George W. Bush is on the reputation rebound trail, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll that shows the former commander-in-chief with a 50 percent approval rating.
C'mon, admit it. Don't you miss the Big Guy?
That good news about Dubya however should be taken with a grain of salt. Bush, the architect of one of the biggest blunders in U.S. history -- the unnecessary invasion of Iraq -- benefits from this country's tendency to "disremember" untidy events. With the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, the conflict is out of sight and out of mind.
More good news for Bush: Afghanistan, a good but too prolonged war, is next in line to vanish down the national memory hole.
Bush II also wins by default when he is compared to current Republican party leadership of Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio and shaky Rand Paul.
Sign of the times: the Wall Street Journal today ran a front-page, 2000-plus-word mash note to Paul, Kentucky’s junior senator.
Paul’s claim to fame is his 13-hour filibuster that demanded White House support for a policy banning the use of drones to kill Americans. [Note: the Assn. for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International claims that the use of drones by first responders could have helped Boston cops track the surviving Boston Marathon murderer.]
The Journal also gushed that their guy Rand, while driving in the Bluegrass State, used a copy of the Constitution to shield his eyes from the sun's glare. Presidential timber, indeed.
Meanwhile, Dubya will get more of a PR bump after he and wife, Laura, sit down tomorrow for a heart-to-heart chat with Diane Sawyer. That high-profile session comes just ahead of the opening of Bush's presidential museum as Southern Methodist University.
Let's take a wait-and-see attitude before jumping on the Bush bandwagon. I'd like to see Bush top the record of No. 6 president John Quincy Adams. After serving a single term in the White House beginning in 1824, Adams was a congressman from Massachusetts for another 17 years.
Bush can do better. The senate beckons. Tea Party favorite Ted Cruz was elected last year. John Cornyn's term is up in 2014. Go for it, Dubya.
The Bush name remains gold in the Lone Star State.
Maggie Moran, who is well-connected in New Jersey and New York Democratic politics, has established Moxie Strategies in Asbury Park, NJ.
Husch Blackwell Strategies has added FleishmanHillard alum Michael Slatin as a principal in its public affairs group.
Rory Cooper, a veteran Republican operative and policy specialist, has joined Teneo’s Washington office as senior managing director in its strategy & communications practice.
Brian Fallon, who served as national press secretary for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential run, is signing on next month as Vice President’s Kamala Harris’ campaign communications director.
TikTok is nothing more than a Chinese propaganda tool that poses “a grave threat to America’s national security and, in particular, impressionable children and young adults,” say two Congressmen who want the platform registered as a foreign agent.
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