The dedication of the George W. Bush library gives loyalists of the former president a chance to highlight what they see as the positive legacy of his eight years in office.

But even among supporters there is a sense he’ll never be given historical vindication.

Former White House press secretary Ari Fleisher told NBC News: “I’m increasingly doubtful, just because I think the lens of history is not changing. A lot of us used to say President Bush will look good and he’ll be vindicated in the public eye. But realistically speaking, I don’t see a lot of the people who write history all of a sudden changing their mind about George W. Bush.”

As Jill Lawrence points out, the polling of historians seems to back this up.

Nearly 60 percent of the historians and political scientists in a 2006 Siena College survey rated Bush’s presidency a failure and two-thirds said he did not have a realistic chance of improving his standing.

A 2010 Siena ranking of presidential scholars rated Bush as one of the nation’s five worst presidents. A similar 2009 C-SPAN ranking put Bush in the bottom eight.

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