Au Revoir, Premier Bush

I just saw Pat's take on the W presidency over at BMBS, so I figured I'd add a few thoughts of my own about the last eight years.

1: The way Pat said he felt about Clinton, well I felt that way about W Bush from about 2000-2007. Over the last few years, my feelings have changed considerably.

2: Over time, Bush's two Supreme Court appointees will come to be seen as one of his best accomplishments.

3: The whole presidential approval poll thing is overrated. Many two term presidents experienced similar lows in their second term as Bush did.

4: 2004 "W" stickers= 2008 "Change" stickers. Each pissed members of the other party off bad but each symbolized the popular "idea" of each election.

5: Bush won election in 2000 and re-election in 2004. In the realm of American politics, he is one of the biggest winners of all time. And I think this is where a good amount of the venom toward him comes from.

6: Like Jimmy Carter, I see Bush as remained very active after office and working to improve his image and how people remember him. I see him eventually being ranked somewhere from below average to average in terms of presidential greatness. To think that he's the worst president ever is ridiculous, and I don't see his name ever being mentioned alongside the likes of Buchanana, Grant, or Nixon.

7: Along these same lines, the way he's handling the transition with Obama will put a positive spin to last few months of his second term.

8: If W would have been allowed to run again in 2008, I think he would have done better than McCain. Silent majority type of thing.

9: Looking at pictures of Bush from 1999 and pictures of him recently shows how demanding of a job being president of the US really is. He looks like he's aged 20 years, not 10.

10: Thank God he's gone, but he wasn't that bad of a president and he's not a bad guy.

10-6 W.