Andrew Malcolm, still spinning for the Bush administration

Before he was a Los Angeles Times reporter, Andrew Malcolm was Laura Bush's press secretary. Yesterday, he used his LA Times blog to spin on behalf of Dick Cheney:

The more former Vice President Dick Cheney criticizes the Obama administration for drastically changing the national security policies of the Bush administration, the more popular Cheney seems to become among some Americans.

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And this May poll of 1,010 adults was taken before his widely viewed speech to the American Enterprise Institute that further assaulted President Obama's policies for threatening U.S. national security.

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In fact, the speech of the has-been vice president and former representative from Wyoming was discussed on a par with the presidential address of Obama defending his own policies with the Constitution and Bill of Rights encased right near the TelePrompter.

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Other Cheney-Obama speech items are available here and over here.

Almost as if the two cousins, Obama and Cheney, were debating as equals.

Obama and Cheney aren't equals, of course. One is the current president, the other is the former Vice President. If it is “almost as though they are debating as equals,” that's because the media is absurdly treating them as such.

But Malcolm's treatment of Cheney's poll numbers is the greater flaw:

The political twosome of Bush-Cheney were in a genuine poll hole on leaving office, although from former President Bush's silence since then and Cheney's frequent, escalating and aggressive defense remarks, few would think the two care much about current poll numbers.

Bush's favorable ratings have risen too since Obama took office, up 6 percentage points to now stand at 41%. Cheney's favorables remain slightly behind his ex-boss but increased by more (8 percentage points) to 37% now.

CNN's polling director says he doubts Cheney's growing popularity is due to his speeches critical of the Obama administration's security policy changes. But he can't prove they aren't. And what other explanation is there? The public's fond memories of cuddly Cheney story times at daycare centers?

First, CNN's polling director doesn't say he “doubts” Cheney's poll improvement is due to his speeches. He says the speeches are "almost certainly not" the cause. Second, Malcolm's suggestion that there is not other possible explanation is silly, given that he had just acknowledged that Bush has largely remained silent, and his retrospective approval rating has improved, too. Finally, there's a very simple possible explanation: at some point after they leave office, presidents tend to see their approval ratings improve.

Here's an ABC News article from 2004:

It's a common phenomenon for Americans to look back on past presidents with less critical eyes. Four years after George H.W. Bush left office, his retrospective approval rating was 63 percent, up considerably from the end of his term. Jimmy Carter, who had the lowest average job approval of all postwar presidents, did 20 points better in a 1999 poll, 18 years after he left office. And Reagan received a retrospective approval rating of 73 percent in 2002.

And last winter, Gallup noted that presidents leaving office normally see an increase in public support:

Presidents about to leave office generally receive a boost in public support in the final weeks of their presidencies. This may reflect sympathy for presidents who leave in defeat (like the elder Bush or Ford) or perhaps feelings of nostalgia for a favorable era for the country about to end (as for Reagan or Clinton).

It may also reflect the soon-to-be-former president's being viewed in slightly less political terms. Between Election Day and Inauguration Day, the president's successor is the primary focus of political coverage, and the sitting president is likely not pursuing many controversial policies during this time, instead focusing his attention on handing things over to the next president.