Dept of Valedictions: Let's All Give Outgoing Bush Some Credit and Make Those Popularity Levels Soar!

Mick Arran at Fact-esque calls for a round of very slow clapping for Bush.

There's nothing like a liar in denial doing a self-evaluation.

Bush asserts success in combating AIDS in Africa, preventing new terrorist attacks on U.S. soil and snatching a measure of victory in Iraq. And in a speech on the Middle East yesterday, the president sketched out a strikingly optimistic portrait of a region that has embroiled the United States in war and conflict for the past eight years.

"The Middle East in 2008 is a freer, more hopeful and more promising place than it was in 2001," he said at the Saban Forum in Washington.

None of those things are true, of course, and a couple of them are laughable. But let's give our soon-to-be-ex-Emperor credit for finally admitting he may have made just a few teensy, weensy mistakes hardly worth mentioning.

Bush also received a round of slow-clapping from participants in a recent poll, where his popularity soared to 28%, according to The L.A. Times.   Gallup confidently expects it will go higher as we wave a fond farewell to him. (LAT)

After all, what President in all of human history has spawned such an industry of parody, satire, and endless political mockery?  Bill Clinton?  Don't tell us Bill Clinton.  Clinton was merely a precursor. 

Al Gore may have helped to bring the internets into being, but it was Bush who made the political blogosphere what it is.  And what will our nation's comedians do when we don't have Bush to kick around anymore?

Will wistful former supporters give him a valedictory "thumb's up" just for old time's sake and in acknowledgment of what might have been and never was?

"Of the eight post-World War II presidents who left office after serving two terms, declining to seek an additional term or being defeated for reelection, six saw increased job approval ratings in their final two-plus months in office."

The last three presidents and four of the last five saw significant rises in their ratings, sometimes starting with the very first poll conducted after the election.

When in late October of 1992 Bush's father first realized he was certainly going to lose to Bill Clinton the next month, Bush's approval rating was 34%. Right after the election rejection, his approval jumped to 43% and ended at 56% when he stood in the cold on those same Capitol front steps. Small consolation perhaps, but interesting.  (LAT)

Taylor Marsh:  "Let the rewrite begin. So far Bush has gone from 24% to 28% approval."  But instead of relenting at the sight of this limping lame duck, Taylor Marsh administers a series of sharp kicks.  That's not nice, TM.

Jonathan Singer points out:

There may be something to the idea that Americans' views of Bush will become less hardened over the next month....[A]lthough I still strongly disapprove of the job Bush is doing, and has done, as President, my opposition to him seems slightly less urgent today than it did before the election when there still remained a chance that Bush could be succeeded by a Republican. That said, whether Bush's approval rating is 24 percent, or it has risen slightly to 28 percent, or even if it rises yet above 30 percent, Bush will still hold the record for the highest ever disapproval rating and will go down in history as one of the least popular Presidents this republic has seen.

Memeorandum has more on Bush's increasing popularity.

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