A Historic Moment, Of A Sort
Posted on May 1, 2008 Posted by John Scalzi 74 Comments
More people disapprove of George Bush today than disapproved of Richard Nixon when he resigned from the presidency:
A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Thursday indicates that 71 percent of the American public disapprove of how Bush is handling his job as president.
“No president has ever had a higher disapproval rating in any CNN or Gallup Poll; in fact, this is the first time that any president’s disapproval rating has cracked the 70 percent mark,” said Keating Holland, CNN’s polling director.
“Bush’s approval rating, which stands at 28 percent in our new poll, remains better than the all-time lows set by Harry Truman and Richard Nixon [22 percent and 24 percent, respectively], but even those two presidents never got a disapproval rating in the 70s,” Holland said.
You know, these days I hardly think of George Bush at all, positively or negatively. He seems so painfully superfluous at this point, and it’s manifestly clear that he’s planning to dump any really tough decisions about anything onto his successor. Short of attacking Iran, which he still might do in a fit of truculent pique, there’s not a whole lot more he can do to make things worse, and not much he’s willing to do to make things better. Maybe he’ll try to inject himself into the election, but with a 71 percent disapproval rating I can’t imagine McCain wants too much love from the man.
So he’ll just sit there and marinate until January, which is just fine with me. Frankly, at this point, the less he intrudes on my consciousness the happier I am. I disapprove of the job he’s done as president, but more than that I just don’t want to have to think about him ever again. I wonder, if they had that as a question on a poll, what sort of percentage would be for it. I think maybe more than 71 percent.
I can’t even work up the outrage to make a smart-ass comment about the man. Just, God, get us to Jan 20, 2009 without declaring war on Iran. Or Venezuela. Or Canada. Please.
I heard that he’s going to retire in a nice house in rural Ohio after the end of his presidency. I don’t remember exactly where, sorry, Bradsomething maybe.
Oh, but he’ll definitely get a library named after him, and probably a grant or a wing of an Ivy League university building, and one of these things will happen ten years from now, so that CNN or whoever of the MSM get to broadcast a retrospect of him in which they’ll claim that he did many good things (ousting president Hussein, No Child Left Behind, Teach the Controversy—yes, your country will be a theocracy by then—what have you…). At which point you’ll get to think of him again.
Wow. This renews some of my faith in the American people.
I want to see an interview with someone from the other 29%.
I voted for him, twice. But by now, the only thing I’m happy with him about are his judicial appointments and with the Miers business, he almost lost me there, too.
I heard he has the power to declare martial law and suspend elections during an emergency, which he gets to define. Would an attack on Iran be such an emergency?
I don’t think we have to worry about that particular scenario, Doug.
Much as I’d love to erase the son-of-a-bitch from my consciousness, I cannot. I will not. I refuse to forget the man’s crimes. He and his cohorts must be brought to justice so that the American political system can be redeemed. If we don’t have the political will as a society to prosecute this man, it’s time to tear down the government and rebuild.
A few years ago, John Rogers (he of the Kung Fu Monkey site) explained that Bush’s approval rating could never go below 27%, a figure he calls the Crazification Factor. He bases the number on the percentage of votes Alan Keyes got when running against Barak Obama for the Senate, a contest in which race wasn’t an issue, and in which one of the candidates was well thought of and the other was batshit crazy.
The thinking was, if you could vote for Keyes in those circumstances, you’d go for Bush, too, even if he danced naked around a pile of burning Bibles on the White House lawn. Come to think of it, that might bump him up a couple of percent.
Elan@5:
Have you seen Jesus Camp?
Or read Matt Taibbi’s “Jesus made me puke”?
I don’t think we have to worry about that particular scenario, Doug.
Why do you say that, John? He canned the general who was most vocally opposed to an attack on Iran and is apparently weeding out everyone but the most abject yes-men from the officer corps. He’s repeatedly said he doesn’t need Congressional authorization to go to war…sorry, “Defend America.”
And once he’s put troops in the field, Congress has rolled over and played dead every time Bush barks.
