Madam, - Charles Krauthammer delivers his judgment on George Bush's presidency in the narrow scope of a war leader, rather than as a chief executive. He draws a comparison with Harry Truman, who left office a very unpopular president because of the Korean War. But Truman's reputation rests also on the post-war world settlement achieved in 1945, the Berlin Airlift, the establishment of Nato, and the desegregation of the federal armed forces and bureaucracy - an act that presaged the Civil Rights successes of the 1960s.
George W. Bush has done nothing comparable to Truman's international and domestic achievements. Indeed, his record is overwhelmingly negative and the end of his term is clouded by financial disaster.
The strategic well-being of the United States cannot easily be separated from the stability of its financial system because war-making demands vast sums of cash. In acts of repeated folly, Bush not only ran up heavy debts with Chinese banks, thereby passing the costs of his wars on to future generations, but also cut taxes on the most wealthy people in his own country. At the time, even Senator John McCain denounced this as immoral, though he has since changed his mind.
The list of Bush follies is long - the lackadaisical response to Hurricane Katrina, the denial of global warming, the dismissal of the Geneva Conventions as a "piece of paper", the decay of Nato, the persistence with incompetent and failed subordinates such as Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzalez (the hapless attorney general), the running sore of Guantanamo; but it is surely the use of torture by his administration that will particularly dishonour the reputation of George W. Bush through future generations.
Charles Krauthammer claims the "surge" by US forces in Iraq as one of the successes of George Bush. Yet that hardly atones for the fiasco of the first three years of the occupation. In fact, Mr Krauthammer is making claims far in advance of definite evidence that Iraq is a long-term friend of the United States, rather than a regional ally of Iran. And, meanwhile, the news from Afghanistan and Pakistan, the front line Bush abandoned in order to invade Iraq, gets worse by the week.
As for the "equanimity" that Krauthammer finds so admirable in Bush, this is only the arrogance of the a morally blind and wilfully self-righteous. - Yours, etc,
TOBY JOYCE, Balreask Manor, Navan, Co Meath.