A poll released days before the opening of George W. Bush's presidential library in Dallas is serving as fodder for some sequestered GOP nostalgia about his two terms in the White House.
The Washington Post survey suggests that the 33 percent approval rating Bush took with him when he left Washington has bumped up to 47 percent. Gallup notes that it recorded Bush's lowest approval rating as 25 percent, which he hit three times
Bush's bump is a result of not only the passage of time and an American public that embraces redemption but also the leaching of emotion from Bush's more controversial decisions, says Joseph Persico, a presidential historian whose new book explores President Franklin Roosevelt and his World War II commanders.
And it bears noting, Persico says, that two other modern presidents have left office with approval ratings at rock bottom, and have emerged over time with reputations enhanced, if not burnished.
This is not intended as predictive of Bush's future approval trajectory, just historic context of how the reputations of unpopular presidents can be revived in the hearts and minds of the American public. Historians like Persico note that time will not unwrite what critics call the enormous missteps of the Bush presidency, including the march to war in Iraq.
President Harry Truman left office in 1951 with an approval rating of 23 percent — almost as bad as approval numbers for the current Congress, Persico wryly notes.
"It's difficult to believe, but when Truman left office, his poll numbers were lower than President Richard Nixon's at the nadir of Watergate," Persico says. "He was saddled with the alliterative cry of Republicans: Korea, communism and corruption."
With the passage of time, Persico says, Truman has come to be judged as the man who inaugurated the post-World War II Marshall Plan, the U.S. program to help rebuild Europe and stave off communism; contained communism; and integrated the U.S. Armed Forces.
By the late 1960s, Americans had a deeper respect for Truman's record, and his name almost invariably appears in the top 10 of historians' rankings of best presidents.
President Nixon, buffeted by the Watergate scandal, resigned the office in 1974 with a 24 percent approval rating.
"He leaves on a note of outrage, a betrayal of the American people," Persico says. "Again, we have perspective now."
Nixon, he notes, opened the door to China, bolstered the social safety net, and inaugurated detente with the Soviet Union.
The image of Watergate was largely blotted out at Nixon's funeral service in 1994, where then-President Bill Clinton noted the "wise counsel" he'd received from the former commander in chief and eulogized him thusly: