Today my son goes into the desert. No, not into the real war. This is dress rehearsel. It is one more step towards that horrendous day when he calls to tell us when he deploys.

Into the desert. Sounds sorta biblical. Strange feeling: The only way I can contact my son, my firstborn, is through the Red Cross.

Again, Russ Feingold is ahead of his time. Fund the troops in the field, of course, but don't encourage this debacle with more money. Warner and Levin want to wait six months. At the current rate, that means 600 more U.S. deaths and thousands more Iraqis. junior wants one more chance. he's like a kid who sets the family cat on fire and begs for another one. Or a kid that blows up frogs. (Oh, ya, he actually did that one.)

Exxon reported the largest profit of any American company, ever.

Horsefeathers 'n Poppycock

Horsefeathers 'n Poppycock
Russ Feingold is--again--ahead of his time. Pulling the funding does not mean he's going to ignore the troops. Use the money to get them home. Warner and Levin want six more months. At the current rate, that equals 600 more U.S. deaths and thousands more innocent Iraqis. bush has failed at everything. And we're going to give him one more chance?!? Six more months. Just enough time to convince those dumb 'mercans that the new bogeyman is Iran. Then bush/cheney can unleash the big guns: Nuclear weapons. It's Showtime...

Horsefeathers 'n Poppycock

Horsefeathers 'n Poppycock

WEEKLY REVIEW from harpers.org:

Palestinian militants conducted a raid in Israel and
abducted an Israeli soldier, whom they carried to Gaza via
a secret tunnel. Israel retaliated by bombing Gaza's main
power plant, two bridges, the offices of Palestine's prime
minister and interior minister, and a soccer field, and by
arresting as many as 64 Palestinian officials. Palestinian
militants demanded that Israel release all Palestinian
prisoners who are women or under the age of 18. A number of
Israeli and Palestinian officials speculated that Israel's
actions were intended to weaken or topple Palestine's
Hamas government. In Iraq, where 14 U.S. soldiers died,
bombings killed 62 people in a poor Shiite neighborhood in
Baghdad, 17 people at a market in Hilla, and 18 people in
Khairnabat. The bodies of seven men were discovered in the
Tigris River south of Baghdad, and the bodies of two men
were found in the Euphrates river south of Baghdad. All the
bodies showed signs of torture. Iraqi and U.S. authorities
freed 495 prisoners, and Iraq's national security adviser
announced that the body of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had been
buried in "a marked but secret place." Saddam Hussein's
eldest daughter and first wife were added to the Iraqi
government's list of "most wanted" terrorist figures. Four
U.S. soldiers in Iraq were being investigated for raping
a woman, then killing her and three other members of
her family; it was suggested that the accused may have
spent up to a week planning the attack. It was reported
that Iraqi insurgents have started using sophisticated
armor-penetrating mines that propel jets of molten metal
at military vehicles. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that
President George W. Bush had overstepped his authority
in establishing military tribunals for Guantanamo Bay
detainees. "I'd like to close Guantanamo," said Bush,
"But . . . we're holding some people that are darn
dangerous." The President went jogging with a soldier
who lost both his legs in Iraq, and Vice President Dick
Cheney's heart was said to be functioning properly.

Floods killed dozens of people in Romania, Pakistan,
China, and the northeastern United States. A subway
derailment near Jesus station in Valencia, Spain, killed
34 people. English soccer fans, said German breweries,
were endangering the German beer supply. In Britain the
wives of soldiers serving in Iraq were receiving strange
phone calls from Iraqi militants, and it was announced
that the Royal Family cost U.K. taxpayers about $68
million last year. "Our key aim," said the Keeper of the
Privy Purse, "is not to try and achieve a low-cost
monarchy." A three-foot-long escaped porcupine named
Twinkle was captured in Langwathby, England. President
Bush said that it was "disgraceful" for newspapers to
report on a secret intelligence program to trace bank
records, and China announced that media outlets would be
fined up to $12,500 if they reported on any "sudden
events" without prior authorization. The library of the
University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas,
cancelled its subscription to the New York Times. In
Florida thieves stole the 31-year-old remains of a
6-year-old boy, and a trailer park was under criticism for
recruiting sexual predators. "Everybody," said a
coordinator of Habitat for Offenders, "deserves a second
chance." Bruno the bear was shot and killed by German
authorities, ending his seven-week rampage through Germany
and Austria; Bruno, officially tagged Rampant Brown Bear
JJ 1, had killed sheep and rabbits, stolen honey, eluded
Finnish bear trackers and elkhounds, and squashed a guinea
pig. "Sexual frustration," said a German official, "may be
a reason for the random killings." Rush Limbaugh was
detained at an airport when authorities found illicit
Viagra in his luggage. A Vermont teenager was convicted of
stealing the bowtie and eyeglasses from a corpse and
cutting off its head to make a bong, and in Nigeria a
professor at Olabisi Onabanjo University was found dead
behind Poopola Hospital in Ijebu-Igbo; Professor Oyedola
is believed to have been killed by one of two warring
campus cults--either the Eiye Confraternity or the
Buccaneers. In Rajasthan, India, a low-caste bridegroom on
a horse was stoned by onlookers when a camel in his
wedding procession ran amok, and David Hasselhoff hit his
head on a chandelier while shaving.

