JUST ONE REASON HE NEEDN'T WORRY ABOUT HISTORY:

Bush's popularity rises -- in India (Beverly Kirk, August 6, 2007, Politico)

...A 2006 Pew Global Attitudes Survey found 56 percent of Indians have a favorable view of the U.S., with the same percentage saying they have confidence in Bush's leadership. In the United States, meanwhile, the president's approval ratings hover around 30 percent or lower in the most general polling.

Why is Bush viewed so positively in India, the polyglot democracy half a world away? The answer, like the country, is complex and depends on who's responding to the question.

During my visit to New Delhi in June, I met with some of India's leading English-language journalists for an assessment of the president's popularity on the subcontinent. Nidhi Razdan, senior special correspondent for NDTV, noted that U.S.-Indian relations had long been strained over a perceived tilt toward archrival Pakistan, among other concerns. But several Bush administration policies have improved relations, Razdan said, including a bilateral pact in 2006 between the United States and India under which the U.S. will provide access to civilian nuclear technology and access to nuclear fuel, in exchange for international safeguards on civilian Indian reactors.

"It's historic, and it's Bush who's giving that to us," she said. "No other president was willing to do it."