A big part of the reason

Why George W left office with a 33% approval rating.

From the Washington Post:

Many of the Republicans who have urged their party to tone down its sharp rhetoric against the construction of an Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero or who don't oppose the project share a common trait: service as top advisers to then-President George W. Bush.

Although prominent Republican figures such as former House speaker Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin have loudly condemned the proposed mosque, several top Bush aides have criticized President Obama's handling of the issue but urged a more nuanced debate among Republicans.

They have not coordinated with one another, nor the former president, who has said nothing about the mosque or virtually any other issue since he left office in January 2009. But their comments illustrate what has emerged since Bush left office: a GOP that has not fully rejected or embraced the ex-president's legacy. Bush famously called Islam a "religion of peace" during his presidency, a phrase few in the party have invoked in discussing the current controversy.

We should remember that almost all of those Muslim clerics that former president Bush heaped up around himself in the aftermath of 9/11 turned out to have records of supporting terrorist groups and Holocaust denial.

We all remember how Mr. Bush constantly proclaimed Islam to be a "religion of peace" and yet was as unable to document any examples of Islam bringing peace to any place by any method other than killing or enslaving all non-Muslims as current president Obama is of listing any of the supposed "significant contributions" which Islam has made to America during its history.

George W Bush's failure to grasp the fact that Islam is to the war on terror what Nazism was to the war in Europe is a significant part of the reason that the American public turned against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As we enter a critically important election season listening to the advice of people who participated in a presidential administration which left office with numbers as low as Jimmy Carter's or Richard Nixon's is not the smart move.