Agency report 
 
Albany, May 2: If his presidency ended now, Republican President George W Bush would go down in history as a failure, according to a majority of US college history and political science professors surveyed nationwide.
And, 67 per cent of the 744 professors responding to the survey conducted by Siena College's Research Institute said they doubted Bush "has a realistic chance of improving his rating" during his remaining time in office.

"While time is needed to fairly and accurately gauge how well any president ranks with his predecessors, Bush starts with a ranking that could hardly be lower," said Thomas Kelly, professor emeritus of American studies at Siena.

The Bush standing among the college professors has, like his public opinion poll ratings, dropped dramatically since the days immediately following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the problems in the wake of the invasion of Iraq.

In Siena's 2002 ranking of all the nation's 42 presidents (Grover Cleveland was president on two separate occasions), Bush came in mid-pack at No 23, one spot behind his father.

"That was shortly after 9/11," said Douglas Lonnstrom, a statistics professor and director of Siena's research institute. "Clearly, the professors do not think things have gone well for him in the past few years."

Lonnstrom noted the professors surveyed are those who "teach college students today and will write the history of this era tomorrow."

Of those professors responding to the survey, which was sent in February to history and political science departments at 2,800 colleges and universities, 58 per cent said that if the Bush presidency were to end now, it would rate a failure while 24 per cent said it would rate "below average".