Is GWB The Worst President Of The Past 50 Years?

Stay with me con­ser­v­a­tives on this one. It’s not as bad as you think…

NPR’s Intel­li­gence Squared (iTunes — Feed — Web Site) has a rather unique for­mat. It brings Oxford-style debates to Amer­i­ca, and it fea­tures lead­ing thinkers tak­ing dif­fer­ent posi­tions on hot-but­ton issues of our day. (Get more pre­cise details on the debate for­mat here.) Recent debates have cen­tered on the fol­low­ing ques­tions: Is Wash­ing­ton or Wall Street ulti­mate­ly to blame for the finan­cial cri­sis? Should we legal­ize the mar­ket for human organs?  Is the US final­ly win­ning the war in Iraq? And then, is George W. Bush the worst pres­i­dent of the last 50 years?

The GWB debate brings togeth­er a pret­ty sol­id pan­el. Argu­ing against the Bush lega­cy: Jacob Weis­berg (Edi­tor in Chief of Slate) and Simon Jenk­ins (colum­nist for the Guardian and the Sun­day Times). Then, for the Bush lega­cy: Karl Rove (the all impor­tant Bush strate­gist) and Bill Kris­tol (edi­tor of The Week­ly Stan­dard and for­mer colum­nist for The New York Times). As you’ll see, it’s a pret­ty spir­it­ed con­ver­sa­tion. Have a lis­ten and let us know where you come down: iTunes — Feed — Stream.

As a quick note, the Intel­li­gence Squared pod­cast can be per­ma­nent­ly found in our Ideas & Cul­ture Pod­cast Col­lec­tion.