Day: August 13, 2006

Poll: Bush Drops Back to 33%

Jon Ponder

George W. Bush is both the Worst President Ever and the luckiest. No other president since the Founding could have maintained a a 33 percent approval rate after a similar six year record of gross negligence and incompetence:

An Associated Press-Ipsos poll conducted this week found the president’s approval rating has dropped to 33 percent, matching his low in May. His handling of nearly every issue, from the Iraq war to foreign policy, contributed to the president’s decline around the nation, even in the Republican-friendly South.

More sobering for the GOP are the number of voters who backed Bush in 2004 who are ready to vote Democratic in the fall’s congressional elections — 19 percent. These one-time Bush voters are more likely to be female, self-described moderates, low- to middle-income and from the Northeast and Midwest.

Two years after giving the Republican president another term, more than half of these voters — 57 percent — disapprove of the job Bush is doing.

Ft. Bragg’s Hometown Paper Lambastes Bush Team’s Politics of Fear

Jon Ponder

As the home of Fort Bragg, the sprawling military base in the sand hills and scrub of eastern North Carolina, the city of Fayetteville is about as red as a red state gets. But if this editorial in the Fayetteville Observer today criticizing the Bush political team’s use of fear tactics is an indicator, the president may be experiencing some cracking around his base:

The terrorists aren’t attacking one political party. They are attacking all of us. Politicians can, and should, debate our strategy against terrorists and the course of the war in Iraq. But questioning each other’s patriotism or resolve against terrorists should be out of bounds. It is unnecessary and divisive. And it is, quite simply, a diversionary tactic. Members of both parties have repeatedly shown by their votes strong support for the war against terror.

But even as British police were arresting some of the terror plot suspects, Vice President Dick Cheney was sounding off on Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman’s primary defeat by a businessman who successfully made opposition to the Iraq war the centerpiece of his campaign. It shows “the direction the party appears to be heading,” Cheney said. “What is particularly disturbing about it is from the standpoint of our adversaries. … They are betting on the proposition that ultimately they can break the will of the American people in our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task.” Voting against Lieberman, he said, is encouraging “the al Qaida types.”

…Thomas Kean, the Republican who chaired the nation’s 9/11 commission, offered this thought on Thursday: “It shouldn’t be a political issue. It should be something that everybody supports.”

It should. And we believe that most politicians do. Let’s get on with strengthening our defenses and stopping the terrorists. The voters know the difference between our Iraq war problems and the overall effort against terror. Politicians would be wise to remember that.

The Puzzling Case of Bush’s Dem Enablers

Jon Ponder

Atrios:

In their world they were the courageous ones – as if supporting an administration’s policies is courageous – and those who risked getting Dixie Chicked were cowardly and weak.

…I’m still somewhat puzzled by those who long enabled Bush’s disaster in Iraq. I don’t mean lickspittles like Bill Kristol, but nominal Democrats whose personal insecurities and deep self-loathing required – and still require – them to imagine an allegiance and affiliation with some bizarre tribe of “hawks” who were wrong for the right reasons as opposed to those who were, in their judgment, right for the wrong reasons.

In their world they were the courageous ones – as if supporting an administration’s policies is courageous – and those who risked getting Dixie Chicked were cowardly and weak.

It’s disheartening that even now many of them are more concerned with marginalizing the opinions of those who rightly saw this as folly from the beginning than they are at taking a long hard look at themselves.

They fucked up, and many sadly continue to do so.