Year: 2006

“Bush hater” is a term invented by people who didn’t like being called “Clinton haters” because it was true. I don’t mind being called a Bush hater because it is not.

My antipathy for George Bush is a thousand miles wide and a micro-millimeter deep. Underneath that thin veneer of dislike lurks one million metric tons of couldn’t-care-less.

On that glorious day when he goes back to Crawford for good – and the world once again becomes safe for democracy – before the sun sets, I will have forgotten him. Seriously. George who?

(For Mr. Bush, I predict the transition from Worst President Ever to Worst Ex-President Ever will be seamless. He’ll be content, finally, to have nothing on his schedule but working on his abs. We won’t be hearing much from him. I mean, it’s not like he’s going to write a book.)

What sets Mr. Bush apart from past presidents is how woefully ill-equipped he was for the job when he took office. His staff might have compensated for his incompetence if it hadn’t been for the bad luck thrown their way. But isn’t crisis management the most important qualification for the presidency?

With the exception of hardcore ideological issues that might benefit his constituents, such as his very effective redistribution of wealth from the middle class up to the super-rich, Bush has bungled issues that have come up both large and small – from 9/11 to stem cell resarch, from the war in Iraq to Social Security “reform,” from the death of Terri Schiavo to the nomination of Harriet Miers.

The president’s incompetence is compounded by his blindness to it. He lacks the mental discipline to undertake analysis or introspection, which renders him bereft of the fundamental tools required to take corrective action when he makes mistakes.

Basic communications skills are another minimum requirement for the presidency in the TV age. But this president is hands down the worst public speaker in modern politics. His speechifying style is bizarre. The … staccato … way he … talks … grinds on the brain of the listener. He sounds like Capt. James T. Kirk doing a hillbilly accent with a mouth full of marbles.

The good ol’ boy demeanor he projects strains credulity. Why would a pampered, prep-schooled aristocrat, born to parents whose combined lineage includes America’s wealthiest and WASP-iest families, adopt the persona of a back-slappin’ backy-chawin’ goober?

And that is the final point, he did not get where he is on his merits – he became president because he had the right name. Every single other thing about him is built on fiction.

Failing upward into the presidency is just un-American.

[…]

In a word: According to National Journal’s PollTrack, four new surveys on the Iraq conflict suggest that wording — “mistake” vs. “worth it” — can make a difference in the answers to poll questions about the war.

In a CNN/Gallup/USA Today survey in mid-December, 52% of respondents said they felt the war was a mistake, a 4-point gain from earlier in the month.

A 49% plurality of respondents to a new Associated Press/Ipsos Public Affairs poll said the same — 42% said the U.S. made the right decision in going to war.

But does the word “mistake” change the connotations of the question? ABC News/Washington Post pollsters suggest that 47% of respondents think the war was worth fighting — just 6 points less than those who don’t think the conflict was worth its costs. It’s a similar split to the “mistake” questions, but the split is dramatically narrower than it was in early November, when 38% said the war was worth it and 60% said it wasn’t.

New numbers from Zogby are even closer, with 51% saying the war wasn’t worth its costs, compared to 49% saying it was. That’s roughly the same as an early December survey that put 49% on each side.

Another question from CNN/Gallup/USA Today pollsters showed Americans frowning on recent reports that the government paid Iraqi newspapers to publish favorable stories about the United States — 72% said it was inappropriate. About 4 in 10 said it would bother them a great deal if the charges were true; 24% said it would trouble them a fair amount, and 36% said it wouldn’t bother them much or at all.

CNN is reporting that, as expected, disgraced Republican operative Jack Abramoff and government investigators have reached a deal. Abramoff will plead guility to fraud, corruption and tax evasion. He faces 10 years in prison.

One bit of news: Abramoff has been cooperating with investigators for about a year.

Warrantless wiretaps : Do Americans care whether their government spies on them? The Bush Administration desperately hopes not.

They’re betting the farm that most Americans won’t mind that the president broke the law if they are convinced he did it to protect them.

But if a new private poll is any indication of public sensitivities on the issue, they may have bought the farm instead.

According to the New York Times, results of a poll for the Ponemon Institute, a privacy consulting firm, showed that on the subject of domestic spying and other government intrusions into the privacy of citizens, 88 percent of Americans were “concerned,” and 54 percent were “very concerned.”

Lawrence Ponemon, the institute’s founder, said that the 88 percent concerned about government intrusion is about double the number concerned about corporate privacy breaches like data theft at banks and credit card companies and similar security lapses.

The poll was taken after the New York Times revealed that Mr. Bush okayed hundreds of warrantless wiretaps on U.S. citizens despite legal prohibitions against it.