Day: November 4, 2005

The jig is up: The American public finally seems to be getting it — the administration’s top-ranking officials have been up to some real nastiness, and it is their hubris that has been their downfall. They think they can play us like patsies and rubes, and do what they want.

That’s what all the president’s men thought during Watergate, too.

From National Journal’s PollTrack (edited):

A new ABC News/Washington Post survey found:

• 59% of respondents think Rove should resign
• 30% think he should stay
• Nearly half said they thought Rove did something wrong in connection to the Plame case
• 26% said it was likely that what he did was illegal

Regarding former vice presidential aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s role in the leak:

• 70% said the charges against Libby represent a serious crime
• 26% said they represent a minor or technical crime
• 54% said Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald brought the case against Libby based on facts
• 31% said the charges were politically motivated
• 52% said the case indicates broader ethical problems in the administration
• 43% maintained that it’s an isolated incident

The spotlight on administration officials is not reflecting well on President Bush. The ABC/Post poll put his approval rating at 38 percent, with 60 percent disapproving (the highest ever recorded in the poll). Indeed, “on almost every key measure of presidential character and performance, the survey found that Bush has never been less popular with the American people,” the poll analysis found.

Two other new polls also show low numbers for Bush. An Associated Press/Ipsos Public Affairs poll put his approval rating at 37 percent, with 59 percent disapproving. And a new Zogby survey reported that 39 percent think Bush is doing a good or excellent job in office, while 61 percent rated his performance as fair or poor.

National Journal’s Congressional Insiders poll:

• 30 of 40 Republicans said they expect GOP lawmakers to become more independent of the White House in the next year
• One said House GOP members will need to “pivot away” and promote their own agendas
• 40 Democrats unanimously agreed that members of their party would likely become increasingly critical of the White House

The Insiders poll also asked respondents if they’d like to see Senate Democrats filibuster Bush’s high court pick, Samuel Alito.

• 30 of 40 Republicans said no
• 22 of 39 Democrats said yes
• 8 Democrats said no and 9 said it was too early to say

Twenty-six people, including 18 children and teenagers, have been killed in a human rabies outbreak in northeast Brazil in the past two months, the Health Ministry said Tuesday Nov. 1, 2005. The disease is transmitted to humans by blood-eating [vampire] bats, according to the Ministry.

All these cases were reported in the rural areas of the northeastern state of Maranhao, said the Ministry. The first death happened in August. Many houses in marshlands do not have screens in the windows and have large holes in the floor and ceiling, making it easy for vampire bats to break in, said the Ministry spokesperson. All the bat attacks took place at night.

The state of Maranhao borders the state of Para, where a
human-vampire bat rabies epidemic occurred in 2004. Ten vaccination and five bat-catching teams currently are working in the region to try to prevent the spread of the disease.

From 1986 to 2004, a total of 703 people have been reported killed by rabies in Brazil, and 84 of them were in the state of Maranhao, said the ministry.

Continued deforestation of the Amazon region has sent thousands of displaced vampire bats carrying rabies fleeing across northern Brazil. Rabies virus, which infects the central nervous system of humans, can cause death within a day from the onset of symptoms.

America’s big hangover: While we would hardly call the present era “morning in America,” it does appear that more Americans are waking up to the nauseating results of a reckless binge that culminated one year and one day ago in the election of George Bush.

Earlier this week, a CBS Poll found that Bush’s popularity had sunk to 35 percent – and that Vice President Cheney now had an amazing 19 percent approval. (Of course, Cheney doesn’t care about that – he has a consituency of one.)

Now comes the Washington Post/ABC News that shows that President Bush has lost ground on the last vestige of the artifice of character he and Rove created and projected out to the public – the false idea that George W. Bush has “character” and “integrity”:

On almost every key measure of presidential character and performance, the survey found that Bush has never been less popular with the American people. Currently 39 percent approve of the job he is doing as president, while 60 percent disapprove of his performance in office — the highest level of disapproval ever recorded for Bush in Post-ABC polls…

Overall, the survey underscores how several pillars of Bush’s presidency have begun to crumble under the combined weight of events and White House mistakes. Bush’s approval ratings have been in decline for months, but on issues of personal trust, honesty and values, Bush has suffered some of his most notable declines. Moreover, Bush has always retained majority support on his handling of the U.S. campaign against terrorism — until now, when 51 percent have registered disapproval.

Of course, even 39 percent is an incredibly high approval rate for the Worst President Ever. And it speaks to the power of the stagecraft of Rove and others who have successfully portrayed a strutting aristocratic popinjay as a man of the people.

Even so, those of us who were never fooled by the carefully stage-managed and tightly scripted presentation of Bush’s manufactured persona can take little comfort in the fact that majorities of Americans are beginning to rouse themselves.

The 20,000-plus dead and wounded service personnel are lost forever – as are the billions we continue to bleed in Iraq.