Condoleezza Rice and Laura Bush were on television this weekend telling us that history will vindicate the president. The legacy project at work.
Unfortunately, this isn't impossible. History has obfuscated a lot of really awful things. How often is "genocide" used to describe America's post-Revolution policy towards the Indians? Hardly ever. And most Americans think we won the War of 1812. We were totally crushed by the British.
Crazier things than the vindication of George W. Bush have surely happened. But between decades of Bush foreign policy blowback, along with documentary evidence via the blogotubes, as well as the polled consensus, it's very very unlikely that President Bush's reputation will improve in any significant way -- certainly not, as they're hoping, like Truman's reputation. Though there will be an effort to do so.