Just funny–Bush approval rating now higher than Obama’s
I know it’s only a poll and I also understand in the big scheme of things it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans, but for the humor factor alone, it’s worth a post.
George W. Bush’s job approval rating as president has spiked to 47 percent, according to a Gallup poll released Monday.
That’s 1 point higher than President Barack Obama’s job approval rating in a poll taken the same week.
Of course, what’s obviously funny is that after the relentless attacks on Bush before and after the election by Obama he now leads the man by a point in job approval rating, at least temporarily. A little schadenfreude at least, no?
Of course the claim is that Bush’s problems have faded in memory and Obama’s are painfully evident and aggravated by the current situation surrounding him. Yeah, so. At one point it was Bush in that situation, but I don’t recall him trying to constantly shift blame on others. He didn’t talk about the horrible security situation he’d “inherited” from Clinton after 9/11. In fact, he rarely if ever mentioned Clinton, and if he did it was usually respectfully. Of course he was never accorded the same respect by Obama and the left.
So I can’t help but find this funny in a juvenile ‘thumb your nose at them’ kind of way as well. He and the left deserve it.
The lesson, however, is more profound. And while it may again change in Obama’s favor it is indeed one of those “teachable moments” he seems so fond of. Humility is a virtue, as is grace. They serve you well whenever you employ them. And they keep you from having to suffer those situations where you words come back to bite you on the rear end. Because by deploying them regularly, you never find yourself in those sorts of situations.
Unfortunately I doubt our current president will bother to consider any of that or learn anything from this quick snapshot of his standing. It’s just not in him to do so. But he could learn a lot about being a leader if he did – something for which he could use some lessons.
Bush’s rebound gives some credence to what he has long said — that history will eventually judge his presidency.
Indeed. But it also never hurts when your successor is a bumbling fool either.
~McQ
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I think the Democrats and the super-lefty supporters really got themselves into a big twist with continuing attacks on Bush and the current Republicans in Congress. Some people actually believed that Bush could do whatever he wanted, even when the Democrats won the House and Senate in 2006. They can’t understand why Obama cannot do whatever he wants, especially when the Democrats control the House and the Senate.
People have short memories, but not so short that they can’t compare and contrast what Bush appears to have done and what Obama appears to not be able to do. When the Democrats attack the minority of Republicans for obstructing Obama’s plans, people can remember back to only 4 years ago when Bush appeared to walk all over the (larger, but still) minority of Democrats in Congress and 2 years ago when Bush appeared to walk all over the majority of Dems in Congress.
They cannot grasp that while Bush was definitely a foreign-policy hawk, he was very much a big-government centrist when it came to internal policy. He played well with the Democrats, even when they were bad-mouthing his foreign policy decisions. Even when he took a conservative stand on issues, he played it low-key. I didn’t see him calling Democrats pushing stem-cell research evil, baby-killers. I didn’t see him attacking California for deciding to replace the lost federal research dollars with state money.*** Contrast that with how the Obama team went hard after Arizona for their immigration law.
***I’ll admit that my memory of the stem-cell research issue is kinda hazy, I’ll gracefully accept being wrong about this. Though, I’d argue the Bush ban on embryonic stem-cell research may have caused the current batch of stem-cells from all sorts of other cells discoveries.
The Bush hate is, at some level, odd. This is because he was a centrist who’s views / platform seem to me to be close to the mean.
Obviously, the rabid left hated him, simply for being a Republican (and barely beating Gore but losing the popular vote drove them nuts). The right turned on Bush for a varity of sins, including Medicare Part D, TARP, No Child Left Behind, etc.
But why did moderates turn on a centrist Republican who passed legislation with bipartisan support? Well, in part it was the corrosive effect of the MSM. In part, it was a fickle response to the Iraq war, which moderates supported when it was time to make a decision (2002) but they turned against when the decision was made and we were hip deep in war (2005-2007). If moderates had any sense, they would have fully endorsed Bush; he was after all what they want in a POTUS, excet for the nasty fact that he made real world decisions (which they agreed with) that had consequences (which they didn’t like).
The MSM could put Abu Ghraib story up for months at a time. The MSM could push the US Attorney’s story for weeks. The “grim milestone” body count stories made people very angry (rightfully, in many cases) about the handling of the Iraq war. If Bush had not pulled the rabbit out on that one, he would not be being rehabilitated now.
Strickly speaing, the war itself went well (as Erb correctly pointed out). It was the aftermath of the war, the rebuilding stages, that was messed up. But eventually Bush figured it out and made the right decisions.
I don’t see Obama learning from his mistakes the way Bush did.
***I’ll admit that my memory of the stem-cell research issue is kinda hazy, I’ll gracefully accept being wrong about this. Though, I’d argue the Bush ban on embryonic stem-cell research may have caused the current batch of stem-cells from all sorts of other cells discoveries.
A little hazy, yes. There was no ‘Bush ban’. Under bush he allowed federal funding to be used only on already extant lines; however prior to that, there was no federal funding for ESCR.
“Mission Accomplished!”
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McQ – [I]t also never hurts when your successor is a bumbling fool either.
And let’s throw in graceless, pompous and deceitful while we’re at it.
The left could never settle on whether or not Bush was a bumbling fool who couldn’t tie his own shoes or else an evil genius who snookered them whenever he felt like it. In the case of The Dear Golfer, I think “bumbling fool” is pretty much the consensus on the right… and starting to become the consensus on the left.
Actually on the right there has been a big question on what motivates obama and is he simply incompetent or ill intentioned. Neo-neocon has covered it fairly well, and the correct answer seems to be a bit of both.
The Obamacare speech where he went off topic and dissed the police is a good example of incompetent. Obama’s incompetence isn’t due to stupidity. He’s a reasonably smart guy, but he lacks leadership skills and other basic competence.
As to what motivates The Dear Golfer, it is a nasty combination of selfishness and fundamental dislike for our country and most of its institutions and traditions.
As to his competence, he is a bumbling fool. I don’t think anybody, even those of us who think of him as malignant and ill-intentioned, would consider him an “evil genius”. He’s had (unfortunately) quite a lot of success, but this has been due to a favorable environment, not his own efforts.