That the president so preoccupies the disputative passions of the other party makes him, for antagonists, a cincture. Ted Sorensen, aide and counsel to John F. Kennedy, responded ten days ago to an invitation for a Democratic president's January 2008 inaugural address. Had Sorensen penned the same theme for January 1961, President Kennedy would not have offered his "welcome" to "defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger," or the cadence of obligation to "the survival and success of liberty." He rather would have promised to renounce the Eisenhower doctrine, demolish interstate highways, and retract the conferment of statehood to Hawaii and Alaska. Leftists, noted Jonah Goldberg, "get hung up on George W. Bush's mistakes."
Political fortune can swing on the rejection and demise of opposing movements and their leaders, but seldom does unpopularity alone usher in a paradigm. If majorities in the House and Senate had been delivered by the electorate along with a reformative mandate, Congressional approval would not be dropping below twenty-five percent.
Other polls imply where George Bush's detractors could be left behind. A March survey had less than half of respondents rating the president as trustworthy — roughly 45 percent — and the Associated Press noted the declension as a "collapse in the character test." Probity has long been Mr. Bush's saving grace, and yes, its perception is weakened. But rating in the forties after four years of rebukes in which the word "lie" figured first or second means otherwise when President Clinton, in his seventh year, scored about double in job approval — almost 70 percent — while having the trust of one out of four people. In a poll last Thursday, Bill Clinton's favor rested under seven executive peers, just above Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.
A friend who voted against the president after working on John Kerry's campaign assured that he didn't "think Bush is a bad man." National expressions corroborate that still, so George Bush may leave partisans with a retiree whom, flaws or failures, Americans find hard to dislike. It is not inconceivable that he will make the quickest transition from beleaguered politician to revered emeritus since Harry Truman.