Why Bush Will Not Recover

[QC]

The Republican talking heads have been anxiously reminding us lately that other presidents have hit lows like this before and managed to recover.

They like to point to Bill Clinton as an example. In 1994, his approval ratings also hit the 30's, and yet he ended up having a very successful presidency. Bush can do the same, they suggest.

But there are some very important differences between Clinton and Bush:

Clinton went before the public, ate some crow, and then changed courses. Bush is simply not capable of admitting error. He is always right, and anyone who doesn't recognize that is not a real Murkin.

Clinton was intelligent and fascinated by the ins and outs of policy. Bush is terminally intellectually incurious and thinks that policy is for geeks.

Clinton told the truth about the important things, and people recognized that. (The Monica business was sleazy and regrettable but his own business, as all sane people knew.) Bush has lied about something extremely important, definitely the public's business. Now almost 60% of the public considers him dishonest, and that number can only go up, given his constitutional inability to admit error.

Most people were reasonably safe and prosperous under Clinton. That's definitely not the case with Bush.

Even people who didn't especially like Clinton believed that he had "the common touch." Bush, on the other hand, displayed just how clueless and entitled he is during the aftermath of Katrina. Those images of him playing the guitar and gobbling cake while people drowned in their homes will not easily fade away.

Back before the last election, Gore Vidal said that if Bush somehow managed to prevail, he would leave office as the most hated president in history. I think he was right.

There's no need to worry about a "Bush recovery." It's just not going to happen.

[babylonsister]

1. Oh, QC, great observations! Bush lied, people died. nt

[libertynliberalism]

77. Bush gambled his LEGACY on Iraq war and

it turned out he was WRONG about the biggest thing he could have done. He LOST the righteousness he had after 9/11, and he will never get it back.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

2. You know what's funny?

It never even occurred to me that Fuckface would make any kind of comeback.

Gore was right.

This will go down in history as the worst Presidency ever.

You know what entertains me? Thinking of when major events take place in the world, and different news shows invite former Presidents to comment. Ronald Reagan - who was already down with Alzheimer's before he left office, I am convinced - was NEVER asked to comment, even when the Berlin Wall came down.

Can you imagine Fuckface being asked to comment on anything of substance in world events?

That's always good for a hearty laugh around here...............

[Oceansaway]

5. TOUCHE........

:toast:

[OldLeftieLawyer]

40. Hey!

Welcome to DU, Oceansaway!

[Oceansaway]

71. Thanks !!

[MarianJack]

28. The "Opinions" of Former pResident W (such a pleasant thought)

I believe that his will be the least sought after comments of any ex-president in history!

Evil bastard that nixon was, at least he was very knowledgeable, especially on politics and foreign affairs. The only thing that the torture president knows about is drinking, choking and knocking up underage Mexican girls!

[OldLeftieLawyer]

41. Nixon was brilliant

He really was.

It just complicated things, you know, his mental illness..........

[japple]

59. Not true. He knows about cheerleading, falling off

a bike and a scooter. And he knows about running and fishing and playing golf. Maybe he'll get a commentary spot on ESPN.

[lonestarnot]

45. Not a fucking chance of recovery, not ever!

[kansasblue]

3. I agree QC, Back when Bush was selected the first time I thought..

that I didn't like him, I didn't agree with him but at the very least I felt that in his heart he was a good and honest man. I was wrong. I think lots of people feel as I do/did. Now that that's gone, and it very difficult to get back, he is toast.


so say I

kb

[niyad]

6. the perception of bush as honest and decent was patently false--as anybody

who actually watched him as governor of tx knew, or anybody who read molly ivins' book, "shrub", or any of the investors in harken, etc.

[PA Democrat]

42. I read "Shrub" during the 2000 election

it was obvious that Bush the candidate was nothing but an image carefully crafted by Karl Rove. The man is mean-spirited, arrogant, lazy, elitist posing as a "regular guy". It's a shame more Americans didn't do a little research into Bush's true character by examining his past actions rather than blindly accepting his words during the campaign.

[libertynliberalism]

79. I agree, he's a fraud DOUBLE-TALKER

the sort of who u gonna believe, me or ur lying eye types.

[shanti]

27. hmmmmm

really....i didn't care for him or trust him from the get go. there was just something about him, it's hard to explain, a phoniness.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

46. I felt the same way you did

when The Shrub was campaigning for Prez in '00. Didn't even really "dislike" him although I didn't agree with Repubs on most issues and planned to vote for Gore. (But then I didn't live in TX at the time, so hadn't seen the effects of a "governor" Shrub.) My wake-up came when he "picked" Cheney for veep. The smell from that rose to the heavens, IMO, and with it came the thoughts that there was something funny about the whole election.

[OKDem08]

4. despise of bush leads to disparagement of GOP

I know I am doing my damnedest (a word?) to spread it to everyone I know as well as my young adult children so they will perceive the GOP (rightly so) as the party of corruption and cronyism....hopefully for another generation to come. :bounce:

[QC]

7. That works. My grandfathers raised families during the Depression.

They did not have to be told that the Republicans were not their friends. They knew through hard experience and would sooner have died than vote for the GOP.

