Why is [Ronald Reagan] popular and [George Bush] dismissed? Much comes from personal nostalgia for the old performer and from the right-wing campaign to deify him. Unlike Bush, Reagan avoided losing a war. He talked tough but was actually cautious in the use of military force, much to the dismay of the neoconservatives who assailed him. He was also saved by his adversaries -- the USSR's Mikhail Gorbachev, who aggressively pursued arms negotiations, and the Democrats in Congress, who blocked many of Reagan's domestic excesses -- like the talk of gutting Social Security. Bush had no such luck. His catastrophic occupation of Iraq has provided Al Qaeda and its franchises with recruits across the world, and for the last six years, his allies controlled the Congress and followed his lead.