You don’t think Dubbya’s crazy enough to try it? I never thought he’d really be crazy enough to invade Iraq, either.
We can’t afford, as a nation, to allow anyone to forget. Forgetting is the first step to letting it happen again.
Nothing short of a traveling show where he is exhibited in stocks, while a barker regales the crowd with every cruel, evil, mendacious, awful, criminal thing he did or allowed to happen in his name, followed, of course, by the pelting with rotten vegetables and fruit.
If we can still afford vegetables and fruit, that is.
I don’t think that Mr. Bush and his cronies will be brought to justice anytime soon, Another Dave. It’s possible that by and by they might find that they can’t leave their own country. Like Augusto Pinochet and Henry Kissinger, they will have warrants from foreign countries hanging over their heads.
He seems so painfully superfluous at this point, and it’s manifestly clear that he’s planning to dump any really tough decisions about anything onto his successor.
What else do you expect him to do? The Dem-controlled Congress isn’t going to pass anything he asks for — in fact, it’s rejecting even critically necessary bills and votes simply because he’s for them. He has no real power to affect domestic issues like the economy. And he now has seven full years of proof that every single word he says and every single action he takes will be spun as negatively as humanly possible by the moonbat morons in the mainstream press. If the press had reported neutrally on his presidency, he’d still have fifty-plus approval ratings. If it had reported on his presidency the way it reported on his predecessor, or the way it will report on Snobama or the Queen Bitch after whichever of them wins in November, his approval ratings would be in the seventies.
If I was in his position, I’d be counting the days left on my sentence too.
As you can see above, one of the 29%ers just weighed in. You see, to this delusional minority it’s not Bush’s fault at all that he’s got such dismal approval numbers. It’s all the fault of the evil Democrats and the “mainstream” media.
Don’t be stupid, zakur. Oh, wait, I forgot: you’re a liberal, you can’t be anything else. Sorry. My mistake.
Throughout his entire presidency I haven’t seen a single story in any mainstream news source that said anything good about Bush. That alone proves the mainstream media is biased against him. Even in this universe, it isn’t possible for anyone to be 100% wrong, every time, on every point, in every way. Even liberals are right sometimes.
Wolfwalker:
“If the press had reported neutrally on his presidency, he’d still have fifty-plus approval ratings. If it had reported on his presidency the way it reported on his predecessor, or the way it will report on Snobama or the Queen Bitch after whichever of them wins in November, his approval ratings would be in the seventies.”
Ah, a subscriber to the “blame the media rather than Bush’s abject incompetence” school of thought. Well, you chase that dream, Wolfwalker.
Wolfwalker:
“…the way it will report on Snobama or the Queen Bitch after whichever of them wins in November…”
Hmm, even them 29ers think the dems will win in November.
France, people, France… the left jus Had to win after twelve years of scandal-ridden, not-bringing-the-country-in-the-21st-century rule by the right.
But so many candidates, bitter infighting, a messy divorce at the top (careful, Bill …), and the whole thing exploded in flight, which paved the way to Carla Bruni becoming first lady.
Ok, that last part can’t be all that bad, but still, people, get on with it: choose now, and start focusing.
You Know, I remember sitting in the cafeteria at work, watching Bush’s first inauguration. When they had Someone sing that “On Eagle’s Wings” song written by Ashcroft, I got this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“Oh, this can’t be good,” I thought.
I remember playing the part of the lunatic conspiracy nut and ranting abut how we’d be fighting an endless war with East Asia and they’d be watching our emails and we’d all be living in shanty towns with Roddy Piper.
And did we laugh at how ridiculous it all sounded
That man has done more damage to my country than any American president since Jefferson Davis.
I will not even get into the damage he has done to a political party I used to respect and be part of. Speaking as someone who studies the Founding Fathers for a living, he’s no conservative. I for one will be heartily glad to see that smirking incompetent exiled to whatever mansion he holes up in after January 2009 so that the rest of the country can try to remember how normal went.
