First, welcome, good for you for asking a question. Second, unfortunately, you got some of the worse responders quickly.
Bush is considered one of our worst presidents ever, right?
By many Americans.
But there is a very big partisan divide; perhaps 20% of the country is a radical, nutsy, ideological group - largely correlated to right-wing talk radio listeners.
And the Republican party itself is pretty polarized - they've gotten rid of any 'liberal' wing for a long time, and have few 'moderates' in power (count them on a hand).
They've evolved to the right. Nixon was the 'right wing' of the party, now is far too 'left'.. Reagan was the 'far right' of the party, now he can't pass his own party's unofficial 'litmus test' to be a Republican. George H. W. Bush is largely seen as too 'left'. And many on the right today view George W. Bush as 'too left', after he was elected as 'the REAL Republican, no-compromise right-wing candidate'.
They're just a hair away from flat-earthers; they like people like Michelle Bachmann.
So the answer to your question is that many Americans view Bush as 'the worst President in history', but most Republicans do not.
These days I see praise for Obama in addition to the criticisms, but the criticisms don't seem to really be all that bad compared to how much I remember people hating on Bush.
One thing is, you hear that from whom? There are many types of media, from the right-wing propaganda machine to the corporate mainstream to liberal.
The far right still attack Obama as a 'socialist out to destroy America' and are rabidly wanting to defeat him. A main criticism on the right is the his deficits are high. Others point out that he inherited 'the worst financial crash since the Great Depression', and he quickly put a halt to it getting a lot worse, at large expense borrowing, and that economists say that not only is big government spending needed for economic recovery when the other types of spending are collapsing - consumer and business - but that the government hasn't done enough stimulus, resulting in a weak recovery - the worst in modern times Republicans are attacking him for.
So now my question: Why do I see TONS of "Impeach Obama, enough is enough!" and "NOPE" bumper stickers all over the damn place? Where were these peoples anti-Bush stickers? Wasn't Bush almost universally hated? Are the people with the offending stickers just butthurt republicans?
The answer is there is a massive right-wing propaganda machine who would attack Obama if he did great - because it's bought and paid for by interests who want an economic agenda for the rich, and those who sell out to that agenda, things like even MORE redistribution of wealth to the top 1%, who want to destroy American's middle class and their programs because it'll allow shifting middle class wealth to the top, and will deny Democrats political credit for the programs. That's the nutty 20%.
And honestly, did anyone really want Palin in office?
Yes, mostly that nutty 20%. There are the types who don't have a clue about her flaws, but think she's attractive and 'spunky' and some sort of 'maverick'.
Con men fool people, who will praise the con man. That's these people, eating out of her hand as she cons them.
All she has to do are things like put meaningless phrases from Americana on her bus, to spout far-right ideology, they eat it up.
They have the 'poor them, the liberals are so oppressive' schtick down and exploit it, like 'gotcha questions' forcing her to mangle Paul Revere's history.
Just as snake oil salesman convince people the town doctor is a crook, the far right - Fox and so on - convince these suckers only Fox is accurate.
It's a great marketing move, giving them a monopoly for these suckers. Lies like 'the media is liberal' keep them turning to the real propaganda sellers.
How does that happen? There are a few radical right-wing billionares who pour vast sums into this machine and 'the big lie' takes it from there, they buy suckers.
It's remarkable how few people have been able to con tens of millions of Americans - I could list ten names that would largely cover the sponsors of this propaganda.
Once they fund it and get it established though, it becomes a market that can largely support itself.
The first attempt at a 'Fox' type network, with Roger Ailes, failed. The second attempt, with Rupert Murdoch, failed too, but this time, he used his money to buy a market. He subsidized the network, becoming the first cable channel to every pay cable companies to carry it instead of the other way, buying it a spot, and eventually, it started to sucker people in, and has become quite popular. It's the greatest modern con man propaganda success around. That's why you see 'impeach' stickers.
The people are basically not being rational, but ideological cultists. Note a majority of Republicans saying Obama wasn't even born in the US.
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