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.
American troops continue to “bleed in Iraq” so we won’t have to here – in New York, or Los Angeles, or Chicago. It’s that simple.
You think Rove did a good job promoting Bush? Wait about 50 years, when the face of that “strutting little aristocratic popinjay” is beaming down at you from Mt. Rushmore. And no, the majorities of Americans are not beginning to “rouse themselves”. Sounds like delusional wish fullfillment to me. The president’s poll numbers, at their lowest right now, are still higher than any president of the last 50 years at the same point, including Reagan & Clinton.
Bush’s numbers right now are between 35 – 39 percent – worse than any other second term president at the end of his first year except Nixon. Nixon was at 27 percent, which is where Bush is headed.
Besides, Bush has a problem that other presidents haven’t had: he’s too stupid to change.
George W. Bush will remembered in future histories as the Worst President Ever. So cheer up. You’re living in at a historic moment – the lowest mark of the American Presidency.
This is a great country, and we will survive the treachery and treason, and even the incompetence, of the current cabal, which is already collapsing under the weight of its own sleaze and corruption.
I only hope that the massive failure of the GOP leadership that is about to happen – the current-day equivalent of the unmasking of Joe McCarthy 50 years ago – sends the Republican Party back into the political wilderness for another 40 years and more.
Today’s liberals are indulging in the very thing Joe McCarthy was doing 50 years ago: demagoguery. McCarthy, it is important to remember, was a democrat, much beloved of the Kennedys.
It should also be pointed out that a republican has occupied the White House for 25 of the past 40 years. Incalculable damage was done under the incompetent administration of Jimmy Carter(wasn’t he supposed to be a smart guy?), & Bill Clinton sat on his hands for his 8 years, and let’s not even begin with L.B.J. Between him & J.F.K. they did more damage to this country than G.W.B. could do if he were elected to 4 terms. Let’s see, the two of them together gave us a communist dictatorship 90 miles off our coast, the Viet Nam War, damn near nuclear holocaust, and the “Great Society”! Sleaze and corruption? Hmmm, certainly J.F.K. & Bill Clinton come to mind.
Ooh! This poor troll is panicked. See how he resorts to the Rovian trick of attacking us for an ad hominen attack with an ad hominen attack –
“Today’s liberals are indulging in the very thing Joe McCarthy was doing 50 years ago: demagoguery.”
And then he uses the other Bush/Rove/GOP gambit he tells a baldface LIE:
“McCarthy, it is important to remember, was a democrat, much beloved of the Kennedys.”
That is of course false. Nobody has ever been more of a Republican than Joe McCarthy. He was – and is – the poster boy for the party’s true heart: hate-filled, raging – and fascistic.
And hypocritical: Typically, McCarthy, like so many at the top of the GOP’s current leadership, was a closeted gay man who baited and destroyed other gay men.
McCarthy’s ravings brought the GOP to its knees in the 1950s when America saw, through him, what the Republican Party was truly all about. They had to wait 40 years for America to forget who they really are and let them have the reigns of power again.
And now it is all collapsing on them. Again.
Poor troll. You put your faith in George Bush, a simpleton, a man of no character or perceptible morality, who is ridiculously unqualified for the job.
No wonder you’re seething at those of us who were smart enough to see through George Bush from the gitgo. Makes perfect sense if one tries to think like a Republican (or a six year old child): “I screwed up. Who can I blame/smear/lie about to avoid responsibility for my mistake?”