A_Wanderer said:
I mean Lincoln, FDR, Truman, Kennedy etc. all did things that are as ethically questionable as Bush
The PR problem Bush has, is his competency and the lack thereof.
Ethically, you could accuse any President of wrong-doing because that becomes the nature of the beast. Even Reagan had the Iran-Contra affair hanging around his neck, Clinton had bedroom problems, they are both the most popular Presidents since JFK.
In fact most of their harshest critics would admit a certain level of competency in both cases.
With GWB, it is transcending politcal parties and idealogical boundaries. The public perception of his competency was never strong even among those who supported him in 2000. They voted for him because of conservative, Christian values and a big electable last name, not because he ran an oil company into the ground and piloted a baseball franchise to severe medicority.
If this were an ethics number, I'd guess it'd be higher.
I don't think it's all that difficult to assess the situation (if one were a Bushie) and quickly come to the conclusion that he's still a good guy, probably meant well and just didn't have the tools (read:the ability to listen to dissenting opinions) to make a very good decision. If he's lost 15% or so of his support, I'd guess these people think something very similar. Rather than buy into the war crime argument or something.
Basically, I think for that 15% or so that is bailing, the social concerns are just outweighed by a ton of other more pressing problems.
If the SC overturns Roe in the next 20 months, he'll be seen as a revolutionary in the Republican and conservative circles. He'll take on mythic status. Otherwise, socially he's done nothing for his base or anyone else besides cut taxes for the rich. What about the history books will rewrite itself about the intelligence failures and the post war planning? It will not rewrite itself. Short of this thing turning around before 2010, it will become a debacle or it will have been turned around at the hands of someone else, who will take and be given credit.
Where would Bush fall into that mix historically?
Exactly as the history is and will be written.
Book after book, from Tenet's latest to Sheuer (sp?) to Richard Clarke, to Colin Powell speaking through his assistant Wilkinson, to Woodwards book, written from inside the Oval office.
They all say the same thing.
Some folks are waiting for a magic bullet to appear.
Bush will not be able to escape the last 4 years, period.
If democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan take hold and revolutionize the middle east, the whole thing turns around blah blah blah wine and roses etc., it will be the interventionalist foreign policy that gets the credit, dare I say, the actual neocons, the Perle and Kristol crowd who will look like geniuses, and their defense will ultimately be "had we had better leadership, we'd have saved time, money and lives" and the culprit then becomes, Bush, Cheney and Rummy. Fall guys, and if the circumstances were such, rightfully so. This administrations' goose is cooked barring a miracle in the next two years.