You can count on S.E. to have a couple good points.
Posted on 05/15/2018 3:06:53 PM PDT by Signalman
In February 2010, just about a full year after Barack Obama took office, a series of billboards mysteriously popped up along Interstate 35 in a town called Wyoming, Minn.
They showed a photo of a waving President George W. Bush, flashing a cheeky grin, above copy that said, "Miss me yet?"
The meme quickly caught on and soon plastered car rear bumpers, T-shirts and posters.
But despite the viral spread of "Miss me yet?" merchandise, it turned out that the answer was decidedly: No. America, by and large, did not miss President Bush yet.
He left office with a 33 percent favorability rate, according to Gallup. By the time the billboards were up in 2010, it had only recovered to the mid-40s.
But in the years since, Bush has nearly doubled his popularity. A CNN poll from January 2018 has his approval at 61 percent. In just the two years since Trump became the Republican nominee for President, that number has climbed six points.
A new report by Roxanne Roberts in the Washington Post explores some of the reasons for the newfound admiration, including the simple benefit of time, a reconciling of the complexities of the Iraq War, and the fact that Bush has remained fairly quiet in the years since leaving the White House.
"Time has done the reputation of President Bush a lot of good," says Fred Kempe, president of the Atlantic Council, which recently awarded Bush the Distinguished International Leadership Award. "[T]he longer time goes on and his presidency is reassessed, the better he looks."
Of course, it could be argued that the "Miss me yet?" meme could be revived in the wake of Trump, as more and more Democrats are discovering their untapped affection for their former enemy. According to a January 2018 CNN report, "most of Bush's climb back to popularity came from Democrats and Independents." Among Democrats, his favorability in February of 2009 was a mere 11 percent. It is now at 54 percent.
I know I'll be called establishment for this, but after almost a year and a half of Trump's antics -- his tweets, his bullying, his lies, his lack of intellectual curiosity, his brittle inability to withstand scrutiny, his angry, uninformed blurting, his hostility toward valued Democratic institutions -- it's hard not to miss Bush.
You can hold Bush accountable for his policy decisions -- and criticize his decision to invade Iraq -- while acknowledging that Americans didn't know just how good they had it at the time when many decided Bush was evil incarnate.
And now, the differences stand in stark relief.
There are the little things. Bush could laugh at himself. His self-deprecating sense of humor was famously disarming. He wasn't too proud to take a joke, nor was he punitive about jokes at his expense.
And while he could be pointed, he was never mean. A universe away from berating a war hero or mocking a disabled journalist, the meanest Bush ever got was in his penchant for awarding nicknames to everyone in his orbit, from "Hurricane Karen" for adviser Karen Hughes, to "Pootie Poot" for Vladimir Putin.
As Sen. Roy Blunt says of his friend, then as much as now, he is "a person who doesn't have to be critical of everybody else, a person who understands how big these problems are, a person who just has a sense of the right way to conduct yourself as a former president."
While W. could range from inartful to inarticulate at times -- his gaffes are infamous -- Trump makes a daily virtue of his own ignorance and insists anyone who points out his willful ignorance is "establishment." When it's clear Trump is wrong, rather than admit or correct it, he simply calls the correction fake news. That habit has trickled down to his communications shop and surrogates, and it's an embarrassing display.
Perhaps more importantly, Bush was "America Best," not "America First." He was hugely patriotic and optimistic about America's role in the world, but not in service of denigrating other cultures or parts of the world. His tremendous commitment to the international AIDS crisis was, for him, an opportunity to help developing nations while elevating America's leadership.
Upon receiving an award last week, he said "I'd really like to dedicate it to the generosity of the American people and ask you to spread the word about what this great compassionate nation has done."
I was long a Bush supporter, but 2007 me could hardly imagine a world in which he would be honored by a bipartisan think tank and receive three standing ovations.
But in 2018, with Trump as a backdrop, it's no wonder we are increasingly open to reimagining Bush's historic "awfulness," and remembering how he wasn't so bad, after all.
Nope. Missed him zero when he left office, and miss him zero now. Speaking of zero, it sure was nice of Bush to stay silent during 2009-2016, and then reveal his globalist socialist Bush colors starting in 2017. Not that it makes any difference to many of us now. The man was a disaster, and arguably only a sliver better than Gore would ever have been. Next, maybe we will see him in photo ops with ole Albert? He appears positively giddy in photo ops with the Clintons and Obama’s.
Is SE Cupp actually suggesting that polls and ratings of a president out of power and term limited are in any way relevant?
What does she think about Millard Fillmore?
Awwww, the pretentious little twerp judges presidents on their “niceness”.
Off to your Safe Space, little girl. The grownups have work to do.
George THE PUNCHING BAG Bush was like a human piñata for any slime bag that wanted to hit him.
Another useless politician completely out of touch with hard-working Americans.
Yea that is the same logic that gave us GWB.
“People regret not voting for Bush41 so lets run another Bush in 2000”
The dynasty of the Bush Family is dead along with Clinton and Kennedy Families.
You can count on S.E. to have a couple good points.
GWB was a wimp. The one thing that stands out to me is during a SOTU message was he wanted to run American cars/truck on saw grass. Saw grass. Under Trump we’re now an oil exporting country.
Hell NO!
This whole article looks as if it were written by Karl Rove.
You know, the guy who looks like the love child of Newt Gingrich and Miss Piggy.
Rove did have one thing right though: The “party base” would salivate like Pavlovian Dogs when a candidate mentioned the words “God, Guns, Gays, Abortion”, without even having to state his or her views on that subject.
Since that time the base has woken up. Even Pavlovian dogs will bite when sufficiently provoked.
Back to subject though, i’m glad this dizzy b!+C# is no longer calling herself a Libertarian. Our party has enough dead weight to get rid of, starting with Gary Johnson and the Koch Brothers.
Did anyone else want to slap those legs off the table and tell her to get some respect back in her TV news days?
He was in essence Obama’s enabler.
I remember when GWB said his wars in Afghanistad and Iraq would not be “another Vietnam”.
He wanted to go to Mars, apparently on some kind of grass too.
lol
I don’t miss him in the slightest and I would imagine I am joined by many of the 6000 fine young Americans killed in his poorly thought out wars. He was a flop by any measure; Trump has been a tremendous success.
That’s why you work at CNN sweetey
A Republican Carter.
W. Was obsessed with Iraq war. Did nothing for our economy. He did pay attention to what was going on in the USA.
Bush was a globalist traitor who let in countless millions of Mexicans, and around 800,000 Moslems. He was nothing but Obama and Clinton with traditional Americana packaging.
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And the DUFUS dubbed Islam “the Religion of Peace”.
Here you go:
Answer: NO!
Finally, we have a REAL Republican president, not some embarrassing tongue-tied dork who couldn't defend his own viewpoints. He let the MSM walk all over him, again and again and again. It was disgusting.
Bush even refused to pardon Scooter Libby, convicted by leftists in a political show trial. It was beyond Bush to stand up for a member of his team.
Trump specializes in winning. Bush specialized in losing, and smiling his insipid little smile when he lost.
Go away, George. Stay away.
He seemed a decent man. I like him where he is: A fading memory.
Gore or Kerry might have spared US the Kenyanesian Usurpation.
That's too harsh, and I retract it. He deserves credit for winning his war in Iraq, and a few other things.
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