So now, after seven years, hundreds of millions of dollars flushed down the Iraqi toilet, four thousand plus American soldiers dead, tens of thousands of American soldiers wounded, God alone knows how many Iraqis dead and wounded, an economy in recession, about half of the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights reduced to ink smears on worthless parchment, fucking torture – now, after all this, approximately 5 of 7 American have decided to disapprove.
Wow. We’re damned slow learners is all I can say.
Speaking as someone who believes there is a left bias among the traditional media, I say there’s no way it explains Bush’s numbers. Nothing scientific – but they weren’t that kind to Reagan, either, and his numbers never dropped that low. And frankly, Reagan should have suffered more than Bush from the media’s slant, because back then that media still enjoyed its oligopoly on the news.
Personally, I blame Bush’s low numbers this way: take the groups who would hate any Republican president, add the conservative voters who watched him betray nearly every conservative principle, and presto – who the hell is left to like him? The encroaching economic adjustment merely exacerbates the situation.
Here’s some interesting math to consider. In the U.K. Bush’s popularity rating would be -43. Because there, you take the positive rating (28%) and subtract the negative rating (71%) and arrive at the difference gap between the two numbers. Just for contrast, even when Tony Blair was at his most unpopular because of the Iraq war, he never fell much below minus-20. So, minus-43 must be some kind of world record.
It must be because of the green tie.
Paul “whatever’s not censored in Saudi” @ 19
France, people, France… the left jus Had to win after twelve years of scandal-ridden, not-bringing-the-country-in-the-21st-century rule by the right.
You mean this election?
I’m stunned at how quickly some can rewrite history.
Even recent history.
As is evidenced by the main post.
Agreed, Frank. 28% of the US is actively rewriting the last seven years into a narrative in which Bush is not full of suck. Amazing? Yes.
Frank @26: I can’t see what your problem is with the factually correct comment made by Paul.
Maybe you misunderstood what he wrote.
Oh, well, sorry. It appears that while the French Presidency was controlled by the right for twelve years there was a left-wing government between 1997 and 2002.
I still can’t understand the meaning of your comment, Frank, because you didn’t point out that Jospin was Prime Minister for 5 years, you just posted the results of the last presidential election.
Scalzi
Agreed, Frank. 28% of the US is actively rewriting the last seven years into a narrative in which Bush is not full of suck. Amazing? Yes.
The fact is, Bush is not full of suck. It is clear that the Left doesn’t like him and Democrats in general don’t like him. So that’s a big part of the number.
And the Right is quite disappointed, but for different reasons than the Left. That much must be obvious to anyone.
Additionally, economic downturns always make people grumpy and people always blame it on the President which has the least to do with the situation.
Having said that, it must be remembered that presided over 26 consecutive quarters of positive GDP growth including the last quarter which showed little growth, 0.6% but that still means the economy is growing faster than inflation. And the unemployment rate is still 5.1% which is historically low.
Many here are too young to remember the Carter legacy (with a Democratic Congress) where we had double-digit unemployment rates and two quarters with growth that was negative 7.8%.
Now that’s what a recession looks like.
I would also point out that after 9/11, everyone was convinced that there would be another terrorist attack in the US within a year or two.
Bush and his crew has managed to avoid such a situation for seven years now. But, of course, it’s hard to measure the situation when nothing has happened: prevention isn’t as note worthy.
Bush has also managed to lose less military members while fighting a war than Clinton lost with his troops in-garrison. That’s a statistic that doesn’t get wide play.
The fact is Bush isn’t full of suck.
I mean not like Carter.
George Bush turned me into a newt!
You don’t look like a newt.
Frank: Well, he got better.
And yes, actually, Bush is entirely full of suck, I regret to say. Saying that in your opinion he doesn’t suck as much as Carter is fine. However, praising the administrations economic skills is a joke, as we’re discovering thanks to the various credit crises, and while the fact that we haven’t been attacked by terrorists is good, it doesn’t excuse the fisting the administration has given the Constitution and our international image, neither of which were necessary to keep us safe; they were just easier.
