My personal favorite praise of Bush (trumped a lot during the second election) was always how he showed such poise, dignity and decision-making in the immediate aftermathg of 9/11. In other words, doing the job that would be expected of the official holding the highest office in the United States. HAHA people acted as if any other person if office would have crawled under the desk in the Oval Office and cried on television.

Come one, people, even Nader would have invaded Afghanistan.

There have been good things and bad about his time in office, but the dumbed down electorate tends to remember the worst not the best, and over generalize at that. As one of my ignorant little colleagues at work once said (insert hot chic voice here) "well Bill Clinton never did anything."

Oh come on. 8 years and never did ANYTHING????

I also think (this would make a good study) that people passing through the blissful ignorance of youth and becoming decision-making adults has a huge impact on opinions as well. Not only do their parents and teachers and media icons figure greatly into their "opinions" (repeating what Dad said isnt really an opinion), but there is typically an information history gap that negelcts recent events. Don't expect a 21 year old to remember a lot about Bill clinton being in office and world events of that time, outside of what they overheard from grown ups, and expect them to not necessarily trust the "history" they learned from grown-ups once they grow up and realize they have been lied to all their lives with cake and ice cream stories in history class. After listening to a good friend who is 35 rant and rave about the ignorance of his 18 year old nephew surrounding the events of the first gulf war, I couldn't help but say "dude, he was a toddler."