I am of the opinion that if history were rational that would be the case. But I am no longer of the opinion that history is written and taught by rational people.

So I have very little hope that Bush will be vindicated. Too many on the Left (which includes the vast majority of historians) have far too much invested in their public, institutionalized hatred of the man.

Of course this goes beyond Bush and can be applied to pretty much all things conservative.

And yes, I know that Bush is not remotely a ‘conservative’ politician, but the LEFT does not know that.

CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Obama’s ‘smoothest ever? transition continues

Truman went out with most in his party (the Democratic Party) not wanting to have anything to do with him, and was the butt of countless GOP attacks on the other side. Yet in the end, Truman was vindicated on many of his most important decisions, and actually set up policies that were followed by most of his successors.

What basically tends to happen is that a President in his second term is looking to establish a personal legacy, while his allies in the Congress are all looking to get re-elected and they know the President isn’t.

Now Truman is viewed as a great and hugely influential and courageous President. How easy it is to miss the fact that he had abysmal approval ratings when he left and was quite unpopular with his own party as well as the opposition party. ;-)

I’m not sure what to make of that, other than that I don’t think Truman is thought of as an awful president this many years later.

I really see him as the Harry Truman of this era. Obama may also be like Eisenhower, who came in and made Harry Truman’s policies popular without really fundamentally changing them.