Tag: Worst President Ever

New Wiki to Track Bushco’s High Crimes and Misdemeanors

Buck Banks

Wiki of wickedness: Gentle Reader, though I loathe the idea of sending you away from Pensito Review, scampering off to some far corner of the Internet, I feel it is my bounden duty to alert you to a new site on the World Wide Web. People for the American Way — you know, those folks who have a petition for every occasion — have created a wiki — you know, those on-line collaborative things — to track our Fearsome Leader’s every legal, constitutional or moral misstep. You can find it here.

But please come back when you’re done wiki-ing.

Moving Toward Midterms — Yesterday’s Primary Results

Buck Banks

Primary Results: Ohio, Indiana and North Carolina held primaries yesterday, several of which set up highly competitive general election contests. Here are the highlights, courtesy Congressional Quarterly:

  • Ohio 18: Republican Rep. Bob Ney won his primary, but ethics controversies appear to have cost him support.
  • Ohio 2: Republican Rep. Jean Schmidt narrowly avoided defeat in her primary, but remains favored for re-election.
  • Ohio 4: Jim Jordan is effectively on his way to Congress after winning the GOP primary in a conservative district.
  • Ohio 13: Betty Sutton’s Democratic primary win makes her a slight favorite in this open-seat race.
  • Ohio 6: State Sen. Charlie Wilson’s write-in campaign produced a Democratic primary victory.
  • North Carolina: Three competitive House races were set, though the challengers still face uphill battles.
  • Ohio Governor, Senate: Primaries in these races went as expected, though they serve only as a calm prelude to what should be two lively contests.
  • Indiana: Two of the year’s hottest House races are now officially on, with primaries producing the expected outcomes.

Poll: Politcal Scientists View Bush Presidency as a Failure

Jon Ponder

Ostroy Report:

With President Bush’s approval rating at 33 percent it comes as no surprise that his presidency, if it were to end today, would be viewed by political historians as a failure, according to a new survey by the Siena College Research Institute (SRI). In its expert opinion poll, SRI said 8 out of 10 history and political science professors put Bush’s ranking at “below average” or “failure,” with over two-thirds saying there’s little chance for him to improve his rating.

Pew: Even Evangelicals Sick of Bush

Buck Banks

Bible-rousers: As if it weren’t already bad enough for the Worst President Ever, white Protestant evangelicals — who helped George Bush take the White House — are joining the rest of us in giving a big thumbs down for the prez’ performance, according to recent analysis by the Pew Research Center.

As Bush’s job approval rating continues to set new low records, Republicans are beginning to worry about the weakened president’s impact on his party’s performance in the fall mid-terms. And without the evangelicals’ support Bush’s slump bodes ill for the Repugs’ prospects this fall.

‘I am tired of all the problems associated with the Bush administration.’
— 45 percent of evangelical Christians

Pew finds that while a majority of white evangelical Protestants still support the president, significantly fewer approve of his performance in office now (55 percent approve, 38 percent disapprove) than at the start of his second term when 72 percent approved and only 22 percent disapproved.

Since the beginning of his second term in office, Bush’s approval rating has declined as much among white evangelicals as among the public as a whole. His personal ratings among evangelicals are more negative than ever before — 35 percent now have an unfavorable view of Bush, compared with 21 percent of registered evangelical voters in October 2004. And 45 percent of evangelicals agreed with the statement that “I am tired of all the problems associated with the Bush administration.”

Pew found little indication that evangelicals are likely to abandon the Republican Party — after all, who else are they going to vote for? Catholic John Kerry!?

No, white Protestant evangelicals might be disappointed in George Bush’s performance, but they are going to stick with the party that supports school vouchers, prayer in school, teaching creationism and taking away a woman’s right to choose. What option do they have?

But maybe, just maybe they won’t be so damned fervently Republican in the midterms. Hmmm, what would Jesus do?

