Rush to Judgment: George W. Bush, the War on Terror, and His Critics

Stephen F. Knott is agitated by claims that George W. Bush was the worst president in American history. His book is as much an attack on liberal scholars who have rushed to judgment about the forty-third president as it is a defense of the Bush presidency. His main point is that historians who should know better have failed to see that “Bush conducted the War on Terror in a manner consistent with the principles and practices of the framers of the Constitution and of his presidential predecessors” (p. 2). The most interesting chapter is entitled “Bush's Role Models.” Knott believes that a key reason why liberal historians and commentators hate Bush stems from his alleged abuse of executive power. After noting that the Constitution itself may have been “an act of lawlessness,” Knott succinctly outlines the attitudes of Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy regarding the use of executive power in the face of national emergencies (p. 22). He shows that their penchant for secrecy, their sensitivity to criticism, and, most of all, their concern for the survival of the Republic in the face of peril justified extralegal actions. Quoting Jefferson, Knott observes that the rule of law is “one of the high duties of a good citizen” but is not nearly as important as “self-preservation” (p. 24).