Maybe it was the way former President George W. Bush pronounced ‘nuclear’ as ‘nucular.’ Maybe it was his disregard for the constitution to give us a sense of security. For whatever reason, more and more Americans seem to be missing him. Most want Bush back in office. In fact, his approval ratings have increased since he left. So much so that a growing number of people prefer him to President Barack Obama.

This situation is particularly odd, considering Bush did so much to hurt the United States during his time as president. Taking into account the facts of what he did in office, it makes little sense for people to want him back. When he left office, many were caught up in falsely believing in change. The inevitable failure of change has caused some to suffer a case of collective amnesia.

Bush has said his legacy will be etched in history 50 years after his presidency. A month ago, he detailed his experiences as president just three years after leaving office in his memoir, ‘Decision Points.’ We risk the possibility that in 50 years, we will forget the most intense reasons to dislike him. Apparently, though, the statistics show that the forgetting has already begun, and we have 47 years to go.

Recent polls from several sources show that a slight majority of Americans would prefer to have a third term with Bush rather than another with Obama. A recent poll in Ohio shows that individuals preferred Bush by a margin of 50 to 42 percent. Obama won in Ohio in the 2008 election by 4.6 percent. This is not the case everywhere, but Bush’s ratings are generally on the rise.

Given this knowledge, why might Americans prefer Bush to Obama?

It could be his tax policy, which Republicans advocated for and which Obama has now accepted. This policy prescribes giving tax cuts to the wealthy, though it seems to only be helping the rich afford to buy new things rather than creating jobs.

It might be that people find that Bush ‘kept us safe after 9/11.’ But the mere absence of a terrorist attack, alone, is not enough grounds to make this claim. He arguably degraded America’s image by pursuing the wrong individuals after 9/11 to make us more disliked. This made us, if anything, more likely to be attacked.

Maybe Americans liked his ‘mission accomplished’ in Iraq. He stands ultimately responsible for the more than 4,000 American lives lost in Iraq. In recent interviews, he still refuses to admit that it was unsuccessful and that he was unjustified in doing so. Most others, looking at fact alone, are able to see that from democratizing Iraq, we have gained nothing tangible.

It is possible that Americans favored his policy of disregarding the constitution so that Bush and his administration could decide what was best — not the existing laws. Charlie Savage wrote in The Boston Globe that Bush broke 750 laws in office. As Savage explains, this was mainly due to the fact that he claimed the constitution enabled him to ‘ignore numerous sections of the bills’ that he signed. Furthermore, ‘without court involvement, only Congress can check a president who goes too far. But Bush’s fellow Republicans control(led) both chambers, and they … (showed) limited interest in launching the kind of oversight that could damage their party.’

Though it might seem normal to have a former president’s ratings increase after leaving office, this increase seems odd. If people are starting to prefer Bush rather than Obama, it either means that Obama is doing a horrendous job or that Bush was quite a good president. Neither situation makes sense.

To prefer a president who violated the constitution, led us into a war and then proceeded to continue it without substantiated evidence does not make any sense. No matter how badly we feel Obama is performing as the president, there has been worse: George W. Bush.

Moreover, we must value facts more than our feelings of anger and frustration. The fact that Americans would prefer to have Bush rather than Obama shows that our emotions have taken over. A president who, for the most part, respects the law and does not instigate irresponsible, needless wars is always more preferable to have in power than one who does not. Forget the economy, and let’s just concentrate on the foundation of our country, the laws on which it is built. If one cannot follow the essential rules, there should be no question of who is worse.

We need to take time to evaluate facts rather than emotions, or we will be worse off for it. Believing in hope or change to begin with was the first mistake, now it’s time to correct it. But what do I know? Bush, after all, was re-elected. At heart, America seems to be very easily forgiving. We’ll love him no matter how badly he messed up.

Harmen Rockler is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences. His column appears online biweekly, and he can be reached at horockle@syr.edu.

 

Published on December 8, 2010 at 12:00 pm