Year: 2005
CNN: 18%Another Bad Poll for Schwarzenegger
The percentage of Californians who believe the state is headed in the wrong direction has climbed, propelled by those who disapprove of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s performance in office, according to a Field Poll released on Tuesday.
The leading [cause for pessimism among the 59% who believe the state is on the wrong track] can be summarized as “the governor is taking the wrong positions, [I] oppose his positions.”
The Field Poll found that 59 percent of Californians believe the state is on the wrong track, compared with 51 percent in February and an average of 52 percent in 2004.
Only 28 percent believe the state is on the right track, compared with 40 percent in February and an average of 36 percent last year…
It noted that among the 58 percent who disapprove of Schwarzenegger’s performance in office, 78 percent believe the state is “seriously off on the wrong track.”
By contrast, among the 31 percent who back the Republican governor, there is “considerable optimism” about the direction of California, with 64 percent saying it is on the right track.
The leading reason volunteered by pessimists for why they believe the state is headed in the wrong direction can be summarized as “the governor is taking the wrong positions, oppose his positions,” followed by the state’s lawmakers and elected officials are not doing a good job, and schools are performing poorly, according to the Field Poll report.
A Field Poll released last week found Schwarzenegger’s approval rating among registered voters plunging to 37 percent from 55 percent in February.
Blair Followed Bush into Iraq to Keep the UK Relevant
As you’ve no doubt heard by now, the Washington Post covered the Downing Street documents on its front page today. The article reveals a bit more than we had known previously about the motivations of British Prime Minister Tony Blair in the run-up to war.
It was clear from the getgo that Bush was risking everything on the Iraq war gambit so that he could be a “war president” when the 2004 presidential elections rolled around. (As an added bonus, there’d be all those Iraqi oil millions wating for him when he left office in 2008.) But I’ve never really understood what would lead Blair to risk his historical legacy by going to war for reasons he knew to be bogus and in a manner that was illegal in Britain. The Post article offers this explanation:
The first major British cabinet discussion on Iraq took place March 7, 2002, according to the memoirs of Robin Cook, the former foreign secretary who quotes several senior cabinet secretaries as raising questions about the war. “What has changed that suddenly gives us the legal right to take military action that we didn’t have a few months ago?” demanded David Blunkett, one of Blair’s closest political allies.
Blair defended his approach, Cook reported, by saying Britain’s national interest lay in staying closely allied with the United States. “I tell you that we must steer close to America,” Blair said, according to Cook. “If we don’t, we lose our influence to shape what they do.”
Yeah? And how’s that working out for you now, Tony?
Poll: Support for Bush and War Drops in North Carolina
President Bush will plead for support in a speech tonight that will be televised live from Fort Bragg, NC. There’s no doubt Bush has support on the military base, but among the Tarheel state’s permanent 8 million or so residents, not so much:
[A] statewide survey, conducted over the weekend for The News & Observer and WRAL-TV, found that 42 percent of active voters agree the war has been worth it, but 49 percent say it has not.
That’s a sharp erosion in support for the war since January 2004, when Bush defended the invasion of Iraq in a State of the Union address that kicked off his re-election campaign. Back then, the survey showed that 58 percent of Tar Heel voters said the war was worthwhile…
In all, 43 percent of the respondents said they approve of establishing timetables for bringing troops home. Forty-four percent disapprove of setting a timetable, with 13 percent not sure.
Franken: News Media Accepts Low Ethics from Fox
“[Fox news anchor] Bill O’Reilly took [leading Democrat senator] Joe Biden’s appearance on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos and deliberately misrepresented what Biden said. Biden was calling for an independent commission to look at Guantanamo and other US detention camps. When pressed by Stephanopoulos, Biden said that although he personally thought the US should close Guantanamo, he said that he had introduced legislation to get a bipartisan commission to make the recommendations.
