Tag: Worst President Ever

Public Thinks Bush is Doing a Lousy Job of Handling Even Nonexistent Terror

Trish

The president’s handling of terrorism was highly criticized by those who responded to a recent Bloomberg poll.

That’s kind of startling, considering Bush hasn’t had any terrorism to handle since Sept. 11, 2001.

Americans just seem pissed off with their leader’s flawless record of failure.

Americans just seem pissed off with their leader’s flawless record of failure.

U.S. public opinion turned against President George W. Bush’s handling of terrorism, his signature political strength, last month amid overwhelming opposition to plans to let a Dubai company operate U.S. port facilities.

For the first time, a majority of Americans, 54 percent, disapprove of Bush’s dealing with terrorism…

Bush’s job approval rating fell to 38 percent, a five-point drop from a month ago, fueled also by rising discontent over the Iraq war.

The poll taken from Feb. 25 to March 1 found that almost two-thirds of Americans disapprove of Bush’s handling of Iraq, amid a surge in sectarian violence there. Sixty-four percent say the U.S. is on the wrong track, while 30 percent say it’s going in the right direction.

The poll found similar discontent with the economy and health care under Bush. The environment was only referenced within the issue of oil consumption, although global warming is to me the biggest threat to our future on a round planet.

A curious part of the survey was asking people how they felt about Bush economic policies compared to Clinton’s. Not surprisingly, Bush came out the loser, with only 26 percent saying they favor the economy now over the economy then.

“For all his personal issues, if you try and lay that aside, Clinton was a very good president,” said Henry Lennon, a 59-year-old surgeon in Boca Raton, Florida, who voted for Bush in the last election. “Under the current economy the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. As a responsible person I think that’s wrong,” poll respondent Lennon said in a follow-up interview.

So as a responsible person, Henry, why’d you vote for Bush in 2004? You are what we around Pensito Review refer to as, “the problem.”

Credit Where It’s Due: Bush Says Osama Helped Him Win in 2004

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Loyal to the end: A new book says Bush credited Osama bin Laden for helping him win the 2004 election, but stops just short of saying Bush asked his old family pal to do it. CNN reports that Bush felt like the tape, released the Friday before Election Day Tuesday, was a little slice of serendipity for himself and his handlers.

“I thought it was going to help,” Bush said

Bush said there were “enormous amounts of discussion” inside his campaign about the 15-minute tape, which he called “an interesting entry by our enemy” into the presidential race.

Bush’s comments in the Washington newspaper were excerpts from the new book “Strategery” by Bill Sammon, a longtime White House correspondent.

“What does it mean? Is it going to help? Is it going to hurt?” Bush told Sammon of the bin Laden tapes…

“I thought it was going to help,” Bush said.

“I thought it would help remind people that if bin Laden doesn’t want Bush to be the president, something must be right with Bush.”

Not that anyone would attempt to manipulate the voters by tugging on those fear strings, or by issuing a deluge of elevated threat level warnings as the election approached about acts and people that never proved to have any substance.

Let’s Outsource the Secret Service to the UAE

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Alert PR reader Vito D. had a really good question for the Deputy Defense Secretary. Gordon England said last week that those who question the port deal put our security at risk by giving people from Arab countries a complex. Vito asked:

Why not abolish the Secret Service and let U.A.E. guard the President? Now this would show our Arab allies that we trust them.

I agree. If there’s no problem with letting them hire the longshoremen in our ports, then while we’re at it, let’s put them where they could really do some good.

Pentagon Chief Says If You Speak Out About the Port Deal, You’re Threatening National Security

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I’ve heard it all now. CNN:

…the second in command at the Pentagon…said Thursday that people who publicly oppose allowing a Middle Eastern company to take over management of some U.S. ports could be threatening national security.

Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England told the Senate Armed Services Committee that blocking the deal could ostracize one of the United States’ few Arab allies.

