George Bush is too nice

I'm getting inklings of a new consensus forming in the right-wing blogosphere that explains why Bush has become so unpopular. It's because he's been too nice a guy to go out and actually beat up his critics like they so richly deserve.

Yep. You heard that right. Bush is falling in the polls because he is too nice.

Oliver Willis points to one example from The Anchoress, who writes a long post praising Bush, a man too great for his times, who has to suffer the ignominity of not just the Democrats but also the betrayal of his own base. And why is this happening? Because Bush is too good to treat the traitors like they really deserve to be treated.

Then this morning I came across this from PrestoPundit, courtesy of the Dauou Report:

... the unconscionable lies of the President’s political enemies have become the accepted facts of contemporary public discourse. The thing responsible for this is the President’s “I’m a uniter, not a divider” charade. It’s encouraging to see the White House take off the gloves. But the White House is fatally late to the party. For the American people the legend of “Bush lied, men died” has become fact — and when the legend becomes fact, the Democrat press prints the legend — every time.

So, up till now, the White House has just sat back and taken all the criticism, never raising a finger of protest, never "taking the gloves off". This has resulted in Bush's low approval ratings as the unanswered "lies" have taken hold. Why? Because Bush is just too nice a guy.

I'm sure Valerie Plame might disagree with that assessment.