Basic Information
Name: George Walker Bush
Nicknames: Dubya, 43
Born: July 6th, 1946
Nationality: American
Hometown: Born in New Haven, Connecticut; Now Resides in Texas
WORK & EDUCATION
Occupation: Governor, Baseball Enthusiast, Businessman, Painter
Education: Phillips Academy Andover, Yale University, Harvard Business School
FAMILY & FRIENDS
Parents: George H. W. Bush, Barbara Bush
Siblings: Robin Bush, Jeb Bush, Neil Bush, Marvin Bush, Dorothy Bush Koch
Spouse: Laura Bush
Children: Jenna Bush Hager, Barbara Bush
Friends: Karl Rove, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Nolan Ryan
Foes: John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Kanye West
Analysis
George W. Bush had a roller-coaster presidency to go along with a roller-coaster life.
The man overcame a self-termed "average" academic record, alcoholism, and career troubles to become the governor of Texas at a relatively young age. In his eight years as president, he went from being super-duper popular within his own party to controversial even within the GOP. All that tumult would make it difficult for anyone to properly pronounce the word "nuclear"…right?
Bush became president in 2000 after losing the popular vote to Al Gore. He was then re-elected, in another narrow victory, over John Kerry in 2004. His popularity soared after 9/11, but at the end of his presidency in 2008, Bush had a historically low approval rating of 19 percent (source). Pretty rough. If four out of five Shmoopers weren't big fans of Shmoop, we'd have to start doing more cat videos. Way, way more cat videos.
Bush's decline in popularity during his last year in office definitely helped give the White House to the Dems. It was like double faulting on match point in tennis.
Texas Toast
What made Bush so unpopular? Mostly, it was the economy. Also, his detractors weren't super psyched about those two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, his handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, or his environmental policies.
Everyone's a critic.
Voters, encouraged by Obama's rhetoric and message of hope and change, blamed the outgoing president and his administration for causing the economic downturn of 2008. People believed that Bush had been too lax when it came to regulating the financial industry, letting banks run wild with risky loans and investments. That sort of thing also had been going on before Bush became president, but political memory is short.
At this point, it's worth mentioning that the president doesn't actually control the economy. We often want presidents to be the quarterback of the country's metaphorical economic football team. But the economy is kind of like the weather on game day. You can prepare for snow and rain, but you can't completely stop what's happening, and you can't always predict it.
Because of the crumbly state of the economy, Bush made extra efforts to assist Obama during the presidential transition. He even involved the president-elect in the "bailout" plan, the process where the government used federal spending to inject money back into the market, like a blood donation. But more expensive.
Despite his gestures of goodwill, Bush remained the foil for everything Obama represented. He was Obama's Salieri, the Pepsi to Obama's Coca-Cola, the Tupac to his Biggie. All of Obama's talk about "hope" and "change" signified a movement away from what Bush did.
War and the World
In that respect, the Iraq War might have been even more important than the economy. Bush led America into Iraq unilaterally—meaning he did it without the support of other powerful countries. Between 2004 and 2008, the Bush administration cultivated a Team America attitude toward foreign policy. The so-called Bush Doctrine enshrined force as America's right, basically saying that the United States could do whatever it wanted, whenever.
Obama wasn't loving this whole idea.
During the inauguration, he criticized the Bush Doctrine by proclaiming, "Our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint" (18.3). Because of sentences like this, Obama started to become just as popular around the world as he was in America.
Weirdly, Bush might have made Obama president. The Iraq War was costly and unpopular, which benefited Democrats in the 2008 election. And Obama held a trump card over Hillary Clinton, his main Democratic rival: he had vocally disapproved of the war all along, while Clinton had voted in favor of it as a senator.
Obama wasn't yet a senator when voting for the Iraq War took place, so it's kind of tricky. Right or wrong, the talking point never went away. Obama was only 44 years old when he ran for president, and without a nation in crisis, voters might have gravitated toward a more experienced candidate. Instead, they went for the young guy who promised to help deliver them from darkness.
So George Bush-hating Democrats can at least thank him for Obama.
In his post-presidency life, Bush is like the ex that America is on friendly terms with. Now that he's not president, his popularity has gone up again (source).
The roller coaster continues.