Nostalgia for George W. Bush

Americans are warming up to George W. Bush.  And this is because?

For one thing, everything is relative.  George W. Bush — whose every string was pulled by his corporate puppet masters — was by far the most rightwing president we’d ever had.  He was so far to the right, everyone was longing for the comparatively “moderate” policies of Ronald Reagan.  And Dwight Eisenhower looked like a flaming Communist.

And now that the Talibangelical wing of the GOP has an iron grip on the House of Representatives, George W. Bush looks like a moderate.  And Ronald Reagan was a bleeding heart socialist who wanted to wage Class Warfare by taxing the Job Creators.

The linked article suggests that Bush is gaining popularity partly because he’s been keeping a low profile and staying out of the headlines.  For the opposite reason, Dick Cheney’s poll ratings have probably gone down since 2009, since he’s spent the last four and a half years hogging the headlines and shooting his mouth off.  That is, if it’s even possible to go down from the 9% approval ratings Cheney had when he was Vice President.

This probably isn’t nostalgia, but I can think of at least one striking difference — in terms of the political atmosphere — between the GW Bush and Obama administrations.  During Bush’s presidency, if you uttered the tiniest criticism of the president, you hated America and you wanted the terrorists to win.  You belonged in Gitmo.

Things are a bit different now.