Anti-Trumpers get nostalgic for George W. Bush before liberals shut down praise

“Let us remember, we have faced times of testing before,” Bush said in the video shared Saturday. “Following 9/11, I saw a great nation rise as one to honor the brave, to grieve with the grieving, and to embrace unavoidable new duties. And I have no doubt, none at all, that this spirit of service and sacrifice is alive and well in America.”

Bush rarely makes public statements about current events, and his tone was noticeably different than Trump, emphasizing unity.

That prompted emotional responses from Trump critics.

“In a million years I never thought I’d be crying watching this, thinking how much better we’d all feel if Bush were president today. Wtf,” tweeted former Democratic California Rep. Katie Hill, who resigned from office last year amid allegations of improper relationships with staffers.

“Please listen to every word of this message from our former President George W. Bush. What a thoughtful and inspiring message. This is how a leader speaks and what a leader says,” tweeted Fred Guttenberg, a gun control activist whose daughter was killed in the 2018 Parkland, Florida, shooting.

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough shared a photo of a child holding an American flag alongside a quote from Bush: “We rise or fall together, and we are determined to rise.”

The praise represents a nationwide change of popular opinion about Bush since Trump became a major force in Republican politics. A January 2018 CNN poll found that 61% of the public had a favorable view of Bush, nearly double the 33% who had a favorable opinion of him when he left office in January 2009.

Feel-good nostalgia for Bush, however, was quickly shut down.

Late-night host Seth Meyers criticized Democrats who lauded Bush’s calls for unity and his tone.

“George W. Bush is not your friend. He’s still the guy who used fabricated evidence to drag us into an intractable war,” Meyers said Tuesday. “You can criticize one bad president without praising another bad president.”

“The Trump presidency didn’t just come out of nowhere. Bush paved the way for him,” he added. “If we can’t remember when presidents do bad things, then more presidents are going to come along and do more bad things.”

The Guardian columnist Arwa Mahdawi wrote Wednesday that “the steady rehabilitation of Bush is paving the way for Trump to evade accountability in the future.”

Hill issued an apology later on Saturday. “This seemed dismissive of the horrors of the Bush years – in which I was an LGBT teenage girl who knew many people who served (and died) in the wars that are still not over. Maybe it’s true that in the end, his ‘legacy’ will still be worse that Trump’s,” she tweeted.

Guttenberg stood by his praise of Bush.

“Everyone flipping because I praised this Bush message, stop. My brother died because of 9/11. I’m aware of what Bush did in response to it & on guns & how it contributed to the death of my daughter. I disliked his Presidency. I like this message, wish we had more of this now,” he tweeted Saturday.

Some commentators issued harsh criticism of Bush while welcoming any anti-Trump messaging from Republicans.

“Should President Bush be allowed to rehabilitate his reputation? No. He wasn’t just a bad President, he committed war crimes. He had a huge death toll of his own. But if Bush wants to help us take Trump down, we’ll take the help,” leftist blogger Bill Palmer tweeted Saturday.

Trump also scoffed at his fellow Republican president’s video.

“He was nowhere to be found in speaking up against the greatest Hoax in American history!” the president tweeted Sunday.

He continued his criticism of Bush in an interview on Monday that echoed some liberals, calling the invasion of Iraq “the worst decision made in the history of our country.”