{"id":13914,"date":"2018-01-22T17:07:19","date_gmt":"2018-01-22T23:07:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=13914"},"modified":"2018-01-22T17:07:19","modified_gmt":"2018-01-22T23:07:19","slug":"when-a-lump-of-coal-looks-good-compared-to-the-toxic-waste-dump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2018\/01\/22\/when-a-lump-of-coal-looks-good-compared-to-the-toxic-waste-dump\/","title":{"rendered":"When A Lump of Coal Looks Good Compared To The Toxic Waste Dump"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>CNN<\/strong><\/em> ran a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2018\/01\/22\/politics\/george-w-bush-favorable-poll\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">poll<\/a> and found out that the lump of coal from yesteryear sure damn well looks good now:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>George W. Bush has turned his unpopularity upside down.<\/p>\n<p>Six in 10 Americans, 61%, say they now have a favorable view of the 43rd President of the United States in <a href=\"https:\/\/assets.documentcloud.org\/documents\/4356689\/Trump-Inaugural-Anniversary.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the latest CNN poll conducted by SSRS<\/a>, nearly double the 33% who gave him a favorable mark when he left the White House in January 2009.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>To be sure, comparing Bush to Trump will make Bush look good. While Trump has yet to preside over a recession &#8211; those typically take a couple of years to build up to &#8211; he&#8217;s had a number of scandals already, and worse yet, his general job performance can be easily labeled as <em>completely incompetent<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>But none of this excuses Bush&#8217;s performance in office, which included a failed war in Afghanistan that no one can salvage, an unnecessary war in Iraq initiated on faked evidence that, in fact, many people saw through, and a little dip into the torture pool which should never have happened.<\/p>\n<p>And then there was the Great Recession, marked by the rescue effort of the banks which infuriated so many folks.<\/p>\n<p>In a more sober nation, this result would never happen. Bush&#8217;s rating would remain deservedly and pointedly low. Anyone who&#8217;d care to look would see the disaster that was Bush, the rebuilding effort led by Barack &#8220;scandal-free&#8221; Obama, and then Trump&#8217;s purposeful dive into the toxic waste dump. They&#8217;d understand that the GOP has a real problem with wise governance.<\/p>\n<p>But that won&#8217;t happen. Bush has put forth a few statements critical of Trump, he&#8217;s taken up painting, and he&#8217;s more or less stayed out of the daily fray. Add in the folks who weren&#8217;t old enough to pay attention 15 years ago, and, well, he almost looks reasonable. You have to actually, like, read a bit to realize the Bush Administration was really quite the disaster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CNN ran a poll and found out that the lump of coal from yesteryear sure damn well looks good now: George W. Bush has turned his unpopularity upside down. Six in 10 Americans, 61%, say they now have a favorable view of the 43rd President of the United States in \u2026 <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2018\/01\/22\/when-a-lump-of-coal-looks-good-compared-to-the-toxic-waste-dump\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13914"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13915,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13914\/revisions\/13915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}