It was revealed that Hillary Clinton's ancestors were
English coal miners, and scientists in Borneo found a
snake that can spontaneously change color from
reddish-brown to white. In India an autopsy determined
that the rogue elephant known as Master Killer died from
multiple organ failure. "I had lost my two children," said
the elephant's distraught trainer. "But when I discovered
this naughty tusker . . . I thought, 'Here's a newborn
that will help me forget my own loss.'" Australian
scientists studying the use of dingo urine as a kangaroo
repellent found that the urine startles kangaroos. Engineers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology
announced the creation of a machine that can record and
reproduce smells. "We can tell a green apple from a red
apple," said TIT scientist Pambuk Somboon. A study showed
that rich people get more sleep than poor people, white
people get more sleep than black people, and women get
more sleep than men, and another study found that money
does not buy very much happiness. A gang of marauding
transvestite thieves was terrorizing New Orleans
businesses, and scientists were trying to create tomatoes
containing an HIV vaccine. It was revealed that a
Minnesota Timberwolves basketball player crashed his SUV
into a parked car because he was drunk and masturbating to
porn. A man who killed himself in Eureka, Montana, also
killed a 16-year-old girl when a bullet traveled through
his head and struck the girl in the chest, Vladimir Putin
kissed a boy on the stomach, and a prison inmate in
Pakistan awoke to discover a lightbulb in his anus, which
surgeons removed several days later. "Thanks Allah," said
the man. "Now I feel comfort.

-- Rafil Kroll-Zaidi

From emergingdemocraticmajorityweblog.com/donkeyrising/archives/oo1326.php....

