Posted on 03/24/2008 1:37:40 PM PDT by shrinkermd
Some certainly do. And one could easily get the impression that the Bush-haters have become a majority. To be sure, President Bush's approval ratings continue to languish in the 30s. But Presidential approval ratings are a very blunt instrument, and these data from the Tarrance Group suggest that the full story is more balanced.
Most striking to me is that 56% of respondents approve of the President personally. This seems remarkable in view of the endless, savage attacks that have been launched on Bush by the Left and repeated, often uncritically, in the mainstream media.
Beyond that, a number of President Bush's policies are popular: reauthorizing the Protect America Act (70%), a budget that is lower than proposed by Democrats and that contains no tax increases (65%), the recently-enacted stimulus package (64%), the surge in Iraq (52%), and others. In addition, 73% agree with the proposition that the Bush administration went on the offensive against terrorists, and 65% say that it has kept Americans safe from terrorist attacks.
For many reasons, 2008 will be a challenging year for Republicans. But these data indicate that the Democrats may be mistaken if they think that "tarring" any Republican candidate by association with the President is a sure-fire strategy.
(Excerpt) Read more at powerlineblog.com ...
Same here. I just wish he had been more to the right.
No I don’t hate him. I think he’s done a pretty fine job of fighting the offensive side of the war on terror.
“I’m not going to read this thread because I’ve had my fill of the Bush bashers here on FR. I just want to say that I adore him. I’m so glad he is the president. And if he was running again, I would vote for him in a heartbeat. God Bless W!”
ditto!!
It's not always easy to know the success of a presidency until some time passes. We shall see how history judges him.
So Reagan was an abject failure too, huh? He was much more liberal in office than President Bush has been.
I loved Reagan, and voted for him twice. But Bush has ended up better. Bush didn’t actually pass an amnesty. Bush didn’t appoint anyone like Ginsberg to the court, but has gotten us some very fine justices. Bush hasn’t tripled the budget, and Bush didn’t cut and run when things got hard, in re Lebanon.
I think, and I do hope, that history will look back very fondly on President Bush. He has qualities that are all too rare in a public figure. I think he has integrity, he does what he believes is right whether it is popular or not, and there is never any distance between what he says and what he does.
IMHO anyway.
I like President Bush. I disagree with him on some major points, but I think he has been honest about his positions, and I respect him.
I don’t hate him at all. Bush is, at least, pretty much what he advertised for better or worse. Conservatives who feel a little short-changed for having helped elect him are in for a mighty rude awakening when the best we can hope for is John McCain. And it could be worse, oh, so very much worse.
I do not hate the President. I am very disappointed in him and for completely opposite reasons that the liberals criticize him for.
He’s kept us safe since 911, he’s protected babies in the womb, he has continually been trying to get things across (like Social Security) just to be bashed to death by our wonderful Congress. He never ran as a true conservative. We knew pretty much what we were getting when we voted for him. Of course, we could have gotten Al or John...how much worse would that have been? I haven’t been crazy about his stance on immigration, but he’s done as good a job as most would have.
Amen, amen, amen!!!
and he wasn’t getting Lewinskied in the Oral Room.
So do I. I read a prophecy about him not too long ago where God spoke a word to the writer and said that He had kept this nation safe BECAUSE of President Bush and his prayer life on our behalf. I hope that can be said of our next president.
I love the man and will get the opportunity to tell him so personally on Thursday!
[For those on this thread who claim that President Bush failed as both a ‘conservative’ and a ‘communicator’ I ask you this: Did you or would you claim the same about President Reagan?
On EVERY objective/empirical measure, President Bush is MORE conservative than President Reagan . . . On most measures, President Bush is an excellent communicator who has given MORE consequential speeches than President Reagan and as has yet to be hidden from the media for fear of committing major gaffes as President Reagan was in 1987 and 1988. BTW: President Reagan was a GREAT president and so is President George W Bush! It’s the purists who create the impossible benchmarks; it’s the President who must function within the constraints of political reality and behave accordingly.]
YAY!! Good post.
I still love President Bush. I take up for him every chance I get.
It's called being the loyal opposition. Now of course the democrats seem to have forgotten that.
I don’t hate anyone, that includes Pres Bush but yes he has done some boneheaded things... but I don’t hate the man
Well, I feel the same way about McCain but I have been assured that he will surround himself with those that are smart. So I think to myself about how teams work. For instance, Lance Armstrong was on a great team. He, however, was still the best of all those on his team. He couldn’t have won the tour de France had he been the worst on his team on a good team. That is how parties should be. Our leader should still be the best we have, not simply someone who is surrounded by good leaders. He should be someone who can carry the ball on his own and connect with the American people all on his own if necessary.
It’s like we’ve decided that our leaders are such idiots that it just doesn’t matter anymore. Like, oh just support McCain, he’ll have good speech writers and advisors.
Reagan the man or Reagan the legend?
Two very different people on this forum.
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