There’s something terribly shocking taking place and I must admit a failure to anticipate it this soon: The creeping rehabilitation of George W. Bush. He was a uniquely failed president. So miserable was he, his popularity collapsed (not over anything huge, except the negligent loss of an iconic American city) less than a year into his second term. And his crushing unpopularity never relented. Quite the contrary—on January 20, 2009, minutes after his successor had been sworn in, millions of his erstwhile subjects treated the 43rd president to an iconic farewell.

As testament to our collective amnesia, many are now insisting the semi-retarded ersatz cowboy doesn’t look like such an ogre in the rearview mirror. Apparently this includes polite company like Peter Beinart, Mo Dowd, and Eugene Robinson.

Byron York had the story in the Washington Examiner a couple of days ago:

"It's time for W. to weigh in," writes the New York Times' Maureen Dowd. Bush, Dowd explains, understands that "you can't have an effective war against the terrorists if it is a war on Islam." Dowd finds it "odd" that Obama seems less sure on that matter. But to set things back on the right course, she says, "W. needs to get his bullhorn back out" -- a reference to Bush's famous "the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!" speech at Ground Zero on September 14, 2001.

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson is also looking for an assist from Bush. "I…would love to hear from former President Bush on this issue," Robinson wrote Tuesday in a Post chat session. "He held Ramadan iftar dinners in the White House as part of a much broader effort to show that our fight against the al-Qaeda murderers who attacked us on 9/11 was not a crusade against Islam. He was absolutely right on this point, and it would be helpful to hear his views."

And Peter Beinart, a former editor of the New Republic, is also feeling some nostalgia for the former president. "Words I never thought I'd write: I pine for George W. Bush," Beinart wrote Tuesday in The Daily Beast. "Whatever his flaws, the man respected religion, all religion." Beinart longs for the days when Bush "used to say that the 'war on terror' was a struggle on behalf of Muslims, decent folks who wanted nothing more than to live free like you and me…"

Karl Rove even relinquished his butterscotch scone long enough to chime in:

For the moment, with Obama failing to live up to expectations, Bush-bashing is over. It's all a little amusing -- and perhaps a little maddening -- for some members of the Bush circle. When I asked Karl Rove to comment, he responded that it means "redemption is always available for liberals and time causes even the most stubborn of ideologues to revisit mistaken judgments." But won't these Bush critics shortly return to criticizing Bush? "This Bush swoon by selected members of the left commentariat is temporary," Rove answered. "Their swamp fevers will return momentarily."

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Transplanted Texan here, no longer using a pseudonym.

I usually don't care much for Maureen Dowd, but rather than vitriol, her column today is actually based on insight. She explains why it took Joe Wilson to finally convince her that much of the anti-Obama rage in this country is based on race, and takes a close look at South Carolina politics and culture. An excerpt:

For two centuries, the South has feared a takeover by blacks or the feds. In Obama, they have both.

The state that fired the first shot of the Civil War has now given us this: Senator Jim DeMint exhorted conservatives to "break" the president by upending his health care plan. Rusty DePass, a G.O.P. activist, said that a gorilla that escaped from a zoo was "just one of Michelle's ancestors." Lovelorn Mark Sanford tried to refuse the president's stimulus money. And now Joe Wilson.

"A good many people in South Carolina really reject the notion that we're part of the union," said Don Fowler, the former Democratic Party chief who teaches politics at the University of South Carolina. He observed that when slavery was destroyed by outside forces and segregation was undone by civil rights leaders and Congress, it bred xenophobia.

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(Cross-posted from Think it Through)

Every now and then, something happens that reminds us what suckers the news media can be. The most recent example is earmarks. The news media generally lionize the politicians who rail against earmarks, the term used to describe how Senators and members of the House of Representatives win government funds for pet projects in their states without going through the normal legislative process.

Senator John McCain, coming off a recent 16-month run as a maverick committed to comforting the comfortable, has decided to return to his previous vocation of protecting the country from government waste and abuse.

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Some wisdom from Paul Krugman on Rachel Maddow tonight on why the Republican tax cut argument vis a vis the stimulus package seems to be gaining ground:

I think this is partly bad media coverage, it's partly they have a simple point to hammer and I have to say, until today, Obama and team...were so busy trying to change the tone in Washington that they weren't focused on the main thing, which was to get this economy moving.

Some wisdom from Maureen Dowd in her latest column on Obama's mis-steps not only in selling the stimulus package but also in a few of his appointments.

The Democratic president has been spending so much time trying -- and failing -- to win over Republicans that he may not have noticed the disillusionment in his own ranks.

Betrayed by their bankers and leaders, Americans were desperate to trust someone when they made Barack Obama president. His debut has left them skeptical about his willingness to smack down those who would flout his high standards or waste our money.

My Independent brother -- an enthusiastic Obama supporter -- called me on Monday to tell me Obama was losing him as a result of Obama's picking people with, shall we say, an aversion to paying their taxes to serve in his cabinet. Doesn't he remember what he ran on? Disillusionment was exactly the word that came to mind speaking to him. When I told him Daschle was out he seemed re-energized and it's looking as though our president is as well.

Here he was earlier today saying what he should have been saying all along about the Republican opposition to the stimulus:

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Listening, Charlie?

What kind of budget-cutter makes a show of getting rid of the state plane, then turns around and bills taxpayers for the travel of her husband and kids between Juneau and Wasilla and sticks the state with a per-diem tab to stay in her own home?

Why was Sarah for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against the Bridge to Nowhere, and why was she for earmarks before she was against them? And doesn't all this make her just as big a flip-flopper as John Kerry?

What kind of fiscal conservative raises taxes and increases budgets in both her jobs -- as mayor and as governor?

When the phone rings at 3 a.m., will she call the Wasilla Assembly of God congregation and ask them to pray on a response, as she asked them to pray for a natural gas pipeline?

Does she really think Adam, Eve, Satan and the dinosaurs mingled on the earth 5,000 years ago?

Why put out a press release about her teenage daughter's pregnancy and then spend the next few days attacking the press for covering that press release?

As Troopergate unfolds here -- an inquiry into whether Palin inappropriately fired the commissioner of public safety for refusing to fire her ex-brother-in-law -- it raises this question: Who else is on her enemies list and what might she do with the F.B.I.?

Does she want a federal ban on trans fat in restaurants and a ban on abortion and Harry Potter? And which books exactly would have landed on the literature bonfire if she had had her way with that Wasilla librarian?

Just how is it that Fannie and Freddie have cost taxpayers money (since they haven't yet)?

Even a stopped clock...

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