See? He Wasn't So Bad

George W. Bush left office with the lowest approval rating since Richard Nixon, while Obama took over with stratospheric numbers. But then a funny thing happened: “America woke up from its 2008 trance and is concluding that Bush was never as bad, and Obama never as good, as advertised,” writes Victor Davis Hanson of the National Review. Bush’s favorability ratings have soared—Ohio, for example, would now prefer him to Obama by a 50-42 margin.

“In comparison with Obama and his gaffes, Bush no longer seems the singular clod whom his opponents endlessly ridiculed,” Hanson argues. Obama, too, has mangled the occasional word. He’s run up even bigger deficits than Bush. He’s maintained many of the Bush terror policies he once deplored. Plus, Bush has played it cool, remaining magnanimously silent, no matter how often Obama bashes him. “We now better remember the Bush of Ground Zero … than the Texan who pronounced ‘nuclear’ as ‘nucular.’” For more on Obama's ratings, click here; for more on Bush's ratings, click here.
(More Barack Obama stories.)