Don’t ‘misunderestimate’ George W. Bush

Americans typically support newly elected presidents and those who have left office. It’s incumbents they often dislike. George W. Bush is no exception. Although he lost the popular vote in 2000 by a half-million ballots but achieved an Electoral College victory over Vice President Al GoreAlbert (Al) Arnold GoreWhy the pro-choice movement must go on the offensive A realistic response to the climate wake-up call READ: Cuomo’s defense against sexual harassment investigation MORE by the barest of margins (after a Supreme Court decision in Bush’s favor), his initial approval rating was 57 percent, 10 points above the percentage of votes he garnered from the electorate. His support would soar over 90 percent after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, as Americans demonstrated their propensity to “rally ’round the flag” and commanders in chief during wartime. 

When Bush turned the Oval Office keys over to Barack Obama in 2009, however, with “endless wars” still raging in Afghanistan and Iraq, Osama bin Laden very much alive, and a financial crisis threatening another Great Depression, his approval score had plummeted to 34 percent. He seemed destined to inhabit the failed presidency category of FDR’s successor, whose opponents branded him with the snarky aphorism, “To err is Truman.” 

Yet Harry Truman’s reputation rebounded in the early 1970s amidst Richard Nixon’s Watergate-infused presidency and the publication of an endearing oral history of the plain-speaking “Man from Independence.” The band Chicago even recorded a 1975 paean to the 33rd president, singing, “America needs you, Harry Truman. Harry, could you please come home?”

So far, no songs lauding Bush 43 have made it to the airwaves, but he seems to have overcome Oliver Stone’s scathing portrayal of him in the 2008 film “W.,” along with comedian Will Ferrell’s more good-natured impersonation, which added a faux Bush malaprop, “strategery,” to American political lexicography. Was it simply Donald TrumpDonald TrumpThe Memo: Biden comes out punching on COVID-19 Ex-Kansas state rep charged with fraud of more than 0K in COVID-19 relief money Medicare trustees sound alarm, but progressives press ahead with irresponsible Medicare expansion MORE’s unprecedented presidency that reversed Bush’s approval rating slide and raised it to 61 percent by early 2018? Even among historians surveyed by C-SPAN in 2021, he rose four places in as many years, now ranking 29th out of 44 presidents. By contrast, Trump landed 41st in the historians’ rankings, and nearly half of Americans polled by the Gallup organization just before he left office predicted that history would rate him as a “poor” president.

Yet nostalgia for a more traditional president can’t be the sole explanation for the more positive re-evaluation of Bush’s administration. The 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks provides an opportunity to reassess what followed. Few presidents are tested so…