Bushco Clamping Down On — Everybody

Buck Banks

Zip it: Last week I posted a quote by Paul Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Nazi propaganda minister: “It is the absolute right of the State to supervise the formation of public opinion.” Seems like Bushco has taken that as its motto and, as it often does, extrapolated it to the next illogical step: “It is the absolute right of the State to form and control public opinion and limit the free flow of information among citizens — absolutely.”

As reported in the “New York Times” yesterday, it’s becoming clear the administration is starting to play hardball with journalists over leaks. That the Leaker-In-Chief is leaking, I mean leading the charge against media is more than a little ironic, since he don’t read it and he don’t watch it, preferring to get his “fair and balanced” news in the form of easy-to-digest bullet points from his aides.

The administration and its allies say that all avenues must be explored to ensure that vital national security information does not fall into the hands of the nation’s enemies.

In February, Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, asked Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales whether the government’s investigation into The Times’s disclosure of a National Security Agency eavesdropping program included “any potential violation for publishing that information.”

Mr. Gonzales responded: “Obviously, our prosecutors are going to look to see all the laws that have been violated. And if the evidence is there, they’re going to prosecute those violations.”

Obviously, Herr Attorney General believes he’s got some legal traction, otherwise he wouldn’t have said “all the laws that have been violated.” Look out, journos, the presumption of innocence offically has been replaced by the assumption of guilt by decree of the nation’s chief lawyer.

And then there’s the FBI’s recent boneheaded move to reclassify and confiscate the files of late columnist Jack Anderson, in what Molly Ivins calls the “Great Bush Reclassification Project.” Apparently, there are some who believe the skeletal remains in those boxes of notes are potentially damaging to … somebody. See, guys, the story broke years ago, cat’s out of the bag, game over, fergetaboutit. For the record, Anderson’s son Kevin has said that there’s no way in hell the FBI’s getting his daddy’s notes, and that he and his family members are willing to go to jail to protect the notes.

On yet another front, the “National Journal” reports that the CIA has changed the rules governing what former agents and current contractors can write about the agency.

According to several former CIA officials affected by the new policy, the rules are intended to suppress criticism of the Bush administration and of the CIA. The officials say the restrictions amount to an unprecedented political “appropriateness” test at odds with earlier CIA policies on outside publishing.

The move is a significant departure from the CIA’s longtime practice of allowing ex-employees to take critical or contrary positions in public, particularly when they are contractors paid to advise the CIA on important topics and to publish their assessments.

But in recent years, former employees have written memoirs and opinion pieces challenging the CIA and the Bush administration, particularly for its use of prewar intelligence to justify the war in Iraq. The board did not find that any of those pieces revealed secrets, a fact that makes the CIA’s new review standards troubling, former officials and intelligence-community analysts said.

Many of those experts believe that public criticism provides an important source of alternative analysis — something the CIA needs to understand terrorism, global disease, and other emerging threats. But the White House and CIA Director Porter Goss view spies-turned-authors as political liabilities who embarrass an already battered administration, former officials said.

Bushco already has mounted an almost unprecedented assault on personal freedom with the illegal wiretapping of U.S. citizens and increasing government access to personal information. Now it is closing the circle by quashing the press and muffling the voice of dissent among its employees.

Meanwhile the Leaker-In-Chief has it within his power to declassify anything at any time and leak it to anybody. Mr. President, would you please declassify my personal dossier and leak it to me so I can see what your evil minions know about me and my life? Please? I’ll turn in an enemy of the State in return. Honest.

Makes Sense to Me: Bush Logic

Trish

Only in Bushistan does it make sense to waive air pollution laws because gas prices are high. WTF does one have to do with the other? Yeah, I know, some obscure connection between cleaner “summer gasoline blends” and something something. Whatever. It’s just another flimsy excuse for Georgie to do what he wanted all along.

