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This Bush is not like his father at all and he has evidently learned from his mistakes. The elder Bush's downfall was that he was never a likeable guy. Certainly he was a proper, dignified man who served his country well. But he was perceived as being rather elitish, goofy, too "Ivy League". In sort, a preppie. Men ridiculed him for being a wimp (ironically Bush was far from a wimp as his service in WW2 points out). Women found him very stiff and formal, even patronizing. The elder Bush had the good fortune to run against somebody even dorkier then him (Mike Dukakis), otherwise, he might never have been elected president at all. Despite all of that, Bush still might have beaten Clinton in 1992 had he not backed down on his "no new taxes" pledge. This was the one thing that brought Bush down. Conservatives felt betrayed and abandoned him in droves. Then Perot came along and tapped into that mood. Most of Perot's votes came from disaffected 1988 Bush voters who felt that they could trust no politician from the two major parties again.

Breaking that "no new taxes" pledge was the worst thing to happen to the Republican party since Richard Nixon decided to stonewall and obstruct with Watergate. It was devastating to the party and Clinton got eight years to drag this country into the gutter.

The younger Bush is so different from the father that if they didn't look so much alike, one might be tempted to ask for a DNA test to prove it. Unlike his father, GWB is likeable in a "down-home" kind of way. You don't get those preppy "Ivy-League" vibes from GWB at all. Furthermore, when GWB speaks, he means it. He's got integrity. People trust him. He will never go back on an important campaign pledge like his father did, especially since he knows all too well the consequences of doing so.

So while it is true that the elder Bush had sky-high ratings during the Persian Gulf crisis, those ratings were short-lived and a direct result of the war and they plummetted as a direct result of the economy. Here we are over a year after GWB's historic moment (9/11) and his popularity is just incredible. And these aren't "wartime" ratings. We haven't been engaged in battle in a major way since the beginning of this year and the economy is far worse today than it was during 1991 and 1992. These ratings (still approaching 70%) are for real. Imagine what they will be when the stock markets start soaring again and Sadaam Hussein is finally removed from power!