They were able to rehabilitate Bush easily cause they were never truly mad at him. Liberals supported the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan overwhelmingly.

Libs may have bought into the wars early on, but by the end of Bush’s administration they fucking hated him. He had a 6% approval rating from Democrats when he left office. I remember talking to a friend who had volunteered on the Obama campaign about how a lot of folks there just wanted to complain about how awful Bush was, and how often that derailed conversations.

I don’t have a good understanding of how this turned into rehabilitation of Bush (and I don’t know to what extent he’s really been rehabilitated – I would bet most Democrats at least consider him a bad president), but it sure wasn’t libs liking the guy to begin with.