Is George Bush the worst US president ever?

He's been described as such by fellow candidate for the title, Jimmy Carter. So has Bush left the country in a better or worse state than he found it in? And what of his 'adverse impact' on other countries?

"You know how bad things have got when Jimmy Carter's critique of your presidency is taken seriously," says Gerard Baker in The Times. Last week, the 82-year-old former US president attacked the current one during an interview with an Arkansas newspaper, saying that "as far as the adverse impact on the nations around the world" go, George Bush's administration had been the "worst in history". Being told by Carter that you're the worst president in history is "like being told by William McGonagall that your poetry stinks".

The avalanche of comment caused by Carter's words "irate and delighted" shows this argument is one "people want to have", says Christopher Caldwell on FT.com. "Is Bush the worst president in American history?" Carter himself finished as a "calamitous failure", but it looks like Bush will join him "on the bottom rung". To judge whether a president has failed is to ask whether he has left the country in "a better or worse shape than when he found it". By this measure, it would take a real turn-up to rescue Bush from a "dismal" verdict. Other presidents have drawn America into ill-advised wars, but Bush's in Iraq has been "particularly rich in unintended consequences" most worryingly, an Iran "bent on acquiring nuclear weapons".

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