This actually should not surprise anybody.

Would George W.'s advice be good or bad for President Jeb? @bpolitics/@dmregister Iowa Poll: http://t.co/YX8JB7mO7D pic.twitter.com/878Dcf1l8p

— Bloomberg Politics (@bpolitics) June 3, 2015

Although it’s not quite a ‘rehabilitation’ of George W Bush; after all, it’s a poll of Republican caucus-goers, not Iowan or national voters as a whole*.  Still, this is a trend that suggests that history will be kinder to the former President than a lot of currently sweaty-palmed Lefty pundits and agitators would care to admit.  Although, to be fair: I suppose that even if you do think – presumably because you didn’t study the American Civil War (or, indeed, any military history at all) – that the GWOT was the worst military disaster ever you could still think that George W Bush could give his brother good advice on What Not To Do.

And, in fact, I can think of one good piece of advice along those lines, myself.  One thing not to do is pick a Vice President who doesn’t want to be President after you.  All hail Darth Cheney and whatnot, but if we had had an ambitious person in that slot who was ready to run in 2008 we might have won that election**. We certainly would have encouraged the Democrats to find somebody better than the inarticulate, incompetent pedant that took office in 2009, and then proceeded to set the Middle East on fire…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: There’s also this amusing CNN poll where George W Bush currently outpolls Barack Obama, but honestly? You had to expect that would happen.  We tend to forgive our Presidents, once they get out of office (unless they’re named Richard Nixon). In other words, this should only surprise those poor unfortunates who were so foolish as to base their entire political moral compass around their hatred of one, specific politician.  Alas, though: such people do exist.

*The same poll also surveyed Democratic caucus-goers, with regard to Bill Clinton and Hillary.  Absolutely unsurprisingly, 83% of them think that having Bill along for the ride would be peachy-keen wonderful.  I will not be so reckless as to wonder just how many of those Democrats would be happy to drop Hillary if they could still have Bill…

**With the caveat that ‘winning’ in this case means ‘retained enough seats in the Senate to allow the filibuster.’