November 10, 2005 Is This the End of Bushism?
by Ruy Teixeira
Of course, Bushism could be defined in a number of different ways, but on one key definition it clearly is coming to an end. If we define Bushism as the political project of building a majority coalition, despite a commitment to unpopular policies, based on a superior cultural, national security, and leadership image among voters, that project is now failing. This is the unambiguous message of the latest round of public polls.
Here is what is happening to the main underpinnings of Bushism.
Bush himself. In the not-so-recent past, it was argued that Bush himself would never become really unpopular because of his image as a strong leader and the unshakable support of his base. That argument can now be discarded.
Recent public polls all have Bush’s approval rating below 40 percent and we now have our first public poll (CBS News) where approval has fallen to the 35 percent level and our first poll (Washington Post/ABC News) where disapproval has reached the 60 percent level, with strong disapproval nearly reaching 50 percent. These polls tend to show Bush’s approval rating among GOP identifiers below 80 percent—a level that many thought he would never fall below. And his job approval among independents now hovers around 30 percent. According to the new Pew Research Center poll, his job approval among this group has dropped an amazing eighteen points since the beginning of this year.
In the CBS News poll, Bush’s approval rating among moderates is also just 30 percent. And even conservatives only give him a 54 percent rating. The Pew Research Center report also notes that moderates and liberals among Republicans (37 percent of GOP identifiers) have declined dramatically in their support for Bush since July, reaching levels as low as 60 percent approval.
The full dimensions of this collapse can be better appreciated through some historical comparisons. At this point in Bill Clinton’s second term, he had an approval rating of 57 percent. At the analogous point in Reagan’s second term, he had a 65 percent rating. And at the same point in Eisenhower’s second term, he had a 58 percent rating. Of recent two term presidents, only Nixon had a lower rating at this point (27 percent). And, as Pew data from its recent poll show, the only thing keeping Bush from reaching truly Nixonian levels is that, despite declining Republican support, his current level (77 percent) is still substantially higher than Nixon enjoyed at the analogous point in his second term (56 percent). But his ratings among Democrats and independents are now essentially identical with those Nixon was receiving in November, 1973.
Leadership. Bush, the strong leader. This image has been absolutely central to Bushism as the administration ignored, over and over again, the views of the majority of the American public. People may not have agreed with Bush’s policies, but their high respect for him as a leader led many to overlook that fact.
No more. He can’t even crack 50 percent now in assessments of his leadership qualities. For example, in the Washington Post/ABC News poll, only 47 percent say he can be characterized as a strong leader. Similarly, in the CBS News poll, a mere 49 percent are willing to say Bush has “strong qualities of leadership.” And in a mid-October Gallup poll, just 49 percent agree that Bush has “the personality and leadership qualities a president should have.” All these numbers represent big declines since 2004.
And without confidence in Bush’s leadership qualities, what is the public likely to focus on now when they think of Bush? Perhaps that they don’t believe he shares their values (a 58 percent to 40 percent judgement in the Washington Post/ABC News poll). Or that he doesn’t understand the problems of people like them (a 66 percent to 34 percent judgment in the same poll). Or the poor job they feel he’s doing in virtually every policy area. Bushism can’t survive in such an environment.
Honesty. Bush’s image as an honest, straightforward guy has also been central to Bushism. Again, people may not have agreed with him, but they thought he’d level with them, which they respected.
That’s now gone by the board. In the Washington Post/ABC News poll, a strong 58 percent to 40 percent majority says Bush cannot be described as “honest and trustworthy.” Just 32 percent of the public give Bush’s handling of ethics in government a positive rating and, by 43 percent to 17 percent, they say the overall level of ethics in government has fallen, rather than risen, while Bush has been president. And, by 55 percent to 44 percent, the public now believes that the Bush administration intentionally misled the public in making its case for war with Iraq, rather than telling the public what it believed to be true at the time. That exactly reverses the result from the same question from March of this year.
In the Pew poll, the public, by twenty points (56 percent to 36 percent), says that Bush has not lived up to his promise to restore integrity to the White House. That includes a 63 percent to 29 percent negative judgment among independents, a 58 percent to 36 percent judgment among white Catholics, and even a 49 percent to 44 percent judgment among white Protestants. And, for the first time, a plurality of the public (43 percent to 41 percent) is willing to say that the United States and Britain outright lied when they claimed Iraq had WMD.
The war on terror. Speaking of Iraq, Iraq was supposed to the central front of the war on terror. But the public has never been convinced and negative views on the Iraq war continue to deepen. In the Washington Post/ABC News poll, the number saying the war was not worth fighting, given its costs and benefits, has now reached 60 percent for the first time. And nearly three-quarters (73 percent) say there have been an unacceptable number of U.S. military casualties in the Iraq conflict.
And, perhaps fatally for Bushism, the public can no longer divorce its distaste for the Iraq adventure from its feelings about the overall war on terror. Once Bush could count on continued public support for his handling of the war on terror as the one thing that could buoy his administration when everything else was failing. No longer.
In the CBS poll, his rating on handling the campaign against terrorism is now only 47 percent, with 46 percent disapproving. And in the Washington Post/ABC News poll, it is actually net negative for the first time (48 percent approve/51 percent disapprove).
Reflecting these sentiments, the same poll shows the Republicans losing to the Democrats (37 percent to 48 percent) as the party best able to Iraq situation and having no advantage at all over the Democrats (42 percent to 42 percent) on handling the campaign against terrorism, the first time this has happened. Right after the 2002 elections, the GOP led the Democrats by a whopping thirty-six points on this issue.
So, how can Bushism continue if Bush himself has become genuinely unpopular, he doesn’t have special status anymore as a leader or man of integrity and assessments of his stewardship of the war on terror, his greatest strength, are shifting into negative territory? The answer is simple: it can’t. Without that strong, positive image in the eyes of voters, the fundamental unpopularity of the policies Bushism is committed to will drag it down—and is dragging it down today.
But if Bushism is coming to an end, what will replace it? That’s a story for next week—so stay tuned!Posted by EDM staff at 12:48 AM link Ruy Teixeira is a Senior Fellow at The Century Foundation and the Center for American Progress

From thinkprogress.org:

Year in Review: What’s Happened Since Bush’s Reelection
Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary since President Bush won re-election. Here’s what has happened since:

