Monday, September 12, 2005

Getting Past the Polarization on the President

How good a president is Dubya? Depends on who you ask.

James Taranto has a second offering on "OpinionJournal" today, a short piece on Bush's effectiveness as ranked by scholars with the political views of the scholars accounted for. What's interesting is that opinion on Bush is considerably more divided than on other recent presidents, with Republican scholars ranking him sixth best and Dems sixth worst.

I'll venture an additional point. People who can't comprehend either the love or hatred that people have for Dubya are folks who live in political echo chambers, reading and talking to others who agree with them already. As cities become more homogeneous, filled with unmarried professionals and the poor, and suburbs become more homogeneous, filled with families raising children, and the major metro areas and rural regions have less contact with each other, we'll see more Balkanization of political opinion.

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