Day: June 7, 2007

Poll: Why Is Bush’s Approval Still So Amazingly High?

Jon Ponder

How does Pres. Bush do it? If the polls accurately reflected his job performance, not to mention the disregard for him among the public, his polling would be minus 32 — and yet:

Public approval of the job President Bush is doing now matches its all-time low, an AP-Ipsos poll says… Only 32 percent said they were satisfied with how Bush is handling his job overall, the same low point AP-Ipsos polling measured last January and a drop of 3 percentage points since May.

By any objective measure, a 32 percent approval is astronomically high considering he is hands-down the Worst President Ever. How does he do it? Here’s the answer:

Bush still wins approval from seven in 10 Republicans, though that is near his historic low for GOP support of 67 percent in January.

Bush has bungled everything he has touched, from the war in Iraq to fighting terrorism to the entire rack of domestic issues. The country suffers every day he is in office, and for the first time in a generation, the future of the United States is in jeopardy — not due to external forces but rather because of the incompetence of its current president.

Considering this, it appears that Republican deadenders put their adoration of George W. Bush ahead of their love for America. Contrast their overwhelming support for the president in contrast with his rating among normal Americans:

Only a quarter of those initially identifying themselves as independents expressed satisfaction with the president, about equaling his low with them reached in February. Eight percent of Democrats gave him their approval.

It’s obvious that the biggest crisis facing America’s future is not terrorism or the healthcare crisis, it’s our over-abundance of delusional conservatives.

Hat tip: The Bard of Shuffletown

Abramoff’s GOP Anti-Environment Galpal Italia Federici Charged

Jon Ponder

Another associate of imprisoned former GOP uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff has been indicted. Italia Federici, who served as the president for an anti-enviroment group, Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy (CREA), has been charged with tax evansion and obstruction of justice.

Federici is charged with failing to pay more than $77,000 in federal income tax and for making “false and fictitious” statements during her testimony before a Senate committee in 2005.

Federici’s lawyers say she will plead guilty to both charges.

You may recall that Federici flaked on the first hearing before the Indian Affairs Commmittee she’d been called to attend, much to the anger of the chairman, Sen. John McCain. When she finally did attend, she evidentally lied through her teeth.

What we learned about Federici and CREA back then offered a thoroughly disgusting window in the ugliness of the conservative mindset, especially as regards the environment:

The “favors” Italia Federici performed for Abramoff’s clients usually involved making requests to her friend Steven Griles, who was a deputy interior secretary.

Whatever she did for Abramoff, it had little or nothing to do with the activities or purview of CREA, which was founded by anti-tax whack job Grover Norquist and Gale Norton before she became interior secretary.

Its pedigree is squeamish-making and, sure enough, CREA’s role seems to be to support the GOP’s efforts to rape and pillage Mother Earth as quickly as possible. Headlines for recent news releases on their website sound like talking points from Tom DeLay’s office: “ANWR Passage an Important Part of Energy Diversity” and “[Endangered Species Act] Reform Victory in the U.S. House.”

CREA appears to be a very light organization, without even the incumbrance of rent. It’s listed address is a mail drop.

In March 2007, Stephen Griles, the former oil industry lobbyist who was — naturally — second-in-command in George Bush’s Interior Dept., pleaded guilty to lying about his relationship with Abramoff.

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

– Unnamed Bush administration aide quoted by Ron Suskind in New York Magazine, October 2004 (Note that the aide likely was Karl Rove)