So Mr. Bush has an uptick in approval ratings.....

George W. Bush is trending on the Internet for a surprising reason.
A CNN/ORC Poll that recently hit yielded some very good news for the former president; for the first time since the months after his reelection in 2004, more Americans have a favorable opinion of him (52 percent) than an unfavorable one (43 percent).

Before you guys start celebrating, it would be wise to remember that most former presidents become more popular in the years after their administrations have ended.
Both Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush were widely disliked when their presidencies ended but are held in much higher regard today. More important, though, there is the simple fact that a president’s legacy is ultimately determined by whether Americans were doing worse or better after he left office.

How does Bush measure up?

1) He failed on September 11 2001
Who will disagree that the September 11 terrorist attacks were a defining moment of Bush’s presidency? As president, his foremost responsibility was bringing the mastermind behind those attacks—al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden—to justice.

Bush failed in this mission. Instead of prioritizing hunting bin Laden down inPakistan, where he was suspected of hiding (and where Obama promised to get him during the 2008 presidential election), In Dec. of 2001, OBL was hiding in Tora Bora, when orders came doewn to Secial Forces troops to let OBL's former allies the Mujageddin guard the passes into Pakistan... Somehow he escaped. So to make up for it, we invaded Iraq, a nation that had absolutely nothing to do with September 11.
In the process,  He then went on to tell the press just six months after 9/11 that Bin Laden was not a top priority for his administration.
He significantly damaged America's credibility and standing overseas, and needlessly destabilized the Middle East in ways that we’re still seeing today. Including the creation and evolution of ISIS.

2) His policies caused the Great Recession
When Bush took office, he inherited a strong economy built by President Bill Clinton: unemployment had fallen from 7.3% to 4.2%, creating more than 22 million jobs in the process, and the median family income had increased by more than $6,000.
By comparison, the Bush presidency only managed to oversee the creation of  1.1 million jobs, by far the lowest of any president since Harry Truman, while income inequality expanded at staggering levels. The top 10 percent of American earners pulled in almost half of total wages, the most lopsided wealth distribution since 1917.
Although the economic stagnation became apparent very early in his first term, it didn’t turn into a full-fledged recession until the collapse of America’s financial industry in 2008, after which unemployment shot up from 6.2 percent in September (the month of the crash) to 7.7 percent in January (the end of Bush’s presidency). This was an average increase of 0.3% per month, finally ending in 2009 with a rate of over 10%!
When you Consider that Bush’s policy of Wall Street deregulation and hands off oversight was largely responsible for the reckless practices of the banks that brought the economy to its knees, it’s fair to say that this was one of the two most significant fiscal failures of his administration.
The other, of course, was his squandering of the Clinton budget surplus. When Clinton left office in January 2001, he bequeathed America with a projected $1.9 trillion surplus. By the time Bush handed the economy off to Obama in 2009, the Congressional Budget Office projected $1.9 trillion in debt, due largely to Bush’s $1.5 trillion in tax cuts to the wealthy, as well as the additional trillions spent on the aforementioned wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

3) His administration regressed American civil liberties to an unprecedented degree.
Peeling back the Bill of rights, creating "Free Speech zones" sometimes miles from the events being protested, brutally arresting journalists, vets and anyone not "Cleared" by th eparty attending speeches....
From torturing suspected terrorists in clear violation of the Geneva Convention to laying the groundwork for the NSA’s unprecedented domestic spying program, Bush’s post-9/11 legislative initiatives ultimately threatened American freedom more than Osama bin Laden’s schemes ever managed to do.

4) He bungled his response to Hurricane Katrina
Believe it or not, it isn’t that difficult for a president to effectively manage disaster relief after a hurricane: Lyndon Johnson famously mastered the aftermath of Hurricane Betsy in 1965, while Barack Obama’s response to Hurricane Sandy was so effective that it was erroneously credited for his reelection in 2012.
By contrast, Bush utterly failed when Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc on the Gulf Coast in 2005—a subsequent report by the House of Representatives found that his administration disregarded numerous warnings of the threat to New Orleans, did not execute emergency plans, and neglected to share information between different departments that could have saved lives.

5) When it came to one of the biggest civil rights issue of his time, he placed himself on the wrong side of history
When future historians look back at the early 21st century, there is little question that they will view the campaign for LGBT equality as one of the major civil rights movements of the era. Yet not only did Bush fail to advocate on behalf of the LGBT community (despite his vice president having a lesbian daughter and his party being chaired by a closeted gay man, Ken Mehlman, during his second term), but he actively exploited anti-gay bigotry during his reelection campaign in 2004. This was particularly the case in states like Ohio, where its pull among so-called “value voters” played a considerable role (alongside racially based voter suppression, caging and outright fraud) in Bush’s winning that state—and with it, the general election.

None of this means that George W. Bush is a terrible or evil human being, or even that he set out to cause harm to the nation he professes to love. At the same time, no bounce in his approval rating can overshadow the damage that he did while in office. More Americans may like Bush than dislike him right now, but when his legacy is ultimately appraised, the final verdict will not be a kind one.