2004
November 3: Bush Pledges To Reach Out the Whole Nation In Second Term. Bush: “So today I want to speak to every person who voted for my opponent: To make this nation stronger and better I will need your support, and I will work to earn it. I will do all I can do to deserve your trust. A new term is a new opportunity to reach out to the whole nation.” [Link]
November 8: Federal Judge Rules Bush Overstepped Constitutional Grounds In Brushing Aside Geneva Conventions In Treatment of Detainees. [Link]
November 9: Presidential Election Revealed Major Voting System Failures. [Link]
November 17: House GOP Changes Rule Requiring Leaders To Step Down If Indicted. [Link]
November 30: Red Cross Investigation Uncovers Widespread Detainee Abuse in Guantanamo. [Link]
December 6: Class-Action Suit on Behalf of Soldiers Filed Against Pentagon’s ‘Stop-Loss’ Orders. [Link]
December 8: Soldier in Iraq Questions Rumsfeld About Why They Are Not Receiving Proper Armor; Rumsfeld Says ‘You Go To War With the Army You Have.’ At a townhall with Secretary Rumsfeld, a National Guard soldier says, “Our vehicles are not armored. We’re digging pieces of rusted scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass that’s already been shot up, dropped, busted, picking the best out of this scrap to put on our vehicles to take into combat. We do not have proper armament vehicles to carry with us north.” Rumsfeld responds: “As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They’re not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time.” [Link]
December 8: Homeland Security Whistleblower Shown the Door. Clark Ervin, “the man who has issued many critical reports about the mismanagement and security flaws at the Department of Homeland Security, was told Wednesday night that he was out of a job.” [Link] Ervin was replaced by Dick Cheney’s son-in-law, Philip Perry. [Link]
December 11: Bernie Kerik Withdraws From Nomination To Be Homeland Security Secretary. Kerik’s nomination was withdrawn after it was revealed (among other scandals) that Kerik had long-standing ties to a firm allegedly run by the New Jersey mob and had used an apartment donated for weary Ground Zero police and rescue workers for an adulterous affair. [Link] Despite Kerik’s questionable past, it was President Bush “who insisted on naming the former New York City police commissioner as secretary of Homeland Security despite derogatory information about him.” [Link]
December 20: Top Army Reserve General Writes Memo Warning That Reserves Are “Rapidly Degenerating Into a ‘Broken’ Force.” [Link]
December 29: Bush Administration Criticized For Slow Response To Tsunami Disaster. International aid organizations complained that Bush was being “stingy” and “insensitive” due to his administration’s slow response to the tsunami disaster. [Link]

