The USA midterm poll is over (not precisely as the outcome of one state is uncertain), and the Democrats won. President Bush quickly changed the person directly responsible for the Irq war.
Nearly all of my American acquaintances are strongly against or say something very harsh to President Bush. They seem not to like him.
I thought he was relatively better than other candidates in the previous presidential elections. So I often asked my American friends that do you really prefer Gore? Kerry? They often take a moment of pause and then willfully say that Gore and Kerry were far better than Bush. Then I ask why? Theythen usually became less clear to me than their research results they produce.
However, I fully sympathize my American colleagues as the attitde of President Bush to life science research does not look good. But I am a Japanese researcher and very remote from such influence.
I had two reasons to have a positive impression about him. One is that he asked British Queen Elizabeth who was the black bird (may not be the correct word) in your family? after he said to her that he was the black bird in his family. This is a good humor I like and what he said about his own position in the family must be true. I do not know what the Queen answered. The other is that he was alcoholic but somehow stopped drinking. I do not know how he stopped it but this sound a good story to be a US president rather than the two other candidates.
Japanese things and people are generally not favored or often ignored by Democratic politicians, who often prefer Chinese things. In this sense, president Bush seems to be quite positive to Japanese people. Perhaps that may be the influence of his father. I recall that his father was the plane pilot and his plane was shot down by Japanese. I know that solidiers often end up with liking the enemy. In fact, I know many Japanese who went to China for the war and came back with pro-Chinese.