Former President George W. Bush has long maintained that history will vindicate his tumultuous presidency, repeating the mantra like some therapeutic justification for the controversial decisions that defined his eight years as president.

Not two full years since he relinquished the White House to Barack Obama, the beloved and reviled “decider” has surfaced from exile and embarked upon a shock-and-awe media tour to promote his presidential memoir, “Decision Points.”

Is it too soon for America to revisit one of our most polarizing president to date? Has animosity cooled enough to the point that we can stomach a barrage of Bush on television and in print?

Of course not.

It can, however, produce an encouraging bump. A recent Gallup poll showed that 45 percent of Americans held Bush in good favor, up from the 34 percent approval rate in January 2009, his final month in office. Those 34 percent whose loyalty survived until the bitter end are those Americans who will take Bush-love to their graves; they’re just an ardent cluster of people on the far right of the political continuum, identical to intransigent Obama devotees on the left.

Though Mr. Bush currently enjoys a slightly warmer place in American hearts, the higher approval rate by no means suggests that the United States is mature and reasonable enough to deal with the divisive issues besetting the Obama administration.

The common good and the arena of civil discourse in politics can’t withstand two exceedingly polarizing presidents sharing the national stage a mere week after the midterm elections. The only beauty of elections is that they finally, mercifully end. And when they do, the postmortem is a sleepy, peaceful interval that allows cable news pundits to wipe the froth from their desks. But not with Bush crashing the scene this year.

Republican campaign choices indicate that America is still not ready for more of Bush. Notice his complete absence on the campaign trail; he wasn’t tapped to stump or endorse any Republican candidates during the midterm election campaign. The man is still toxic, even to members of his own party. For them, choosing Bush wasn’t practical or sane.

But does the famously stubborn former president care about public opinion? Not a wit. He purportedly never has—just another facet of the man’s legendary mystique that happens to be commendable or deplorable, depending on your perspective.

Like it or not, Bush is out there, and we can assume he’s loving every cotton-pickin’ minute of it. Bush’s fan base will voraciously consume his memoir and probably buy an extra copy to stash in a vault for their great-great-grandchildren. They need Bush because they, like him, have taken a lot of shots over the years, and seeing the former president ostensibly happy, healthy and confident validates their belief system.