2005
January 7: Documents Reveal Armstrong Williams Received $240,000 To Hawk ‘No Child Left Behind.’ [Link]
January 12: Search for Iraq’s WMD Comes To Quiet End. “The hunt for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in Iraq has come to an end nearly two years after President Bush ordered U.S. troops to disarm Saddam Hussein. The top CIA weapons hunter is home, and analysts are back at Langley.” [Link]
January 20: President Bush’s Inauguration.
January 26: Single Deadliest Day For U.S. Forces In Iraq. “U.S. forces suffered their deadliest day since the war in Iraq began when 31 servicemen were killed.” [Link]
February 4: Alberto Gonzales Confirmed; Receives Stronger Than Expected “Protest Vote” For Role In Torture Memos. “Despite a stronger than expected protest vote,” Alberto Gonzales was confirmed as Attorney General. “[O]pposition grew over what [senators] considered evasive and equivocal answers to questions about his role in administration memorandums that appeared to condone some types of torture of prisoners held in the campaign against terrorism.” [Link]
February 9: Medicare Prescription Drug Bill Revealed To Cost $600 Billion More Than Promised. [Link]
February 10: Jeff Gannon Retires As “White House Reporter” After Being Exposed. Gannon, who had been writing for Talon News and GOPUSA, resigned after questions were raised about his background. [Link]
February 14: Bush Asks for $82 Billion Supplemental For Iraq, Pushing Cost of Iraq War Over $200 Billion. [Link]
February 15: Former Official In White House Faith-Based Office Blasts White House’s Inattention To “Poor People.” David Kuo, former Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives: “From tax cuts to Medicare, the White House gets what the White House really wants. It never really wanted the ‘poor people stuff.’” [Link]
March 16: Bush Appoints Principal Iraq War Architect Paul Wolfowitz to World Bank. “The reaction from the board was unfavorable,” one World Bank official said. “Mr. Wolfowitz’s nomination today tells us the U.S. couldn’t care less what the rest of the world thinks.” [Link]
March 21: Bush Interrupts Vacation to Fly Back to Washington and Sign Schiavo Bill In the Middle of the Night. A bill intervening in the case of Terri Schiavo, a severely brain-damaged Florida woman, “got final congressional approval a few minutes after midnight, and was signed quickly shortly after 1 a.m. by President Bush, who had flown back to the White House from his Texas ranch to be ready to act quickly…” [Link]
April 12: Bush Appoints Central Iran-Contra Player As Top Intel Official. Bush’s nominee for the director of national intelligence played an active role in the controversial “secret arming of [Nicaraguan] contra rebels from bases in Honduras” back in the early 1980s. [Link]
April 15: U.S. Report Shows Global Terrorist Attacks Tripled in 2004: “The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government’s top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered.” [Link]
April 20: Bush Signs Bankruptcy Bill. The bill makes it harder for average Americans to recover from financial misfortune by declaring bankruptcy, allowing no exceptions even for victims of identity theft, those suffering from debilitating illness, or U.S. service members. [Link]
May 1: Bush’s 60-Day Social Security Tour Ends; More Americans Oppose Privatization. As Bush’s Social Security tour came to end, an ABC News-Washington Post poll showed that 64 percent of Americans disapproved of Bush’s handling of Social Security, up from 56 percent in March when the tour began. [Link]
May 1: Downing Street Memo first published in the London Sunday Times. [Link]
May 12: Bolton Receives ‘No Recommendation’ From Senate Committee. For “only the third time in 22 years,” the Senate Foreign Relations Committee “has sent a nomination to the Senate without a favorable recommendation.” [Link]
May 25: FBI Documents Show Guantanamo Detainees Had Complained About Quran Desecration. Following riots allegedly sparked by a Newsweek report about Quran abuse by U.S. interrogators, Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita had said there were no “credible allegations” of such activities. [Link]
May 31: Vice President Cheney Says Iraq Insurgency In Its “Last Throes.” [Link]
June 1: William Donaldson Pushed Out as SEC Chairman. White House caves to the business lobby, which was “fed up with what it believes is…a chairman who has been a tougher regulator than expected,” and had made clear “that it would like nothing more than to see Mr. Donaldson gone.” [Link]
June 15: Autopsy Shows Schiavo Was Blind, Contradicting Frist’s “Diagnosis.” On the Senate floor, Frist said that video footage suggested to him that she “certainly seems to respond to visual stimuli.” [Link]
June 17: White House Caught Doctoring More Climate Documents: In the lead up to a G-8 summit, White House officials caught “working behind the scenes…weakening key sections” of a global warming action proposal. [Link]
June 20: Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) Says Bush Administration is “Losing in Iraq.” “Things aren’t getting better; they’re getting worse. The White House is completely disconnected from reality,” he said. “It’s like they’re just making it up as they go along. The reality is, we’re losing in Iraq.” [Link]
July 2: Federal Agents Raid Rep. Duke Cunningham House. Agents conduct unannounced raids on the offices of defense contractor MZM, the congressman’s controversial former home in California, as well as the Duke Stir, the boat owned by the defense contractor but on which Cunningham had inexplicably been living for more than a year. [Link]
July 4: Karl Rove Confirmed as One of Matt Cooper’s Sources For Plame Identity. [Link]
July 11: The White House Stone Wall on CIA Leak Scandal Begins. During his press briefing, Scott McClellan says 23 times that he could not comment because there is an “ongoing investigation.” [Link]
July 11: Army Misses Recruiting Goal for Ninth Straight Month. [Link]
July 14: Senate Cuts Transit Security Funding by $50 Million: Just eight days after terrorist attacks struck London’s bus and underground metro systems, conservative “leaders beat back a series of attempts – pressed by senators from states with large urban centers – to increase money for mass transit protection by as much as $1.4 billion.” [Link]
July 26: For The First Time, Majority Says Bush Misled America Into War: For the first time, “a majority of Americans, 51%, say the Bush administration deliberately misled the public about whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.” [Link]
July 27: Frist Bends to White House, Derails Detainee Torture Amendment. Under pressure from President Bush, Frist “derailed a bipartisan effort to set rules for the treatment of enemy prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and other military detention camps by abruptly stopping debate on a $491 billion defense bill.” [Link]
July 28: Right-Wing Twists Arms and Extends Vote Deadline to Pass CAFTA. [Link]
August 1: Bush Names Bolton U.N. Ambassador in Recess Appointment. The recess appointment gave Bolton a year and a half at the UN “unless he wins over Senate critics in the interim or gets another recess appointment.” [Link]
August 2: Bush Kicks Off Longest Presidential Vacation in 36 Years. “The president departed Tuesday for his longest stretch yet away from the White House, arriving at his Crawford ranch in the evening to clear brush, visit with family and friends, and tend to some outside-the-Beltway politics.” [Link]
August 10: Bush Surrenders War on Pork. “Yesterday, Bush effectively signed a cease-fire — critics called it more like a surrender — in his war on pork. He signed into law a $286 billion transportation measure that contains a record 6,371 pet projects inserted by members of Congress from both parties.” [Link]
August 28 - September 3: Bush Administration Botches Response to Hurricane Katrina. [Link]
September 7: Tom DeLay’s PAC Indicted. [Link]
September 12: Michael Brown Resigns From FEMA. [Link]
September 19: Top White House Procurement Officer Indicted. David Safavian, who headed the federal procurement office in the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), accused by federal agents of “lying and obstructing a criminal investigation into Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s dealings with the federal government.” [Link]
September 23: SEC Launches Probe into Stock Sales Of Sen. Bill Frist. [Link]
September 28: Tom DeLay Indicted, Resigns Leadership Position. [Link]
October 3: Harriet Miers Nominated to the Supreme Court. [Link]
October 4: Bush Admits Defeat on Social Security. In a press conference, Bush said, “There seems to be a diminished appetite in the short term” for dealing with Social Security. [Link]
October 25: Harriet Miers’ Nomination Withdrawn. [Link]
October 25: U.S. Military Suffers 2,000th Fatality in Iraq. [Link]
October 28: I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby Charged With Five-Count Indictment. [Link]

