Recently, Mr. Bush has been allowed to rehabilitate his image, particularly on Reddit. My belief is that this is happening because of younger generations commenting in a contrarian way on his presidency, perhaps some of which is influenced by the absolute state of the Republican Party today.
For most of those of us who lived through his presidency, it was always clear that Bush was a religious and sexual bigot, but not a racial one.
It was always clear that the evidence for invading Iraq was scant at best. The war was protested by the biggest international collaboration of protesters ever.
Days after 9/11, there were plenty of us ACLU types decrying the USA PATRIOT Act. Many of us felt that Pelosi, Clinton, etc. had few inviolable beliefs about civil rights at that time. Russ Feingold and Bernie Sanders voted against it.
Bush was the worst possible president, so I had thought.
Trump is dealing with absolutely crippling levels of narcissism and perception distortion. He literally cannot understand when he encounters evidence that not everyone loves him or that he has done something wrong. When he screams, “fake news,” it’s as much a psychological defense mechanism and an attempt to lie to himself as it is an attempt to lie to us.