O veredicto da história Bush gosta de dizer que o veredicto da história sobre a sua presidência apenas virá longos anos após a sua morte. Mas, mais uma vez, o jornalista Dan Froomkin, na sua coluna White House Watch de terça feira, afirma que, longe de esperar que o seu cadáver esteja frio, o veredicto já existe mesmo antes de Bush deixar a Casa Branca. Num retrato cru, digno de ser lido, afirma entre muitas outras coisas, o seguinte: He took the nation to a war of choice under false pretenses - and left troops in harm's way on two fields of battle. He embraced torture as an interrogation tactic and turned the world's champion of human dignity into an outlaw nation and international pariah. He watched with detachment as a major American city went under water. He was ostensibly at the helm as the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression took hold. He went from being the most popular to the most disappointing president, having squandered a unique opportunity to unite the country and even the world behind a shared agenda after Sept. 11. He set a new precedent for avoiding the general public in favor of screened audiences and seemed to occupy an alternate reality. He took his own political party from seeming permanent majority status to where it is today. And he deliberately politicized the federal government, circumvented the traditional policymaking process, ignored expert advice and suppressed dissent, leaving behind a broken government. O texto é longo. mas vale a pena lê-lo com atenção, já que a coluna faz uma recolha das mais variadas opiniões a respeito do “bicho”.