In any event, as noted in the original story, the average American does think he sucks, more than the average American of Carter’s time thought he sucked. And of course, not only is he the most disapproved of President in polling history, he’s been the most disapproved the longest, staying unpopular longer than Harry Truman on a month to month basis as of last month. It’s fine if you don’t think he sucks, but such a position is supported neither by fact or general opinion.
It’s no doubt that Bush has been a failure. Even on the things that I have agreed with him on, he’s been able to articulate his position from the bully pulpit, which means a wasted 8 years for the country on non-war issues.
But still, in my lifetime, he’s not the worst president. Those of you who don’t remember the days of Carter have no idea.
And by the way, John S., I don’t think that Bush would have the ratings he would if gasoline was 2 dollars a gallon. And you explain how he’s responsible for banks lending money to people that wouldn’t pay it back?
Scalzi
In any event, as noted in the original story, the average American does think he sucks, more than the average American of Carter’s time thought he sucked. And of course, not only is he the most disapproved of President in polling history, he’s been the most disapproved the longest, staying unpopular longer than Harry Truman on a month to month basis as of last month. It’s fine if you don’t think he sucks, but such a position is supported neither by fact or general opinion.
Yeah. Well, opinions change.
And the assessment of Congress is even worse
I guess the whole government is full of suck.
Well, I think we should throw them all out and replace them.
Oh, that’s right. Bush is already a goner.
So now if we replaced every member of Congress with their political opposite, then things would be better.
So let’s get to it!
It amazes me that people in the US can claim that there is a ‘liberal bias’ to the media.
This is the media that accepted without qualm (or research) Mr. Bush’s bogus justifications for war in 2003. Only after American soldiers started dying in their dozens (then hundreds, then thousands) did the media in the States start reporting that things were going wrong.
Frank:
“Yeah. Well, opinions change.”
In the case of Bush, no, not really, since he’s been unpopular (i.e., popularity rating of less than 50%) for more than three years running. That’s a pretty consistent opinion. I doubt it’s going to change too much between now and January, either.
As for Congress, it’s an entirely different branch of government, and as pollsters themselves note, “Americans’ evaluations of the job Congress is doing are usually not that positive — the vast majority of historical approval ratings have been below 50%.” Bush is most correctly compared to other members of the executive; i.e., other presidents. Relative to his historically recent predecessors, Americans believe Bush sucks more than any other.
Scott @#34
“And you explain how he’s responsible for banks lending money to people that wouldn’t pay it back?”
Deregulation of the banking and securities industries.
I can’t forget the lame duck because his administration’s restructuring of the US government impacts me every day. I’m an immigration attorney, and the Patriot Act, Department of Homeland Security, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) goons using John Doe warrants to round up illegals and all the other things that sound like they came out of a 1970s distopian SF novel mean that I deal with it on a daily basis.
I had to file a Freedom of Information Act request for a copy of someone’s immigration case file yesterday. Up until about 2002, I would have expected a response in about two or three months. Now, eighteen to twenty-four months is a common response. This has eviscerated the FOIA and discourages people from availing themselves of this ‘open government’ law.
I think part of the reason that Bush sucks more than Carter, even if you believe on paper otherwise, is because Carter at least has respect and compassion for humanity. Bush’s arrogance and purposeful ignorance not only make him a sucky president, but a sucky person.
Scalzi
I doubt it’s going to change too much between now and January, either.
I have no doubt that you are correct about that. But 10 years or 20 years from now is a different story.
“Americans’ evaluations of the job Congress is doing are usually not that positive — the vast majority of historical approval ratings have been below 50%.”
Yeah, but it has only been this low two other times in the past 35 years
Once with the Democratic Congress in 1992 and again with the Democratic Congress in 1980.
The highest rating, 84% was in 2001 with Republicans in Control. In fact the “above 50%” metric has been most common over this same period with Republicans in control.
Are we sensing a pattern here?
