It's fashionable to describe Bush as a sort of Dan Quayle buffoon. However, Bush lost the 2000 election and took office anyway, and he probably lost reelection in 2004 but ended up getting a second term. His approval collapsed at least three times and always got it back up until the fall of 2006. In the end, he not only sold, started, waged, and defended the most indefensible kind of war, but cajoled the so-called opposition into supporting it.
Bush was remarkably cunning and very clever about getting and retaining power. He was certainly no more a sign of decay than his entire class... ML
