Best Defense
Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

Bush bashing: time for Tom to let it go?

A thoughtful reader of this blog advises me to drop the Bush bashing. He thinks it is unseemly and looks like a sop to my leftist readers (do you hear me over there in the amen corner?) His heart is in the right place, and so I promised to think on his note. I have. ...

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U.S. President George W. Bush holds a news conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House January 12, 2009 in Washington, DC. Bush fielded questions during what could be his last news conference at president of the United States before President-elect Barack Obama is sworn in on January 20.

A thoughtful reader of this blog advises me to drop the Bush bashing. He thinks it is unseemly and looks like a sop to my leftist readers (do you hear me over there in the amen corner?)

His heart is in the right place, and so I promised to think on his note. I have. But what I keep coming back to is this: I think President Bush’s decisions were so disastrous that we will be paying for them for years, particularly with Iraq. So I am inclined to keep pointing out the costs of what may have been the worst set of foreign policy decisions ever made. But I’d like to hear from readers: Is it time to put a moratorium on exploring why Bush may have been the worst president? Best post on this wins a free signed copy of any one of my books. If you’ve already got the complete set, then you can have my extra copy of Alistair Horne’s The Price of Glory

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1

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