History can take a while to get it right...

James Taranto:

the 44% who say they'd prefer Bush to Obama is twice Bush's approval rating in the final CBS News poll during his term. With Bush out of office less than a year, it seems unlikely that a revisionist view of his presidency has already taken hold. Thus these results almost surely represent a backlash against Obama and Congress's Democrats. Their insistence on pushing ahead and forcing on the country a health-care scheme that by now is almost as unpopular as it is monstrous is without a doubt a major factor here.

It has long been my position that history will be far kinder to the Presidency of George W. Bush than the media coverage of him in office was. I see no reason to change that assessment.

And, while I'm still very scared that they're going to manage to push this health care debacle through, I'm starting to think it possible that the Democrats are committing the worst kind of party suicide - pushing hard enough to convince everyone that they cannot be trusted, and paying that price in a losing effort.