Posted on 09/16/2010 5:06:44 AM PDT by Kaslin
Former President George W. Bush left office with the lowest approval ratings since Richard Nixon. In reaction, for nearly two years President Barack Obama won easy applause by prefacing almost every speech on his economic policies with a "Bush did it" put-down.
But suddenly Bush seems OK. Last week, the president did the unthinkable: He praised Bush for his past efforts to reach out to Muslims. Vice President Joe Biden went further and blurted out, "Mr. Bush deserves a lot of credit." Biden topped that off with, "Mr. President, thank you."
Even liberal pundits have now called on Bush to help Obama diffuse rising tensions over the so-called Ground Zero mosque and Arizona's illegal immigration law.
What's going on?
For one thing, recent polls show an astounding rebound in the former president's favorability -- to the extent that in the bellwether state of Ohio, voters would rather still have Bush as president than Obama by a 50-42 margin. Nationwide, Obama's approval ratings continue to sink to near 40 percent -- a nadir that took years for Bush to reach. It has become better politics to praise rather than to bury Bush.
Iraq seems on the road to success, with a growing economy and a stabilizing government. Don't take my word on that; ask Vice President Biden. He recently claimed that the way Iraq is going, it could become one of the Obama administration's "greatest achievements." Obama himself seconded that when the former war critic called the American effort in Iraq "a remarkable chapter" in the history of the two countries.
Then there are the growing comparisons with Bush's supposed past transgressions. Compared to Obama, they're starting to look like traffic tickets now. Take the economy and the war on terror. Americans were angry at the Bush-era deficits. But they look small after Obama trumped them in less than two years.
For six years of the Bush administration, Americans enjoyed a strong economy. So far, there hasn't been a similar month under Obama. Bush had a one-time Wall Street meltdown, but Obama's permanent big-government medicine for it seems far worse than the original disease.
If Hurricane Katrina showed government ineptness, so did the recent BP oil spill. Maybe such problems in the Gulf were neither Bush nor Obama's fault alone, but are better attributed to the inept federal bureaucracy itself -- or to freak weather and human laxity.
On the war on terror, Obama has dropped all the old campaign venom. Bush's Guantanamo Bay detention facility, renditions, tribunals, intercepts, wiretaps, predator drone attacks, and policies in Afghanistan and Iraq are no longer dubbed a shredding of the Constitution. All are now seen as national security tools that must be kept, if not expanded, under Obama.
In comparison to Obama and his gaffes, Bush no longer seems the singular clod whom his opponents endlessly ridiculed. The supposedly mellifluent Obama relies on the teleprompter as if it were his umbilical cord. His occasional word mangling (he pronounced "corpsman" as "corpse-man") and weird outbursts (he recently complained that opponents "talk about me like a dog") remind us that the pressures of the presidency can make a leader sometimes seem silly.
Bush now seems cool because he has played it cool. The more Obama and Biden have trashed him, the more silent and thus magnanimous he appears. Bush's post-presidency is not like that of Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton -- both have criticized their successors and hit the campaign trail -- but similar to that of his father, who worked with, rather than harped about, Bill Clinton. That graciousness not only has helped George W. Bush in the polls, but it finally seems to be mellowing out Obama as well.
Criticism of Bush got out of hand the last few years of his term. Writing novels or making documentaries about killing the president, or libeling him as a Nazi, is not the sort of politics that we want continued during the Obama years. So it makes sense before the general election to halt the endless blame-gaming, before what goes around comes around.
The frenzy of Bush hatred and Obama worship that crested in the summer of 2008 is over. We now better remember the Bush at Ground Zero with a megaphone and his arm around a fireman than the Texan who pronounced "nuclear" as "nucular." Meanwhile, hope-and-change now seems to offer little hope and less change.
America woke up from its 2008 trance and is concluding that Bush was never as bad, and Obama never as good, as advertised.
I was talking about W.
Obama cut the seat belt, removed the front bumper, drained the brake fluid and put the
I’ll also take the opportunity to disagree with your characterization of SoL. He (I assume he) mostly has well reasoned posts. In politics, however we may deny it, the personal often shades our political opinions.
I like GWB. To me he’s an honorable man. I’ve raked him over the coals hard for his obvious shortcomings - some of them egregious, like amnesty - when deserved. But he never became so odious to me that he crossed that line into a complete failure, at least in my mind.
But to those who don’t have a personal affection for Bush as I do, it’s easy to focus solely on those shortcomings, which were very real, and argue that those are his legacy. That position is at least as legit as those who have rose-colored glasses regarding his presidency.
History will judge him somewhere in between, I reckon.
I voted for Bush twice because I loathed the thought of Al Gore or John F'ing Kerry being President. I ended up voting for McCain for similar reasons. In the 2008 North Carolina primary, I voted for Alan Keyes, not because of black guilt, but because he was McCain's only opponent left.
But remember, your reasoned comments about W has now made you a 'Bush cool-aid drinker' too in sol's eyes.
p.s. I do appreciate your comments on the thread. You did not have to do so.
Riddle me this - “Why did George Soros piss away so much of his fortune in losing to George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004?”
RE :”I’d take her (Palin) over Carter, or his 1/2 black, 1/2 baked protege in a NY minute, if that’s what you’re asking”
That is great news. Palin 2012!
I always thought it was peddle to the metal as in pushing the gas peddle all the way to the floor board.
Pedal to the metal.
That doesn’t look right, darn synonyms.
You can claim none of it was Bush's fault, but democrats will claim it was not Carter's, that he inherited problems.
thanks pissant...there are personal opinions that are valid on both sides...most of which will be used to paint ‘history’...
Yeah, and similarly the best way to deal with “Bush bashers” is to ignore them. That goes for the ones who feel the constant need to trash those who “speak” on here about the things he did right! Those of you who feel the constant need to tell Bush supporters what we can say or not say about him.
Is this still a free “Free Republic”, or is it the sanctuary for the “Bush bashers” only? Please, we do know who you are and how you stand on here. We “Bush-bots” really don’t need to be constantly reminded, thank you!
P.S. Oh and unless the owner says he doesn’t want us here, we aren’t going to let you intimidate us leave. We “Bush-bots” do have a right to “speak” on here too!
That is not a conclusion I’m interested in settling for, as you well know.
That photo always evokes a tear.
He looks alike a papa defending one of his own.
There were a lot of things W did that I didn’t like, mostly economic.
And his “religion of peace” comment was made in utter ignorance of the facts about Mohammed and his twisted, savage death cult.
But I love the man, and I never doubted his love for his country.
See response #113 to my post.
Am I going to respond?
Naaah. It will aggrevate them more if I don’t.
Well, it was actually something a very drunk stranger said one night while a group of us were camping out.
It made such perfect sense at the time.
Sorry you didn’t get the memo. LOL!
Just a very local colloquialism.
Camping out? Would that be deer camp? :D
Very insightful. I didn’t like some of President Bush’s decisions - Medicare Prescriptions, sort-of-amnesty, but I never doubted his love for America and his determination to do the right thing.
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