In the Bizarro World...

George Bush is rumoured to be closing down Gitmo, opens up to North Korea and the Palestinians...

Meanwhile, as the Iraq War goes increasingly well, it's Afghanistan which is going to see troop surges and extended tours of duty.

What's happening here?

Especially on the former. I suspect that if Bush had a "D" next to his name and didn't have to live down caricatures as a gunslinging cowboy, we might otherwise be hearing stuff about a very progressive presidency - particularly coupled with things such as Bush's immigration policies.

I'm not sure how to read this, if not as a George W. Bush [presidency] deathbed repentance. Presuming, of course, that the one-dimensional George W. Bush of the "with-us-or-against-us" variety was really all there was to it (something I actually doubt).

About the possible repentance: it's not necessarily a bad thing. Reagan, Mr. Hard-on-Communism, was quite open with the Soviets, and nobody seemed to mind.

What about the war? Doesn't this count as a validation of sorts?

UPDATE: There's also this. I tend to agree. Warren Harding was loved when he died. Truman and Ike were hated when they left. One of these days, perhaps ten or twenty years from now, someone's going to write a groundbreaking history thesis simply rethinking the Bush Era.