So what other initiatives that follow W-logic should we expect? How about:

  • Enforcing a 7 p.m. curfew on Democrats to stop CIA leaks about secret prisons
  • Barring Cindy Sheehan from Texas to stem illegal immigration
  • Ordering an IRS audit of Kanye West to prevent hurricanes
  • Deporting Michael Moore so Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq will throw down their arms
  • Torturing detainees isolated at Guantanamo since 2001 to prevent future terror attacks (oh wait, they really do that!)

This quick list is just the beginning. Add your own examples of Bush reasoning now.

Quote du Jour: Bush Praises Freedom of Speech Then Has Woman Arrested for Verbal Protest

Jon Ponder

“China has become successful because the Chinese people are experience [sic] the freedom to buy, and to sell, and to produce — and China can grow even more successful by allowing the Chinese people the freedom to assemble, to speak freely, and to worship.”

— President George W. Bush, on Thursday, just moments before a woman was arrested for verbally protesting the visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao at the White House

Leaker of the Free World

Trish

Words escape me, except to compare and contrast, for the nine-hundred-eighty-four-thousand-millionth time what would be happening in the country right now if an aide of Al Gore’s said that Bill Clinton authorized him to leak the identity of a CIA agent because he felt snitty toward the person’s spouse. OMIGOD.

P.S. Maybe that impeachment idea isn’t so bad after all. Please, please, let’s all work to put Democrats back in office this year. Thanks.

President Bush’s Response to Harry Taylor

Jon Ponder

Here is President Bush’s response to criticisms from Harry Taylor on April 6, 2006, in Charlotte:

THE PRESIDENT: I’m going to start off with what you first said, if you don’t mind, you said that I tap your phones — I think that’s what you said. You tapped your phone — I tapped your phones. Yes. No, that’s right. Yes, no, let me finish.

I’d like to describe that decision I made about protecting this country. You can come to whatever conclusion you want. The conclusion is I’m not going to apologize for what I did on the terrorist surveillance program, and I’ll tell you why. We were accused in Washington, D.C. of not connecting the dots, that we didn’t do everything we could to protect you or others from the attack. And so I called in the people responsible for helping to protect the American people and the homeland. I said, is there anything more we could do.

And there — out of this national — NSA came the recommendation that it would make sense for us to listen to a call outside the country, inside the country from al Qaeda or suspected al Qaeda in order to have real-time information from which to possibly prevent an attack. I thought that made sense, so long as it was constitutional. Now, you may not agree with the constitutional assessment given to me by lawyers — and we’ve got plenty of them in Washington — but they made this assessment that it was constitutional for me to make that decision.

I then, sir, took that decision to members of the United States Congress from both political parties and briefed them on the decision that was made in order to protect the American people. And so members of both parties, both chambers, were fully aware of a program intended to know whether or not al Qaeda was calling in or calling out of the country. It seems like — to make sense, if we’re at war, we ought to be using tools necessary within the Constitution, on a very limited basis, a program that’s reviewed constantly to protect us.

Now, you and I have a different — of agreement on what is needed to be protected. But you said, would I apologize for that? The answer — answer is, absolutely not. (Applause.)

It’s Time to Play “What’s Under Bush’s Shirt” Again

Trish

Hey kids! Remember during the 2004 presidential debates, when we were all trying to figure out the squarish object(s) that appeared under Mr. Blinky Eyes’ jacket? Well, it’s time for another round of “What’s Under Bush’s Shirt”!

Take your best guess as to what that is under Bush’s shirt in this recent picture posted by Lou Dobbs on CNN. It shows Bush with Pres. Vicente Fox of Mexico and Prime Minister of Stephen Harper of Canada discussing how to best to restrict the flow of each other’s citizens across the borders, while maximizing the flow of their money in the same direction.

So far, P.R. Editor Jon is going for a box of Cuban cigars. I’m thinking it’s more likely Bush’s battery pack, which has to be charged every few hours or he gets cranky. What do you think it is?