A history lesson

Since we're talking about polls and all, I should mention that President Bush appears headed for the worst disapproval rating in history. Even worse than Nixon.

But fundamental advantages for Obama remain. ... McCain's laboring under the Bush legacy. With the current economic situation, a record 70 percent of Americans disapprove of George W. Bush's job performance; a career-low 26 percent approve. McCain's problem: Fifty-three percent of registered voters think he'd lead the country in the same direction as Bush, inching back up over a majority.

Given that we have a really important choice to make this fall, the apparent bitterness in our electorate reminds me of something important I read recently in Esquire from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Suskind.

George Walker Bush is not a stupid or a bad man. But in his conduct as president, he behaved stupidly and badly. He was constrained by neither the standards of conduct common to the average professional nor the Constitution. This was not ignorance but a willful rejection on Bush's part, in the service of streamlining White House decision-making, eliminating complexity, and shutting out dissenting voices. This insular mind-set was and is dangerous. Rigorous thinking and hard-won expertise are both very good things, and our government for the past eight years has routinely debased and mocked these virtues.

Sound familiar?