Buck
I’m an immigration attorney, and the Patriot Act, Department of Homeland Security, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) goons using John Doe warrants to round up illegals and all the other things that sound like they came out of a 1970s distopian SF novel mean that I deal with it on a daily basis.
Well that’s good to hear.
And here I was thinking they weren’t doing anything about illegal immigration
Frank:
“I have no doubt that you are correct about that. But 10 years or 20 years from now is a different story.”
Indeed. Ask Carter.
Not a single one? Not one? Such a claim is evidence of either your delusional state, your illiteracy, or more likely, both.
Frank:
I have no problem with enforcing immigration laws within the framework of the Constitution. On an almost daily basis, I counsel people to just go home to the country of origin. I do have trouble with cops filling out a “Pablo Gonzalez” fugitive alien warrant and using it to go door to door in Hispanic neighborhoods, forcing US citizens and permanent residents to stand in their living rooms and provide proof of their legal status to armed government officials, for the sole reason that they are Hispanic.
And there’s something symbolically wrong when immigration went from “the Department of Justice” to something as fascist-sounding as “the Department of Homeland Security.” A lot of people within the DHS have taken that jack-boot mentality to heart.
Also, if you’ve actually read “the Patriot Act” in its entirety, as I have, you’ll find there’s very little ‘patriotic’ about it, and a whole lot which contravenes more than two centuries of American attempts to secure and preserve our civil rights.
I’d like immigration laws that actually made sense, and weren’t like something out of a Terry Gilliam dystopia.
So he’ll just sit there and marinate until January, which is just fine with me.
That’s another difference between the classes in this country.
Many of us are lucky enough to be in a position that we *can* just “sit there and marinate until January.” But many more people – everyone in Iraq and Afghanistan, everyone under the poverty line, and most everyone making twice the official poverty line income – don’t have that luxury. Every hour of every day, they’re living with – and, often, dying of – the direct consequences of Bush’s policies.
It’s flat out astonishing to me that this country is now in a position that at least half its population is, for all intents and purposes, “forgotten”: stuck in a cycle of ongoing economic despair that not enough people are particularly interested in even hearing about, much less doing anything about.
Someone I work with, someone I actually like, made a comment about how a Democratic victory in November would raise his taxes. I commented back that at least we’d get our troops out of Iraq. He said he guessed it was just a question a priorities. That floored me. I said “Yeah. I guess so: money or lives, h’mm, which is more important?” He just shrugged and walked away.
And you know why? He doesn’t, personally, know anyone who’s fighting in the war. I guess I also doesn’t know anyone who has a loved one fighting in the war, either. The war doesn’t matter to him because it’s just something he occasionally sees on TV. Taxes, though, are something he sees every 2 weeks, taken out of his pay.
I wonder if the new national divide is between people for whom national politics are so irrelevant that they *can* focus on trivia like what-the-preacher-said, and people for whom national politics are quite truly a matter of life or death.
Congress’s disapproval rating is still lower than Bush’s. Not that that is anything for either of them to brag about. Note how the story is presented, though, as a public rejection of Bush, rather than of both.
htom:
Well, he’s the president. He has inherently more news value.
Something which really surprises me in all these discussions is the loathing that Carter gets. Looking from outside in, he seems to have been an okay president who had the misfortune of holding the office at a bad time.
And the point about Carter having compassion for his fellow humans, compared to Bush who appears to be a callous idiot at best, is a good one. I know which of the two I’d like to have a beer with. (Not that that’s any kind of a measure of someone’s suitability to presidency. Also, isn’t Bush a teetotaler?)
LNM:
He gets loathing from the right side of the aisle, just as Clinton does. Personally I think he was a genuinely nice human being who was an ill fit for the presidency, especially at the time he was president. Good if cantankerous ex-president, though, and will likely be better remembered for that time in his life.
Re Bush’s vs. Congress’ disapproval ratings, that’s at least partly a function of human nature. If you ask people what they think of an abstract institution (Congress, American education) they tend to say it sucks. But ask them what they think about a particular person (their Congress-critter, their kids’ teacher) and the response is much more positive.
