Recently, Mr. Bush has been allowed to rehabilitate his image, particularly on Reddit. My belief is that this is happening because of younger generations commenting in a contrarian way on his presidency, perhaps some of which is influenced by the absolute state of the Republican Party today.
For most of those of us who lived through his presidency, it was always clear that Bush was a religious and sexual bigot, but not a racial one.
It was always clear that the evidence for invading Iraq was scant at best. The war was protested by the biggest international collaboration of protesters ever.
Days after 9/11, there were plenty of us ACLU types decrying the USA PATRIOT Act. Many of us felt that Pelosi, Clinton, etc. had few inviolable beliefs about civil rights at that time. Russ Feingold and Bernie Sanders voted against it.
Bush was the worst possible president, so I had thought.
GWB is getting a boost from Liz Cheney and the other never-Trumpers because people buy into “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” mentality literally. They’re allies against a common foe, but they’re still vile, and the person who can remind us of that is Tim Walz
Walz took students to a campaign rally for then-President George W. Bush and watched as they were questioned by security because one had a John Kerry sticker on their wallet. After that, Walz volunteered for Kerry, retired from the National Guard after 24 years when Bush launched his illegal war, and beat the GOP incumbent for his seat. This one story told me everything I needed to know about Walz’s political origin and path, and reminds me that GWB deserves no fond nostalgia.
https://www.minnpost.com/national/2024/07/who-is-minnesota-governor-tim-walz-one-of-the-top-contenders-for-vice-president/