Filed under: Administration
Posted by Think Progress November 3, 2005 12:13 pm
Permalink | Comment (132)

From Pensito Review:

Poll: Majority Now Question Bush’s Integrity

Posted November 4th, 2005 at 7:05 am by Jon

America’s big hangover: While we would hardly call the present era “morning in America,” it does appear that more Americans are waking up to the nauseating results of a reckless binge that culminated one year and one day ago in the election of George Bush.
Even a 39 percent approval rate is exorbitant for the Worst President Ever - an after-effect of Rove’s successful recasting of a strutting, aristocratic popinjay into a man of the people.

Earlier this week, a CBS Poll found that Bush’s popularity had sunk to 35 percent - and that Vice President Cheney now had an amazing 19 percent approval. (Of course, Cheney doesn’t care about that - he has a consituency of one.)

Now comes the Washington Post/ABC News that shows that President Bush has lost ground on the last vestige of the artifice of character he and Rove created and projected out to the public - the false idea that George W. Bush has “character” and “integrity”:


On almost every key measure of presidential character and performance, the survey found that Bush has never been less popular with the American people. Currently 39 percent approve of the job he is doing as president, while 60 percent disapprove of his performance in office — the highest level of disapproval ever recorded for Bush in Post-ABC polls…

Overall, the survey underscores how several pillars of Bush’s presidency have begun to crumble under the combined weight of events and White House mistakes. Bush’s approval ratings have been in decline for months, but on issues of personal trust, honesty and values, Bush has suffered some of his most notable declines. Moreover, Bush has always retained majority support on his handling of the U.S. campaign against terrorism — until now, when 51 percent have registered disapproval.

Of course, even 39 percent is an incredibly high approval rate for the Worst President Ever. And it speaks to the power of the stagecraft of Rove and others who have successfully portrayed a strutting aristocratic popinjay as a man of the people.

Even so, those of us who were never fooled by the carefully stage-managed and tightly scripted presentation of Bush’s manufactured persona can take little comfort in the fact that majorities of Americans are beginning to rouse themselves.

The 20,000-plus dead and wounded service personnel are lost forever - as are the billions we continue to bleed in Iraq.

Topic: Politics, CIA Leak | To Comment »

Random Thoughts

Book Review: My Pet Goat
Riveting! Couldn't put it down. Glued to my chair in anticipation.
--George W. Bush

For shame.

George does a fly-by. Condi buys shoes. Dick hides, somewhere. And Karl flips the bird (figuratively, unlike GW's signature salute) to the good people at Camp Casey. All we need from this bunch is a lunatic to play the fiddle.

A woman dies in a wheelchair, a note to relatives in her lap. (MSNBC video) Heartbreaking.

Too bad it wasn't Terri Schiavo. Bush and his henchmen might have paid more attention.

Appalling.

Well, whaddayaknow?

This poor old lady just cracked the internets.