“Two days later O’Reilly cuts it together to make it sound like Biden had simply said ‘Close Guantanamo’, leaving out any mention of legislation and independent commissions. Then O’Reilly himself said ‘I believe there should be an independent commission.’ He not only misrepresented what Biden actually said, he then claimed for himself the senator’s idea. I mentioned this to Howard Kurtz, who writes about the media for the Washington Post. He replied, ‘Well, people expect that of Fox’. No one in the mainstream press holds them to any standards at all.”
— Al Franken in the Guardian
Now GOP Slimes Itself – Norquist Blasts Senate GOP ‘Girls’ & ‘Nutjob’
Just days after Karl Rove slimed liberals and others who opposed the iraq war as terrorist appeasers the Republican message machine emitted another major slime Friday night, but this time it was aimed into the GOP’s own ranks.
Addressing a session of a college-age Republicans convention, Norquist slammed Republican senators who did not toe the line on filibuster:
[Norquist] referred to them as “the two girls from Maine and the nut-job from Arizona” – Sens. Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe and John McCain
“He referred to them as “the two girls from Maine and the nut-job from Arizona” – Sens. Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe and John McCain…”
But it was the broadside by Norquist – who is president of Americans for Tax Reform and ran the College Republicans when Abramoff was its chairman – that raised eyebrows among the students, particularly the reference to McCain.
McCain is chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, which is investigating Abramoff’s lobbying on behalf of tribal casino interests. Tension between the two intensified last month, when the committee subpoenaed the financial records of Norquist’s nonprofit group, including the organization’s donor list. Testimony and records showed some tribal funds were directed to Norquist’s organization. But there has been no allegation of wrongdoing by Norquist.
McCain and Collins were unavailable for comment Friday. But a spokeswoman for Snowe said her “only constituency is the people of Maine.”
Pew Poll: The Whole World Hates Us
According to a Pew Global Attitudes Survey completed in April and May, most people in the world continue to have a low, if not downright hostile, opinion of the United States (surprise!). The poll surveyed 17,000 people in 16 countries, and found that the U.S.’s rep is even worse than its president’s approval rating here at home.
In a sign that outsourcing works, however, the study found that the U.S. was most highly regarded in India, where 71% of those polled expressed a positive opinion of the United States, compared with 54% three years ago. That was our highest rating. In the world. A full 62% of Poles think we’re okay, though.
In France, 85% of respondents believe the EU or another country should emerge as a military rival to the U.S. (as long as it’s not France, of course).
In Europe, we’ve gained a little of the ground lost after Herr Bush started stomping on Iraq, but China actually is viewed more positively by the Europeans than the country that saved their asses in WWII. The former Axis powers of Japan and Germany, and reliable France are all more highly regarded than the United States among European countries. Even (our friends)the British and (our neighbors to the North) the Canadians have a more favorable view of those three nations than they do of America.
Most Muslim countries still hate us, of course, but extreme hostility has faded slightly, with people in some Muslim countries perceiving the U.S. as supporting democracy in the Middle East. U.S. approval ratings are 23% in Turkey and Pakistan, and 21% in Jordan.
Although European publics view China more favorably than the United States, fortunately, they are opposed to the idea of China becoming a military rival to the U.S. Majorities in every European nation — except Turkey believe China’s emergence as a military superpower would be a bad thing. In Turkey and predominantly Muslim countries, where they hate us, a majority think a Chinese challenge to American military power would be a good thing (except for all that nucular fallout — unless it fell on Turkey).
There is widespread support across every country surveyed for some country or group of countries to emerge as a military rival to the U.S. In France, 85% of respondents believe the EU or another country should emerge as a military rival to the U.S. (as long as it’s not France, of course). The United States does not agree, and wants to remain the world’s biggest bully.
When asked about their perceptions of Americans, the rest of the world gets downright personal:
In most Western countries surveyed, majorities associate Americans with the positive characteristics “honest,” “inventive” and “hardworking.” At the same time, substantial numbers also associate Americans with the negative traits “greedy” and “violent.” Canadians, who presumably have the greatest contact with Americans, agree with Europeans on the negatives, but are less likely to view Americans as honest. And Canada is the only Western nation in which a majority (53 percent) regards Americans as rude.
