Posted on 04/23/2013 5:17:04 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
It took less than 4 1/2 years of the Obama presidency for President George W. Bush to mount his comeback. While doing absolutely nothing on his own behalf (he’s been the most silent ex-president in my lifetime), his approval is up to 47 percent according to The Post/ABC poll. That’s up 14 points from his final poll in office. For comparison’s sake President Obama’s RCP average is a tad over 49 percent.
Why the shift? Aside from the “memories fade” point, many of his supposed failures are mild compared to the current president (e.g. spending, debt). Unlike Obama’s tenure, there was no successful attack on the homeland after 9/11. People do remember the big stuff — rallying the country after the Twin Towers attack, 7 1/2 years of job growth and prosperity, millions of people saved from AIDS in Africa, a good faith try for immigration reform, education reform and a clear moral compass.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
This is the Washington Post setting the stage for Jeb Bush in 2016. Jeb Bush, a sure-fired RINO loser to just about anything the DNC will put up.
Senator Taft would have vetoed every damn bill Congress sent him to do with the housing market and propping up Freddie and Fannie for years and years.
He would have actively worked against what was going on and shown leadership. Bush just coasted along for 8 years until everything collapsed.
The only good thing is it all collapsed while he was still president so the captain went down with the ship like Titanic.
I dont think the history books will be too kind to him.
If you think the Bush collapse was bad Obama won’t get as lucky and will see his own collapse before his term is out.
Then we can have a proper conservative leader to pick up the pieces.
Hopefully we can get rid of Boehner too. Another big government conservative fraud.
The media is now rallying around Bush, because they know Hillary will crush Jeb like a bug in 2016.
Thankfully Jeb has no chance to win the nomination.
Not when we have actual conservatives to choose from.
You’re being lied to. There is no way TARP could be payed back. The money doesn’t exist.
The media picked the last GOP nominee, what makes you think they won’t do it again.
He was President, not dictator. The Dems had enough votes to block any action proposed by the GOP.
Well I knew it would end in a disaster and i’m glad everything collapsed on his watch to ruin his legacy.
Very interesting that you want Bush to take the fall for it, even though you acknowledge the Dems part in it.
He made it worse of course by bailing out Wall Street and sending Paulson to Congress to tell us the world would end if a few investment banks went down.
I'll grant that he let the Dems walk all over him after they won control of Congress, and his "reaching across the aisle" helped give them Congress. Although I don't blame him for the collapse, this is a big reason why I agree with "No New Bushes".
well, like I said, Bush Derangement Syndrome. Like you claim, it’s when liberals think........yadda yadda yadda.
It’s Bush Derangement Syndrome. As I asked, why are any of you so upset? You got what you wanted, the defeat of Mitt Romney and John McCain. You should be dancing in the streets.
He appears as a decent man and he is in his person, but he was an awful President and his wife is liberal to the core.
American conservatives can do better and must not repeat allowing a RINO clan like the Bush family be in positions of leadership and power.
We elected him because we couldn’t stomach Gore and we were somehow persuaded that Bush was a Texas conservative and different from his father.
We elected him as an incumbent against Kerry because we had great hopes that if we gave him a Republican House and Senate, that he would be able to do the critical reforms the country needed. He squandered what we gave him.
And when it came to McCain and Romney, we’d had enough and we witnessed RINOs taking over the GOP and making themselves the GOP establishment.
Bush, a nice man and awful President except for terrorism where he gave full sway to the military brass and our intelligence services. And they performed superbly.
But Bush gave full sway to Wall St. greed as well and look at what they wrought.
Bush liked to find agreeable people and put things on auto-pilot.
Our military performed well under Bush because they are patriotic.
Our financial markets under Bush were devastated as greed had license to steal and laid scam upon scam at the foot of lower class Americans. Bush’s auto-pilot approach to the bankers and the Wall St. traders was a disaster of historical proportions.
What an outrageous theft perpetrated on the American people, and how sad that some of us believe the lies of recovery being told.
He took a balanced budget and ran a deficit every year of his presidency.
I was mad year after year because im a fiscal hawk.
I’m also a big fan of Senator Taft so how do you think I felt seeing this guy on TV telling the world we’re invading a nation that never attacked America and was 6,000 miles away?
I was so happy it all collapsed on his watch. In fact I had a huge party.
Yeah they should have ignored a bank run. /s
No way. Denny Hastert was a hack of the worst sort. Took earmarks to a new level,spent money like he hated it and saddled us with ethanol. Bonier his much better .
Since 1997, when Fannie and Freddie became GSEs, publicly owned but operating under Congressional oversight, and outside the authority of the Executive Department, exactly what would a President Taft have done that President Bush didn't do?
He left office with a 27% approval.
Absolutely pathetic and well deserved.
Now hopefully we will have a new generation of conservatives determined to actually shut down Federal agencies rather than create them (DHS? TSA?).
Leaders who actually know how to run a government and hand off to a successor... the last good one was Reagan.
The executive has never recognized any limits on its authority for decades.
He could have done something. He didn’t.
He could have let Wall street collapse instead of bailing them out.
How’s that? Taft would have let them all go bankrupt! HAH!
Boehner is pathetic. All he does is pass continuing resolutions and fund Obama’s bloated government.
A proper leader would shut the whole thing down.
But he won’t do that because he’s ... pathetic.
It was either tarp or a run. I have connected friends at Merrill and they pulled out as t cash as they could. You may have walked up to your arm and nothing without tarp.
The entire system is flawed and corrupt. It needed to be reset. We got our “fix” and now we are left with what will be decades of malaise.
Shutting it down would be political suicide in this economy.
It might make you feel good but would be devastating for millions. A phirric victory to be sure .
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.