Americans are now pretty evenly divided about whether they would rather have Barack Obama or George W. Bush in the White House. 48% prefer Obama while 46% say they would rather have the old President back.Source: Public Policy Polling, which has more, including the observation that President Obama and the Democrat party will not profit by continuing to run against George W. Bush since, " A lot of folks who contributed to the former President's low level of popularity now like Obama even less."
I am not one of those who wishes Bush was back in the White House. Practically the only things I can retrospectively admire about his administration are two. First was his understanding of the grave threat of Islamic terrorism and his determination to go on the offensive against it. That he (and mainly, SecDef Donald Rumsfeld) grossly underestimated what the Iraq war would require is a subject of justly harsh criticism - and I offered it at the time. It took him too long to recover from that error, but he did recover and we are witnessing the result today. As far as President Obama's conduct of the war, well, he has basically just followed the Bush script in Iraq.
The other thing I think that Bush got right was his tax-cut legislation after the recession following Sept. 11's attacks. He understood what Barack Obama does not: that taking money from the people in taxes depresses, not stimulates, economic activity (you know, jobs and production). Like John F. Kennedy, Bush knew that "a rising tide lifts all boats" and that tax revenues are related less to tax rates than to people making more money. Taxes on the wealthy actually went up under Bush, just as the tax burden of top income makers climbed dramatically under Ronald Reagan.
Unfortunately, though Bush was not a "tax and spend" liberal, he was a "tax cut and spend" so-called "compassionate conservative," which turned out to be New Deal liberalism. Bush was, in fact, a big-government activist and, like his successor, was of totalitarian mind. Which follows, for as I explained in 2003, "compassionate" government is totalitarian in nature.
Update: More bad news for the president:
Rasmussen Reports: "Election 2012: Barack Obama 42%, Ron Paul 41%"
Los Angeles Times: "Red flag for a sinking Obama: Americans now prefer Hillary Clinton"
Associated Press: "AP-GfK Poll: Obama slips, other Dems slide, too"
Posts
