Making Presidential HistoryDavid Greenberg discusses what George W. Bush's legacy will be.

Slate "History Lesson" columnist David Greenberg was online at Washingtonpost.com on Thursday, Aug. 9, to discuss how President George W. Bush hopes to shape his historical legacy—and how well that will work. An unedited transcript of the chat follows.

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New York: How can you even discuss such things before the President has even left office? I am not putting President Bush in the same league necessarily, but many great President's were mocked and scorned (Lincoln, T.R., Truman, etc.) ... history over a century later continues to define their greatness, or to some extent lessens it.

I think once all of this seething hatred subsides, and when we see ourselves in 20 years as it relates to stability in the Middle East, and the threat of Islamic terrorism we can give an honest accounting of President Bush.

All you are doing now is reworking a SNL parody with no historical relevance.

David Greenberg: Wait a second. I think you misunderstood the article, which your comment is actually in agreement with. I agree that it's premature to say with confidence what historians will think of Bush's presidency. We're always revising judgments of presidents—the latest vogue is upward revision of Bush Sr.'s reputation, which has benefited from Bush Jr.'s blunders. Personally, I think Bush has made some terrible decisions, but that's a judgment I offer merely as a political observer, not as a historian per se. I hope my article made that distinction clear.

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Minneapolis, Minn.: I like to ask my friends this speculative question, "Fifty years from now, what will be the worst thing for which Bush is remembered"? The answers have ranged from Iraq to destroying the constitution. My answer is that the Bush Presidency marks the beginning of the decline and fall of the United States. The best answer I received was "since he is getting worse every day, whatever it is, he hasn't done it yet." What do you think is his defining low point as seen 50 years from now.

David Greenberg: Again, being a historian doesn't give me any special insight into the answer to this question--except, I guess, insofar as I have a sense of how other presidents' reputations have changed. And one thing that does seem to me to be fairly consistent is that presidents who restrict civil liberties, even in wartime, are usually judged harshly for it. So most people agree that one of the worst stains on the reputation of FDR, who is widely considered a great president, is the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Likewise, Lincoln is judged harshly for the suspension of habeas corpus. These historical examples inform my feeling—which is nonetheless just a guess—that Bush will be judged most harshly for approving torture, for restricting habeas corpus, and for kindred restrictions of our liberties that he has justified as necessary to defeat terrorism.

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Richmond, Va.: Well, it is my understanding that Bush uses the "legacy" thing to justify everything he does. Over 3,550 death of American troops? over thousands and thousands of Iraqis dead? The misinformation used to impose the so-called liberty plan in Iraq? Not a problem, let the future decide if I'm right or wrong. On that specific subject, do you happen to know whether any other presidents use their legacy as part of their decision-making process (e.g., did Lincoln say slavery was bad because he believed it to be bad, or whether it would look good on his legacy)?

David Greenberg: I think it's actually quite common for presidents to believe that future generations will render a verdict on their presidencies that is more lasting or definitive than the judgments of their contemporaries. The reason is that although history is certainly "an argument without end"—we're still debating many age-old questions—time does help settle others. Even with something as recent as the civil rights movement of the 1960s, virtually everyone today believes that it was on the "right" side of history, and people who opposed, say, the 1964 Civil Rights Act will admit they were wrong. I'm hard pressed to give an example on the spot of a president who explicitly spoke of the vindication of history, but I'm confident that there are many such examples. I should add that I find it hard to imagine that future historians will see the Iraq War as a big plus in Bush's ledger, but we have to admit that we simply don't know for sure.

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Belmar, N.J.: I think the world got a great look at the President's legacy earlier today when he was asked that final question about accountability and rambled on for five minutes about Iraq being worth it. His legacy will be about trying (and, unfortunately, largely succeeding) to keep his administration above the law and never being held accountable.

My question for you is do you think the reporter would have had the courage to say "you never answered my question" if the President didn't close things out at that moment?

David Greenberg: Sure, I think it's fine for reporters to say things like that. To be fair, these press conferences are not the best way to elicit candid replies from any president. It's always easy for the president to dodge a question, and reporters don't always get to follow up. I don't think it's fair to blame reporters for not being "tough enough" on presidents in these situations, which are inherently difficult. The place for them to be aggressive is in their reporting that occurs out of the limelight.

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Chesapeake Beach, Md.: Adolf Hitler was Time Magazine's "Man of the Year" at least once. Perhaps Bush will be an outstanding historical figure for how badly he messed things up, not through malice, as Hitler, but through ideological blindness and incompetence.

David Greenberg: It certainly seems likely that Bush's presidency--particularly the September 11th attacks, the Iraq war, and all the related events--will be of great historical significance. So, yes, Bush's actions will matter and will merit close study for a long time to come.

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Boston: Would I not be correct in noting that President Bush may know history, but he did not study the lessons of the Vietnam War, except to note that one should not allow the battles and images of the dead and wounded to be shown on television? There are many differences between Iraq and Vietnam, so comparisons are not fully reasonable. Yet, hasn't President Bush failed to realize the difficulties of placing foreign troops onto native soil, the failure to realize how to fight guerrillas/militias rather than a standard armed forces foe and that the dangers of placing insufficient troops with no alternatives on how to end the war should it fail to go according to expectations?

David Greenberg: On one level, I agree with the sentiments here. Although I've written a lot in Slate and elsewhere about the dangers of drawing facile analogies between Iraq and Vietnam, Bush and his advisers do seem to have overlooked the "lessons" of Vietnam that you refer to. But maybe they concluded that the situation was different enough that those lessons wouldn't be applicable. We should remember that when we invaded Iraq in 2003, the more recent memories were of the 1991 Gulf War and what seemed then to be the successful war in Afghanistan in 2001-02. Also perhaps Panama and Grenada. What I'm getting at is that from today's vantage point, it's easy to see that certain errors are being repeated. But many people--not only Bush--believed that Vietnam had made America too reluctant to use military force and that the above examples suggested that such force could work effectively. I personally opposed the Iraq invasion, and perhaps that opposition was informed by my knowledge of Vietnam, but "history" can be used to support or oppose all kinds of policy decisions. Where one person invokes the lessons of Vietnam, another cites the lessons of Munich. We don't always know in advance who'll be right.

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Washington, D.C.:"That Bush will be judged most harshly for approving torture, for restricting habeas corpus, and for kindred restrictions of our liberties that he has justified as necessary to defeat terrorism."

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