Peder D4

Discussion of politics and other odious things

Thursday, April 25, 2013

On Bush Popularity

Pretty good column from Peggy Noonan on the recent rebound in popularity for George W Bush.  However, I think she misses the point.  In the final years of the W Bush presidency, there was a general feeling that things would be better if he was simply smarter and more competent, things would be better.  We went and elected someone who we were told was one of the smartest men to hold the office and man, its been at least as bad if not worse. 
He's failed to figure any way to fix the economy. 
He's failed to help pass good legislation.
He has failed to uphold simple policy promises, like closing Guantanamo. 
His foreign policy has been about as muddled and the world is definitely not safer than it was four plus years ago. 
There have been regular failures on basic governmental things, like passing budgets. 

Some of this reflects actual faults of Obama.  For instance, his inexperience with the way a Congress works combined with his inability to really try and work with people on the other side has been a tremendous obstacle.  A big part of it is that there are a lot of events that are beyond the control of the President.  And some of it is simply that the Presidency is a very hard job.  I think that plenty of independents (and even some liberals) would concede that they didn't take into account just how hard it is back in late '08. 
Noonan believes that we're about to get strongly into Obama fatigue.  I don't know if she's right but if so, I think we can confidently predict a ratings rebound right around April of '21. 

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Better Gun Controllers

I'd been mentally writing something like this for weeks.  Mine wouldn't have been as good though.  Read the whole thing.  Point #2, especially.  If we could somehow promote the idea that legislatures should be competent on the issues that they work with, the country would be better off.

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