This is a very interesting, in depth analysis of Bush’s presidency by Sean Wilentz. It appears in the May 4 RollingStone magazine. The article isn’t available online yet, but will be soon. I’ll include the link here when it is posted.

Bush is compared to James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson and Herbert Hoover. All three are generally acknowledged as the biggest failures to inhabit the White House.

Calamitous presidents, faced with enormous difficulties – Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Hoover and now Bush – have divided the nation, governed erratically and left the nation worse off. In each case, different factors contributed to the failure: disastrous domestic policies, foreign-policy blunders and military setbacks, executive misconduct, crises of credibility and public trust. Bush, however is one of the rarities in presidential history: He has not only stumbled badly in every one of the key areas, he has also displayed a weakness common among the greatest presidential failures – an unswerving adherence to a simplistic ideology that abjures deviation from dogma as heresy, thus preventing any pragmatic adjustment to changing realities. (emphasis mine) Repeatedly, Bush has undone himself, a failing revealed in each major area of presidential performance.

The article gives a very detailed examination of Bush’s propensity for failure and is a must read.