“The terrorists want our nation to become distrustful,” England said. “They want us to become paranoid and isolationist, and my view is we cannot allow this to happen. It needs to be just the opposite.”

Because, you know, our government has been so open and fearless up to now. Their willingness to say absolutely anything — no matter how convoluted and incredible — just to get their own bread buttered, is stunning.

Bush Spent $1.62 Billion to Make Us Love Him and He Still Only Has a 42 Percent Approval Rating

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Wondering how much all those paid White House product placements cost us taxpayers? Would you believe $1.62 billion?

“The extent of the Bush administration’s propaganda effort is unprecedented and disturbing,” said U.S. Rep. George Miller, D-Calif

Yes, fake news stories and secretly paid endorsements aren’t cheap, as we’re beginning to find out, thanks to the Government Accounting Office and our hero, David Walker, 54, U.S. comptroller general and one of the few people willing to challenge the Emperor Bush.

“The extent of the Bush administration’s propaganda effort is unprecedented and disturbing,” said U.S. Rep. George Miller, D-Calif. “The fact is that after all the spin, the American people are stuck with high prescription-drug prices, high gas prices and high college costs. This report raises serious questions about this administration’s priorities for the country and I would hope that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle would agree that changes need to be made to rein in the president’s propaganda machine.”

… The White House did not immediately return a call for comment.

Do they ever? Give them another 22 hours, and maybe they’ll come up with something.

The biggest government spenders were: the Department of Defense ($1.1 billion); Health and Human Services ($300 million); Department of the Treasury ($152 million); and the Department of Homeland Security ($24 million).

The spending was for everything from military recruitment advertising to prizes for various promotions. Democrats pointed to the $10,212 the Air Force spent for items bearing the Coca-Cola logo including portable radios, victory t-shirts, hats and coolers, as well as more that $35,000 for promotional materials for a golf program.

Meanwhile, Bush’s proposed budget includes selling park lands to pay for schools and cutting commodity food programs for seniors and placing them on food stamps instead.

New Orleans — And Even Brown? — Tell the Truth About Katrina

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Gotta love the people of New Orleans as they put on Mardis Gras.

Brown: “Had there been a report coming out . . . that said, ‘Yes, we’ve confirmed that a terrorist has blown up the 17th Street Canal levee,’ then everybody would have jumped all over that

This year’s parade theme was C’est Levee, a pun on the French expression c’est la vie , or that’s life.

Floats and props built for the Saturday evening parade in the French Quarter included hand-pulled carts elaborately decorated with blue tarps, fake broken levees, cardboard travel trailers and effigies of Mayor C. Ray Nagin (D) and Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D).

One display asked France to buy Louisiana back, suggesting that the state might get better treatment from the French than it has from the U.S. government.

Indeed. As PR editor Jon notes, Bush Etc. didn’t give a crap about the people of New Orleans or the Gulf Coast, except for losing one day of vacation.

And even I had to hand it to Brownie the other day. He did a heckuva job at nailing the feeling at the White House and the Department of Homeland Security.

“Had there been a report coming out . . . that said, ‘Yes, we’ve confirmed that a terrorist has blown up the 17th Street Canal levee,’ then everybody would have jumped all over that and been trying to do everything they could,” Brown said.

But how do you exploit the weather for political gain? True, Bush did use it as a convenient exit strategy to get away from a summer of press coverage of Cindy Sheehan’s fruitless attempts to get him to acknowledge her. But let’s face it, a hurricane doesn’t offer the “talkin’ tough” and fanning-the-flames-of-fear opportunities of a terror attack.

Meanwhile, New Orleans makes the best of it.

The Mid-City parade, scheduled for Feb. 26, will have floats called “New Orleans Culture” — that’s culture as in mold — and “I drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was gone,” a bitter twist on the line from Don McLean’s “American Pie.”

List of Scooter Libby’s “Superiors” is Pretty Short

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Columnist Cragg Hines notes the list of people who might have instructed Scooter Libby to tell members of the press that Valerie Plame was a CIA agent is pretty small.

