq] war, Bush replied: “History. We don’t know. We’ll all be dead.”’ link

I don’t understand what is wrong with that statement.

bush doesn’t read or watch t.v. or listen to people…. ect…. so he will never know how people rate his presidency… So I guess it is true

I guess at that time he will no longer be around to hear it will finally be “Mission Accomplished”.

I would speculate that he either has a terminal illness and his doctors have estimated that he has only a certain number of years to live, or, what is most likely the case, what I think is the more reasonable thing to believe is that he understands, and rightly so, that it could take decades for scholars, historians and history itself to sort out and fully understand the legacy and impact and consequences that his presidency and his administrations policies have had on the country and the world.

In history, it’s generally accepted that at least 50 years must pass before an event or presidency can be accurately assessed, in order to factor out emotional bias.

It means he’s going to be raptured up on a white cloud soon. Duh.

But in all seriousness, he probably means that historians for the next twenty or thirty + years will judge him harshly, but later historians (after he is dead) will vindicate his actions within a larger historical context. This has been a running theme with Bush and his supporters.

It means that he is not open to hearing what history or anyone else says about his presidency. He will take the ultimate out: he will be dead.

Well of course its odd, consider the source. I just hope he never has a moment of epiphany. I’m still reeling from George Wallace’s, and he’s been dead for years. George Bush is the perfect representative of what went down for the eight years of his administrations. Lest we forget.

Actually George Bush isn’t an Evil, Hurtful, sadistic or even Unpleasant man, but his Presidential career was truly unforgivable; diplomatically, economically and domestically. Even the right wing press in Europe and the whole of the English speaking world couldn’t but cringe. People made the mistake of assuming he was far more Evil that he was though, despite all the international outrage.

Time to move on, i hope we have all learnt that Republican neoconservative Politics is the foulest ideology ever to befall the human race. bring on the Tea Party…perhaps his reputation will improve next to theirs.

@mammal, People made the mistake of assuming he was far more Evil that he was though, despite all the international outrage.

I concur

Why oh Why couldn’t we at least of got Colin Powell.

I’m just surprised he got all the words in the right order…

Not really odd. Nobody likes to be told that they did a poor job, especially when they didn’t necessarily do a poor job.
Yes, I know that a lot of you think that he did. I know that a lot of other people – likely people with whom you would be quick with the spurious asperations – think that he wasn’t really all that bad.

I think that if history is good in the future, they will say that he was unpopular. Even though I dislike him, if history books got biased enough to call people idiots, I would be pretty surprised.

Either that or he’s hinting that he will take over the world someday and history will praise him muahahahahaa!

This statement perfectly reflects his attitude during his presidency as well. He never gave a shit what Americans thought of him or his actions. This is the main characteristic of arrogance. He apparently didn’t give a shit what we would say when it became obvious that we were lied to about WMDs in Iraq, which he knew from the beginning didn’t exist. He obviously didn’t give a shit what we would say when he allowed us to join that wonderful club of nations that torture their prisoners. Renditions. The Patriot Act. Or, in his last act of scorched earth policy when he signed off on the bailouts which drained what was left in the US Treasury into the pockets of the corporate predator class on Wall Street – his class. So, why should this great patriot give a shit what we think now or in the future? Mission Accomplished.