That Bush has managed to reach record lows is fairly remarkable.
Frank That claim about military deaths doesn’t get much play because it’s an out-and-out falsehood. Don’t go trusting everything you read in an email, or at least follow the links (pdf file). Military deaths really are higher under Bush. And casualties are extraordinarily higher.
CaseyL: The part of the population that is forgotten is the part that doesn’t make generous political donations. Those that do donate generally have their needs catered to.
Government of the people, by the people and for the people. Too bad the three classes of people aren’t the same.
Bush sure isn’t going to be re-elected with these low numbers…
According to Real Clear Politics rolling average, Congress has a 68.7% disapproval rating, w/ Bush is at a 65.2%
Probably because most people can use Google;
http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/deaths.asp
Just when I decided I might buy another one of your books, I’ve changed my mind.
Bush has kept us safe from another terrorist attack, unlike 9/11 which was planned during the 1990s (our national daydream).
Oh, for fuck’s sake, Ken. Just take me off your purchase list for good, if you please. All this dramatic announcing of my book purchasing status dependent on whether I’m on the right side of your political Maginot Line bores the shit out of me. I’d rather simply you not buy my books and have done with it. So, please, never ever buy another one of my books again. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.
That’s it, Scalzi. You’ve gone and pointed out that polls confirm that Bush is very unpopular. I’m no longer going to check any of your books out from the library, so there.
DG Lewis wrote: “Deregulation of the banking and securities industries.”
Actually, it was Clinton who let Glass-Steagle die, which by allowing banks and brokers to merge and otherwise get in each others’ business, probably contributed greatly to the current problems with collateralized debt.
Ken wrote: “Bush has kept us safe from another terrorist attack”
Yeah, by giving Al Qaeda everything they wanted – pulled out of Saudi with our tail between our legs, then wrapped Iraq up in a bow and handed it over to Bin Laden, sealed with a kiss.
Some hero you got there.
Ken wrote: “Bush has kept us safe from another terrorist attack”
As the great Ben Franklin put it: “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
There was no need for the most powerful nation on earth to give up its liberty for a little temporary safety. Yet can create far more trouble for the Islamist that they can for you, yet, you let them take away much of your liberty for a little perceived safety. The terrorist have won. Congratulations Ken, you will end up with neither.
If you were a true and real conservative, you would realize this. Neo-cons are not real conservatives.
On the recent anniversary of the day Mussolini made close acquaintance with a lamppost, I was reading a bit about his last days, in the ol’ Britannica.
One bit leapt out at me. “And there, living in dreams and “thinking only of history and how he would appear in it,” as one of his ministers said, Mussolini awaited the inevitable end.”
This reminds me a lot of how Bush seems to act these days, talking about history.
Maybe this is common among leaders facing the end of their rule. But I’d also note that Mussolini was another adventurous military bumbler.
BTW Frank@30 – The unemployment rate is that low because – once someone no longer receives unemployment benefits they no longer show up as unemployed. That could be because they found a job, which would be nice, or more likely, because they ran out of unemployment benefits, still have no job, but are no longer receiving money from the gov.
In other words, that number only reflects those receiving benefits, not those out of work.
Frank @26
Yes that election, and yes, i did forget to mention that Jospin (from the left wing socialist party) was Prime minister for five years (thanks Giacomo @29).
The main point of my comment was about losing the next election because you’re too focused on winning your party’s nomination. And it happened to the French socialist party not once but twice (in 2002, Jospin lost the first round to an extreme-right wing candidate, which allowed Chirac to be elected on a score reminiscent of a People’s democratic republic election).
Those are facts, not rewritings of history.
And for anybody interested in the unfolding of events following Sarkozy’s much vaunted promises of change, this will set the record straight.
John, sorry for dragging these comments a bit of topic. To atone, I have just gone over and brought two of your books, and will sign up shortly to be one of your 1000 true fans(tm). Bacon not included because of local dietary restrictions.
Jeez, you guys are very touchy and on hair-trigger alert. I guess it’s hard to be facetious in print.