Muslim publics, including Indonesians, are highly critical of Americans in many respects. In particular, they are much more likely than others to view the American people as immoral. Yet people in predominantly Muslim countries also see Americans as hardworking and inventive.
The Chinese are also largely critical of Americans. They are the least likely of these 16 publics to consider Americans hardworking (44 percent) and just over a third (35 percent) see Americans as honest. A majority of Chinese associate Americans with being violent (61 percent) and greedy (57 percent). The one positive trait most Chinese associate with Americans is inventive (70 percent).
By contrast, Indians hold largely positive views of the American people. Clear majorities see Americans as inventive, hardworking and honest (86%, 81% and 58%, respectively). None of the negative traits is linked with Americans by a majority in India.
But hey, we hate ourselves, too: a large percentage of the U.S. public (70 percent) characterizes American people as greedy, and nearly half (49 percent) see their fellow countrymen as violent.
Schwarzi Sends New Guard Spy Unit to ‘Monitor’ Mother’s Day Protest
You think it can’t happen here? It already has, baby! California elected a governor whose father, an Austrian policeman, was (at best) a Nazi sympathizer – and who has himself expressed admiration for the Nazi cause. Now comes this:
Last month, a group of anti-war activists, including the parents of American soldiers killed in Iraq, held a small Mother’s Day rally at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial near the California Capitol to call for the return of all National Guard troops by Labor Day.
Three days before the rally, as a courtesy to the military, an aide in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s press office alerted the Guard to the event, according to e-mails obtained by the Mercury News.
The information was passed up the chain of command directly to [Maj. Gen. Thomas] Eres and other top Guard officials including Col. Jeff Davis, who oversees O’Neill’s operation.
That would be Col. Robert J. O’Neill, a veteran intelligence officer who is director of a new California National Guard survelliance unit called – get this! – the Information Synchronization, Knowledge Management and Intelligence Fusion program.
Guard officials said the new unit would not collect information on American citizens, but, as it turns out, it already has:
“Sir,” Guard chief of staff Col. John Moorman wrote in the e-mail to Eres that was copied to Davis and other top commanders. “Information you wanted on Sunday’s demonstration at the Capitol.”
In response, Davis indicated that Guard intelligence officers were tracking the rally.
“Thanks,” Davis wrote. “Forwarding same to our Intell. folks who continue to monitor.”
That rainy Sunday, the protest organized by Gold Star Families for Peace, Raging Grannies and CodePink drew about three dozen supporters.
Guard spokesman[Lt. Col. Stan] Zezotarski said the monitoring did not involve anything more than keeping tabs on the protest through the media and that no one went to observe the demonstration…
“It’s nothing subversive,” Zezotarski said. “Because who knows who could infiltrate that type of group and try to stir something up? After all, we live in the age of terrorism, so who knows?”
Nothing to see here, folks. Move along, move along.
It may seem farfetched to suggest that Arnold Schwarzenegger has fascist tendencies. For one thing, it gives him credit for being a much deeper thinker/strategizer than he shown himself to be over the years.
A better (or real) politician would go out of his way to avoid drawing attention to his crypto-fascist background by sending his military surveillance unit to monitor grannies at a war protest. Why does he care who goes to war protests? This is another ham-fisted, tin-eared action by Das Guber – but it’s a development with a dark undercurrent that ought to give even his most ardent Republican supporters pause.
MoveOn Out of Iraq
MoveOn.org is currently running a poll to see if its supporters want to back a movement to get U.S. troops out of Iraq — ASAP. The proposed campaign would support the Jones-Abercrombie resolution currently before Congress that would require Herr Bush to put together a plan by the end of 2005 for bringing home all U.S. troops from Iraq, with withdrawal beginning no later than Oct. 1, 2006.
So far, of the 103,015 people who have voted, 83.9 percent want MoveOn to move on with the Jones-Abercrombie resolution. The other 16.1 percent say that MoveOn should concentrate on other issues or should try another route to get U.S. troops home. Vote here.
