Add to the fact that his peons screen any crowd for any disturbance (protestors, signs, t-shirts, etc.) that might ruffle his tender little ego.

War Room always seems to have more context AND analysis when Steve Benen's here. Keep up the good work!

Because the crowds are handpicked repug zombies who can't understand why people don't appreciate the wonderful service he has given these past 7.5 years.

FTFA:

I hate to break it to the president, but there are probably fewer motorcade protests because critics have given up caring about him altogether.

Yep. What's the point of protesting the Bush administration now? He's a joke, no one takes him seriously, and he's on the way out.

Good riddence to bad rubbish.

And for the record, I'll do all I can to make sure that successive generations of gezelligtexans know what horrible president he was.

Morons act like that, ya know. In fact, it's a subject of scientific study. Yeah, really. .

Dubya is our contemporary version Alfred E. Newman who used to be featured on the cover of Mad Magazine. A dull, moronic grunt who smiles his way through life me no matter what. "What me worry ?" Duuuuh - -

From his birth IQ equaling that of a 1983 Chevy gear shift, he quafed enough booze and sucked up so much of the funny white powder to sink the carrier a real pilot flew him in on to proclaim "Mission Completed ! " a few years ago. So now the tiny remaining portion of his brain that is still capable of operating has been put on hold. An internal survival response.

So from now on it'll be just "Duuuuh" from Dubya.

"What, fewer people are giving him the finger as he drives through their community, and he interprets that as a boost in popularity?"

Must be hard for a guy who coasted through life on his charm and his daddy's connections to actually have people dislike him based on job performance. Two really foreign concepts. One can see why he believes the dislike is an aberration and people will come around.

Or maybe he's planning a beer-drinking tour to help people change their minds!

...just in the impossibly off-handed chance that asshole decides to check out what the people are syaing, let me say: " FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE". Even Jesus would tell you you're a disgusting human being motivated by greed and power-- you know, two of the things that book called the Bible is most adamantly against.

Bushit saying Osama bin Laden is no longer relevant and not worth the trouble, and now the electorate doing in like kind to Bushit. Two ass holes lots of people want to see, at very least, in prison, but only after their respective War Crimes are prosecuted.

One for murdering americans, the other for murdering Iraqi civilians in his unholy and lie infected quest to "capture, dead or alive" his villain nemesis in a preemptive war waged for oil. Like some sort of real-life game of RISK. They'll make quite a pair of bookends in the "anals" of history...

In the short list of worst fucking things to ever happen to us.

#1 The Civil War

#2 The Great Depression

#3 George motherfucker should have died at birth Bush.

We just have to survive the next seven months till Obama takes office next January. I for one hope that President Obama will call for a national week of healing soon thereafter. I'm quite sure the nation feels like it's been plenty traumatized by the Bush version of "government by the (rich and lawless) people, for the (rich and lawless) people". I may have to take some time off just to recover from Bush-induced PTSD. My God, what an awful nearly 8 years this has been! What a horrific beginning to the 21st century we've had!

Does anyone actually believe this story is true at all?

For more than seven years we have seen the Bush White House put out a story line that is demonstratably false, yet get away with it because our media stenographers re-print the comments without asking for even the slightest grain of proof.

More than likely George W. Bush no more cares what Americans think of him than he did five minutes after the November 2004 elections. He is The Decider and lives in his bubble. His press office puts out whatever story of the day will keep the sheep in the media room busy: Sort of like Cindy McCains cookie recipies.

Remember, this is the man who took credit just last week for a GI Bill that he himself opposed. Does this "feeling less antipathy" have any greater "ring of truth" to it that anything else he has said since "Mission Accomplished"?

The only reason that there might be less "antipathy" is that no one cares WHAT George W. Bush says any more. He will hand over a string of debacles to his successor to solve and then head off to the Crawford compound to amass (further) massive wealth from speaking fees and consulting contracts from all those companies and individuals ("Loyal Bushies") he made rich in Iraq.

I'd love to hear that! It is fun to see him parroting the line his handlers plant in his brain- personal faves include the (paraphrasing here) “I’ve got political capital and I intend to spend it” and “you’ve got catapult the propaganda”. You can see his aides explaining the idea or strategy and cringing when he repeats it publicly. Less ‘antipathy’- hilarious!

"The polling is flawed, the pundits are wrong, people really respect the job I've done." Bush keeps relying on his gut, but his gut has got him in trouble he is in today. Carl Sagan once said, "I don't think with my gut, I think with my brain. I get better results that way." Bush would gain his first kernal of wisdom if he could learn to do the same.

What, fewer people are giving him the finger as he drives through their community, and he interprets that as a boost in popularity?

Oh, thank you Mr. Benen! That made me laugh out loud. God, Salon, please give him the War Room. Pleaaaaaaaaaaaaaase!

I think maybe the cheering Bush is seeing along his motorcades are from people excited that he's nearly done with his supremely dreadful presidency.

Then again, the Right will likely go to work with a Bush Legacy Foundation the way they did with Reagan, in hopes of hagiographic cultural massage bringing him up to statesmanlike status, ala Reagan. Still, even that's a tough sell, given that there's not a hell of a lot for GW Bush to lay proper claim to that's actually going to be looked at honestly as good for the country, in hindsight. He's going to be seen as the apogee of a pernicious confluence of ideological factionalism that hijacked the country for a generation at the expense of future prosperity.

I imagine champagne sales will skyrocket when Bush is finally out of the White House for good.