Your facetiousness is unusually subtle indeed, Ken. It is entirely possible I’m overly-sensitized to people saying “stop saying what I don’t like or I’ll stop buying your books!” It happens enough for me to have built up an allergic response to it.
John, I remember reading that you don’t like using smileys on the internet (you seem to believe they shouldn’t be necessary), but if Ken was truly being facetious, his comment @56 could have used one. The “winky” smiley “;)” might have saved you a blood pressure spike.
We should just let the NFL Defensive Player Of The Year run the country.
I notice you never answered my question, Scalzi: Six months to the election, eight til he’s replaced, a hostile Congress, a hostile media, and he’s got to know that the moonbats in the university history departments are just drooling at the prospect of being able to say what they really think of him in their first “objective reviews” of his presidency after he leaves office. What can he do to make himself relevant again? And why should he even bother?
In his position I might well call a presser, look straight into the cameras, and say “That’s it, I quit. So does Cheney. You jerkoffs in the press have wanted to get rid of me and put in a Democrat. Fine. Now you have President Pelosi, and Traitor Jack and Harry I-Can’t-Reid running Congress. If you thought the economy and America’s standing in the world were bad under me, you’re in for a year of you ain’t seen nothing yet. And you know what? Just like the old saying goes, it will be the government you gutless, mindless morons deserve.”
I also notice there’s been some discussion of ex-president Jimmy Carter, and some people clueless enough to wonder why he’s so poorly thought of. Here’s a clue: he’s poorly thought of because a) we’re just figuring out exactly how bad a president he was; and b) for the last fifteen years he’s made a habit of running around the planet talking to the worst dictators, thugs, and terrorists he can find, then proclaiming them to be good and decent people who have been painted as evil by a malevolent US government. He certifies blatantly phony elections as valid; he weakens attempts to actually do something about human-rights abusers; he mindlessly echoes terrorist propaganda; he undercuts US government diplomacy and policy; and the only people who still speak well of him are the dictators and thugs he supports, along with his fellow liberal moonbats. Gee, what’s not to dislike about that? [snigger.wav]
Wolfwalker:
“I notice you never answered my question, Scalzi”
And? Just because you point and say “the conversation goes this way” doesn’t mean I’m obliged to follow. Your question didn’t interest me as much as other parts of your comment, to which I chose to respond. That said, I notice you never responded to my comment either. So I guess we’re even.
Personally, I would be delighted for Bush and Cheney to resign. Thanks for suggesting it. From your fingertips to their minds.
Wolfwalker, your support for President Bush is quite admirable. Have you signed up to help out in Iraq yet? I am sure you are encouraging your family and friends to do the right thing and help out too.
Secondly, looking at the situation in Iraq from a U.S. military point of view, would you describe the present occupation methods as effective? European powers in the first World War continued to fight in the trenches using tactics to which the opposing side has adapted and countered quite nicely. Our enemies had adapted quite nicely to present day Western military tactics. They are bleeding your financial and political resources dry. This is a time when a President is needed who can get his military commanders to adapt, this situation in the Middle East is ridiculous.
This is how the President can make himself relevant- Quit fighting an asymetrical war using outdated tactics, inspire the military to adapt. Surely all the great minds in the military can figure out a way to handle this. If they are not capable, then Mr. Bush need to replace them with those who can. The present hostility Mr Bush would collapse in on itself.
wolfwalker wrote: “What can he do to make himself relevant again?”
Well, a good start would be if he gave the contents of Cheney’s office safe and files to the International Criminal Court and submitted to a thorough rogering/investigation/trial for war crimes.
That’d certainly make him relevant.
To paraphrase Melvin Udall, people who still use the term “moonbat” ought to shampoo my crotch.
I know of one person who still thinks that Nixon didn’t do anything wrong. With the supposed hindsight of 20/20 vision. I know he voted for Bush twice, and I’m sure he still supports the current administration.
My only real concern is that he doesn’t order a strike against Iran. I don’t think we can talk Israel into striking for us, unlike the Syrian strike.