I don't think W wanted to be President any more than John F Kennedy did. If JFK had lasted for 2 terms, God knows how he'd be remembered by history now. IMO they were both pushed into it. I believe W came out at some point and said his lifelong goal was to be baseball commissioner, not POTUS.

Helicopter Parents: Not A New Thing.

I agree about the bolded part; the signature just pains me. I'm cool with the stuff that celebrates Obama's Presidency, (Nittanyalum's is a good example); I'm just tired of the "McCain's an idiot for choosing Palin" stuff. Can't we be done with that? At least until we start selecting Republican candidates again?

But of course, people can have the signatures of their choice.

Absolutely - it's called "the power of the Press" for a reason!

Granted, his family seemed not to age well but this is what FOUR years of the Presidency did to Jimmy Carter:

1976:
http://onlyhuckabee.com/carter1976.jpg

and 1981:
http://www.visualstatistics.net/east...hip/Carter.jpg


I agree - but it's going to take some years. Unfortunately.

Maybe we should have a Joe Kennedy thread.

ETA: can you imagine a Joe Kennedy recruitment thread, kind of like the one from Chuch Norris?

LOL - especially with his ookabillion children!

Haha...people don't want to hear my opinion on JFK...

I can cut W. a LITTLE bit of slack and say that some stuff was out of his control. I liken it the Hurricane Katrina fiasco in Louisiana. A lot of people place some of the blame on (former) Governor Blanco. However, Katrina was a once-in-a-lifetime event that NO ONE could have possibly been prepared for. It was a learn-as-you-go process. However, now that Piyush Jindal is in office, he's been through two major hurricanes--NOWHERE near the magnitude of Katrina--and he's been hailed as having the best hurricane preparedness plan in the world. Well, DUH!! From what we learned with Katrina, there's nowhere to go but up! With that said, I can understand a little bit of what Bush MAY be experiencing. HOWEVER, on the other hand, I feel that W. brought A LOT of the ridicule, etc. upon himself. He never quite seemed prepared, didn't have a way with words, always appeared confused and bewildered. He just seemed to run amok with the country and let the chips fall. I can't say that the media did it too him. HE gave them the ammunition.

One of my favorite US presidents that I admired was ironically, Nixon... He did do massive corruptions. And although I have a picture of my grandfather and President Ford, I still agree with is pardoning Nixon.

It will be interesting who Dubya pardons upon leaving office. I am unsure about the number of people that can be pardoned if any at all. And these people will have double jeopardy in place...

We have to admit President Dubya made missteps on the huge issues vs. the non-issues, such as not shaking hands with people. Most presidents do and learn from their mistakes. (maybe)... But, aside from the huge economic slump, President Dubya's brain farts were not horrific. If the economy had remained stable, the election outcome would have been different.

And this does not negate the fact that President Obama will be making plenty of his own missteps.

One of President Bush's great strengths is his steadfast loyalty to those he entrusts with responsibility. One of his shortcomings is his steadfast loyalty to those he entrusts with responsibility. He has always stood up for the the guy who gets picked on and can't defend himself. He always takes responsibility for all that his people do or fail to do. The drawback is that he is a very nice guy who does not make anyone take the fall. He protects those he places on the hotseat whether they deserve it or not.
So much of the good and positive that he has done has been unreported or distorted. He is not the most articulate and polished speaker but he has guts and honor. As has been said in this thread, he may not have really wanted to be POTUS, but like Cincinnatus he was there to stand up and be counted when it really mattered.
He made some mistakes - Gee whiz, I didn't know he was supposed to be perfect. I thought he was supposed to give it his best shot.
I admire George W. Bush for his courage, his humanity, his willingness to take the heat and keep us safe while there were many who wanted to do us ill and many of us who seemed ready to undermine our president rather than work with him as a 'loyal opposition'. The impartial muse of History will treat him well.
Whoever occupies the office I will respect and support that person because he is the president chosen by us the American people. I respect and admire George W. Bush because he himself is worthy of respect.

Nixon accomplished so much when he was in office (relations with China, etc) it's not funny. He would have been screwed no matter what he did because the press hated him. If he'd turned the Watergate burgulars in, he would have been a stool pigeon who didn't support his friends.

US President George W. Bush's approval rating slumps to record low

The CNN television/Opinion Research survey found that just 24 per cent of respondents believe Mr Bush is doing a good job, against 76 per cent who said that was not the case.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574...-23109,00.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-...16033.html?mod=

I saw this today too, and it kind of surprised me. I thought that we'd see an improvement, sort of like some of the rhetoric here in this thread seems a more moderate version of ideas expressed previous. I expected new polling to show kind of "well, maybe he doesn't suck that bad" and "crap, do we want Obama held to the same standard?" thinking.

And my other thought is "what's he done lately to approve or disapprove of?" What would a new decrease reflect on?

It could be anything from the Obama campaign's strong ability to tie Bush to McCain (sort of a "loser-by-association" movement) to generalized Democrat front-running to a completely different population being contacted/returning contact - any sort of conjecture is sketchy for this sort of poll, although I'd guess the Occam's Razor solution is simple front-running for a winning party.

UGA' and KSig':
I do not get it either. And I am not about to even attempt a guess.
I am sort of wondering and waiting if fivethirtyeight is going to have a say on topic.
Politico.com included a rather interesting chart of Presidents back to Truman:
Bush is less popular than Nixon in final days:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15478.html
These links provide a bit of tracking history:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epo...-904.html#news
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epo...904.html#polls

along the same lines, another strength he had is his willingness to promote minorities...i might be among the 76% that isnt his biggest fan right now, but the people he promoted tells me he was very equal opportunity...
Alberto Gonzales, the first Hispanic to hold one of the powerful "big four" Cabinet jobs, attorney general, his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, to be the first female African-American secretary of State, the Cabinet's senior position. He also nominated Margaret Spellings, his domestic policy adviser, to lead the Education Department and Cuban-born business executive Carlos Gutierrez to head Commerce...Colin Powell was first black Secretary of State...

that is admirable within itself...