Rolling Stone boldly calls George W. Bush the "worst president in history" on their cover. Okay, okay, so they weren't so bold. The magazine uses the interrogative rather than the declarative. That's pretty timid. That's pretty boring. The editors lack the courage of their convictions. But is there any question what those convictions, at least regarding George W. Bush, are?

Aside from being asked about twenty years too soon, the question itself isn't terribly out of line. George W. Bush started a disastrous war, presided over a massive expansion in federal spending, abdicated his duty to protect the borders, and burdened future generations with paying for new, expensive medical entitlements. But Jimmy Carter was more inept, Lyndon Johnson more destructive, and dozens of other presidents more inconsequential (which, come to think of it, isn't a bad thing). Is George W. Bush the worst president in history? No. An affirmative answer reveals more about the respondent's knowledge of history than George W. Bush's place in it. Bush has done some good things--cut taxes, killed terrorists, appointed jurists who respect the Constitution. But the ideological rigidity of historians precludes them from recognizing any of this as positive.

More off-putting than the serious question is the silly person, and the sillier magazine, posing it. If Sean Wilentz truly is "one of America's leading historians," as Rolling Stone claims, what's he doing writing the cover story for a magazine that just last week asked on its cover: "Is Saving the World Killing Keifer Sutherland?" Forgive me for being a snob, but a celebrity magazine that's recently pondered such subjects as "Shaun White: Attack of the Flying Tomato" and "Madonna: How She Got Her Groove Back" doesn't seem the venue for one of America's leading historians. It's not. And Sean Wilentz is not.

Wilentz is a well known scholar of history, but he is well known for reasons independent of his work as a scholar. History bores Sean Wilentz. He much prefers the present to the past, which explains why he writes so much about the former and hasn't made much of a mark examining the latter, despite his ostensible profession.

In 1998, the Princeton University professor orchestrated a full-page advertisement in the New York Times defending President Clinton from the successful effort to impeach him. Signed by numerous liberal historians of note, the document lambasted what it labeled a "dangerous new theory of impeachment." Two years later, Wilentz organized a group of Americans with a less prestigious academic pedigree (Rosie O'Donnell, Paul Newman, Bianca Jagger), the Emergency Committee of Concerned Citizens 2000, to sign full-page ads opining on the Florida election controversy. "Sign," Wilentz implored in emails to liberals. "And get me as many famous names as you can to sign it by 1 p.m. TODAY. EXTREMELY URGENT." One of the ads claimed that there was "good reason to believe that Vice President Gore has been elected President," while another appeared with language that Wilentz failed to show his signatories. As far as public intellectuals go, Wilentz is more public than intellectual.

Was George W. Bush a good president? A bad president? Mediocre? These are questions that will be debated years from now by serious historians. Sean Wilentz will add his two cents as well.

Rolling Stone is one of the worst magazines in history. I wouldn't use it to line the bottom of a birdcage.

I'm glad we didn't get involved in nation building like his predecesor.

I use Rolling Stone and other magazines to line my birdcage...only if they have pictures of Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon, Martin Sheen, Sean Penn..etc...etc..

A lot of people think Rolling Stone is the worst magazine in history - so it sort of cancels out.

The problem with Mr. Flynn, like many of his supporters and fellow Republicans is their utter refusal to see G. W. Bush as exactly what he is ... a consumate opportunist, an expert in knowing how to work the "inside game" ... a man who loves phrases like "compassionate conservatism" without ever internalizing what that was supposed to mean. Bush is a man who long ago lost his moral compass, and sees the Presidency as his personal stepping stone to immortality without acknowledging that he is there to serve the interests of all Americans ... and not just those folks who have bailed him out out his whole life while flipping through his father's roladex. As one author put it " ... His entire life has been the pursuit of accommodating himself to power -- to his father, to his father's wealthy and
influential friends, and, in his current incarnation as politician, to the Democratic leaders who controlled the Texas state legislature.... " He lies as easily as he drinks water ... he spews slogans and phrases for what those words will achieve, caring little for
the real meaning behind them. Heis policies on abortion, stem-cells, and race relations, not to mention the environment are throwbacks to a time that has long ago passed. If this were, say, 1958, Bush would fit in a lot better. But this is the 21st Century, annd as long as he and his VP are in office, we will continue to move regressively, and retro in time, and fail to achieve to greatness that is America.