Rethinking George Bush?

Townhall.com ^ | September 16, 2010 | Victor Davis Hanson

[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.

[wolfcreek]

Not that time but, it HAS been repeated recent and past deer camps.

[surfer]

Bush got plenty of Soro’s money.

[death2tyrants]

I would rank Bush presidency about even with Jimmy Carter's

You are a terrorist sympathizing troll.

[death2tyrants]

Sickoflibs is one of those trolls who defends Saddam Hussein.

[Servant of the Cross]

Very interesting posting history there. Thanks for sharing.

[x]

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."

They must be going after Karl Rove's vote.

[x]

There is no such thing as a semi-Progressive.

There's always somebody who lives in a shack and wears animal skins saying that everyone else is all alike because they don't live in shacks and wear animal skins, but that doesn't mean that there aren't real differences among those other people.

People are just rationalizing Bush now because Ozero seems so bad...they really aren’t all the different just traveling at different speeds of destruction.

Sure. The world is always hurtling towards destruction. Sometimes you get it right and you can set back the clock a little. Sometimes, even with the best intentions and the right ideas, things go wrong.

I'm not a big Bush fan, but the idea that only a few hermits have got it right and everyone else is depraved or deranged looks unlikely and self-serving.

Bush made mistakes. He got things wrong. But don't tell me that if you ran the country you'd get everything right and wouldn't make any mistakes.

[surfer]

This has nothing to do with Bush getting some things right or some things wrong.

Bush is a progressive, he had a big government agenda. THAT IS THE PROBLEM.

[mkjessup]

Except for Alito and Roberts (after Myers was scrapped) there is nothing that Bush didnt screw up.

I will say in Bush's defense, that he DID restore dignity to the Oval Office, there was never a hint of any immoral sexual hijinks going on as there was during the years of Billigula, aka 'The Sink Emperor'.

Aside from that, GWB governed as a liberal Ivy league Republican, true to his New England/Connecticut roots. No fiscal responsibility, never even found his damn veto pen until 2006. And for all of the boo-yah chest thumping about that 'Axis of Evil', Bush left 2/3rds of that Axis alive and well as he left office, indeed the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea continue to advance, thanks to nothing but meaningless talk coming out of Bush's piehole about Iran, and hiding behind the useless fig leaf of those vaunted 'Six Party Talks' regarding North Korea. Once Saddam Hussein was overthrown and later executed, GWB had no further interest in the 'War on Terror' beyond pacifying Iraq which leads me to wonder if indeed, the liberation of Iraq was just a convenient reason for GWB to even the score with Saddam, who made it personal when he conspired to assassinate Poppy Bush in Kuwait years before.

Add to all of that the utter failure of the GWB administration to turn back the tide of illegals pouring across our southern border, illegals that are responsible for the daily rapes, robberies and murders of our fellow American citizens, and I say to you and to any Bush apologist, "their blood is on the hands of George W. Bush" for failing to uphold his Oath of Office. The number of Americans that have fallen victim to such foreign invaders EXCEEDS the numbers of Americans killed on 9/11.

That is GWB's legacy, and history is not going to let him run away from it.

Hope the taste from kissing Vincente Fox's ass was worth it George.

[chasio649]

Pretty much how i feel.

[mkjessup]

And the sad thing about it FRiend?

It didn't have to be that way. If GWB had been more concerned about building a true and lasting conservative legacy (of course that would have required that he BE a conservative in the first place), than his nauseating 'reach across the aisle' bullsh*t like that other stinkin' RINO John McCain, we might have avoided the current debacle with the Pretenda from Kenya.

The fact is, George W. Bush was IDEALLY positioned to question the credentials of 0bama, because if GWB was going to turn over the Oval Office to his successor, the onus was upon him to address ANY questions regarding the eligibility of that successor per Article II Section 1 of the Constitution. But he didn't. He just turned over the keys, told Comrade Zero to "enjoy the ride", and rode that RINO choo-choo right on back to Crawford Texas.

[ObamaMustGo2012]

<< I don’t want the Republican Party to engage in massive government spending.
I don’t want the Republican Party to portray itself as a bunch of compassionate people, ready to solve every problem for everyone.
If you perceive this as Bush bashing, I can’t help you. >>

So then, what you’re saying is, you don’t want another George W. Bush, aren’t you?
And what I’m saying is, neither do I.

[Deb]

Uh, oh...a positive GW article (and by my future husband, no less!), I think I’ll just hang around your posts and look at the pictures.

[bert]

What’s to rethink? He is a truly great American and was great President.

Sour grape losers have turned on him for purely selfish and some what childish reasons, but they will be overcome by history that will tell a positive story.

[publana]

Absolutely not. His globalism and sbamnesty got us the kenyan and rat control of both houses plus two moonbats in SCOTUS

[Kaslin]

Very well said

[Pelham]

There you go, introducing spelling into the conversation.
Next thing you’ll be expecting logic, too.

[Judith Anne]

My mild OCD breaking out.