Libby didn’t have that many “superiors.” Bush, Cheney and, at least organizationally, White House chief of staff Andrew Card.

As emerged in news reports, Libby told a grand jury that “superiors” told him to leak to reporters in June and July 2003 information about Iraq’s weapons capability. Let’s examine this megawatt info…

Libby didn’t have that many “superiors.” Bush, Cheney and, at least organizationally, White House chief of staff Andrew Card.

Or could there be some higher, metaphysical “superiors” being suggested, which would be interesting jurisprudentially if not strategically (unless there’s to be a sudden shift to an insanity plea)?

Hines adds that Bush keeps waffling on his response to the wrongdoing. My own personal theory is that Bush talked tough early on about firing people because he never thought he, Rove, and Cheney would be found out.

In the wake of his indictment, Libby resigned. But Bush’s deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove, who remains under investigation by Fitzgerald, has been shown to have leaked. He’s still firmly ensconced in the White House.

That, in part at least, is because Bush last summer moved the goal posts for what it takes to get the heave-ho.

“If someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration,” Bush said.

As I’ve noted before, that’s a lousy benchmark for someone who, as Bush did repeatedly in the 2000 campaign, swore he would uphold the “honor and dignity” of the White House.

Under Bush’s sliding standard of leaking as a firing offense, as long as Rove remains unindicted, he apparently can hang around.

Now we have Libby reaching for Cheney’s throat — at least as a pretrial tactic.

My problem is that I don’t believe that even if Bush fired Rove publicly that he would quit taking orders from him privately. Bush, who isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, needs Rove behind the scenes to think of…stuff. He’ll find a way to keep him on a payroll somewhere, and keep pulling the strings in the White House.

‘Outrage Fatigue’ Pandemic Strikes Non-Republicans

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Big ups to Pensito Review reader Stephen K. for a phrase that perfectly sums up our reaction to the overwhelming, stupefying, dazing amount of corruption and naked power plays put forth by Republicans:

“Outrage fatigue.”

Thanks, Stephen, you said it so well. Now I’m just going to lie down and rest with a cold compress for a little while.

John Edwards: Americans Need Hope and Inspiration

Trish

Say what you will, but I think John Edwards has it right.

America needs leaders who understand that the country needs to be inspired again, former Sen. John Edwards said Friday.

Edwards gets that Americans like you and me are…better than snarky rich idiots who act like assholes because they know deep down inside no amount of money or external success makes up for the fact they are small, nasty people

Edwards said that after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, Americans reached out to volunteer and take families into their homes.

“It says something about the heart and character of our country,” said Edwards, a Democrat. “What we need is we need leaders who tap into that.”

Ain’t it the truth? Full disclosure: I voted for Edwards in the Florida primary in 2004, even though the press and my party had already given the state to Kerry. I see something in him that I saw in Carter and in Clinton, and it’s not just the Southern thing, although “not for nothin’,” as we say down here.

Edwards now heads the Center for Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina law school and has previously said he has not decided whether he will run for president in 2008…

“The people I’ve met, they violate every stereotype that exists about people who are struggling,” Edwards said.

He said the great moral issue in the country today is that 37 million people live in poverty.

“They have never had a champion,” Edwards said. “They can’t even imagine someone actually being willing to speak up for them.”

Contrast Edwards’ remarks with those of former First Lady Barbara Bush, who in the wake of the most devastating natural disaster of our times looked on her idea of the bright side for the evacuees:

And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them. They are faring far better than before Katrina.

Edwards gets that Americans like you and me are better than that, better than snarky rich idiots who act like assholes because they know deep down inside no amount of money or external success makes up for the fact they are small, nasty people.

During his travels, Edwards said he has learned that there is a hunger in the United States for something big and important that people can be involved in and inspired by…

“We need hope,” Edwards said. “We need the belief inside us that we are good, strong, honorable people and we can do great things together.”

Somebody say “Amen!”