Unsoliticed Sympathies:

I never thought it would happen but after reading this article, I actually feel a little sorry for George Bush. It took 7 years but here we are.

No modern president has experienced such a sustained rejection by the American public. Bush’s approval rating slipped below 50 percent in Washington Post-ABC News polls in January 2005 and has not topped that level in the 30 months since. The last president mired under 50 percent so long was Harry S. Truman. Even Richard M. Nixon did not fall below 50 percent until April 1973, 16 months before he resigned.

The polls reflect the events of Bush’s second term, an unyielding sequence of bad news. Social Security. Hurricane Katrina. Harriet E. Miers. Dubai Ports World. Vice President Cheney’s hunting accident. Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay and Mark Foley. The midterm elections. I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Alberto R. Gonzales and Paul D. Wolfowitz. Immigration. And overshadowing it all, the Iraq war, now longer than the U.S. fight in World War II.

Seems as a result the president doesn’t socialize much any more, has been abandoned by many of his once close friends and and is taking the counsel of many a learned man to discern his place in history. He gets how much the voters disapprove of his performance but remains convinced of his own righteous.

For the first time in 7 years, Bush seems to me like a man trapped by his own fatal character defects instead of a dangerous fool.

• Category: Current Affairs