[SHRED]

8. Clinton got down to the 30's?

You got a link for that?

I heard he never got below the 50's.

[QC]

10. Never below 50's in second term.

He did hit the 30s in his first term, right about the time when we lost both houses of Congress.

[SHRED]

13. Lowest was 43%

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/PollVault/story?id=1278080

I guess it depends on the poll.

[QC]

16. Low of 36%, in 1993.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton

[XemaSab]

21. Wasn't Clinton also elected

with well under 50% of the vote?
:shrug:

But he managed to get a lot of people on board for a second term, and get support and approval from a lot of people who initially picked someone else.

I think it's telling that close to 35% of the people who voted for W last year wish they hadn't.

[MarianJack]

30. Clinton's 1992 Popular Vote...

...was a shade over 43% in a 3 way race.

In 1996 he missed 50% by a nose hair (also a 3 way race but perot's vote was WAY down)!

BTW, 1992 Elecoral vote was 370-168. In 1996 it was 379-159.

[Lasher]

48. That confuses me.

The above comparison shows Clinton never dropped below 46%. :shrug:

[QC]

49. That graph starts in the fourth year of the first term.

Clinton's dip came in his first year, during all the gays in the military and hillarycare crap.

[Lasher]

54. Duuuuh, that's what I get for being in a hurry (EOM)

[Fla Dem]

81. Clinton went through one rough spot 6/93, but quickly recovered see inside

Lets see how long the Chimp lives in the cellar.


-----Period---------------Fav--un Fav-UnDec

8/23-25/93 Gallup...........44...47....9  
8/23-25/93 USA Today/CNN....44...47....9 
8/12/93 Yank/TIME/CNN.......43...44...13  
8/8-10/93 Gallup............44...48....8 
8/8-10/93 USA Today/CNN.....44...48....8  
8/6-8/93 ABC/WP.............45...51....4  
8/4-5/93 Yank/TIME/CNN......43...46...11  
8/2-3/93 CBS/NYT............38...50...12 
7/24-27/93 NBC/WSJ..........45...45...10 
7/19-21/93 Gallup...........42...49...10  
7/19-21/93 USA Today/CNN....42...49...10 
7/9-11/93 Gallup............45...48....7  
7/9-11/93 USA Today/CNN.....45...48....7  
6/29-30/93 Gallup...........46...47....7  
6/29-30/93 USA Today/CNN....46...47....7  
6/27-27/93 CBS/NYT..........50...43....7
6/21-24/93 CBS/NYT..........39...46...15
6/18-21/93 Gallup...........39...50...11
6/18-21/93 USA Today/CNN....39...50...11
6/17-21/93 Yank/TIME/CNN....37...50...13
6/11-15/93 ABC/WP...........45...48....7
6/5-6/93 Gallup.............37...49...14
6/5-6/93 USA Today/CNN......37...49...14
6/4-4/93 CBS/NYT............40...53....7
6/4-8/93 NBC/WSJ............41...50....9
6/1-3/93 CBS/NYT............38...47...15 
5/27-29/93 CBS/NYT..........37...49...14
5/26-27/93 Yank/TIME/CNN....36...50...14
5/21-23/93 Gallup...........44...46...10
5/21-23/93 USA Today/CNN....44...46...10
5/12-13/92 Yank/TIME/CNN....47...42...11
5/10-12/93 Gallup...........45...44...10
5/10-12/93 USA Today/CNN....45...44...10
5/4-6/93 CBS/NYT............49...37...14

[Joe Chi Minh]

64. I think it likely that Clinton's figures

would have been as routinely understated as Bush's are systematically overstated. So many ways in which to do it I should think, on the most basic levels.

[kansasblue]

14. 30s? Here's a link that says his approval went up with 'that women'

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3827/is_199802/ai_n8789032

[QC]

22. Monicamania was in his second term. n/t

[johnnypneumatic]

9. don't forget it was John McCain's cake

and Mccain was right there with him doing nothing as people died. Every time a repub is up for election, dig out all the photos and video of them shaking hands and laughing it up with their buddy GWB

[charlyvi]

55. Yep. Like this one:

[frogmarch]

67. OMG!!!!

The original photo was bad enough! This one is putrid! Thanks a lot.

:puke:

[Quixote1818]

11. As long as we are in Iraq Bush will never recover. nt

[melody]

12. Absolutely right - no coming back

Bush has done horrendous things. The level of dislike for him is deep and intense. Clinton's bad numbers always amounted to an early "job performance" review. This is a reaction to everything Bush has done over five years.

He has lots and lots of blood on his hands, along with the damage he's done to our Constitution, to say nothing of our Supreme Court and our economy. This man is a one-man national wrecking crew.

[Zen Democrat]

15. I work with a life-long Republican who believes W has killed conservatism.

He said that in the long run Bush will be worse for the Republican Party than Herbert Hoover and Dick Nixon combined to the 10th power. Doesn't sound like he expects a "recovery". And this is someone who would stop voting completely rather than vote for a Democrat.

Some people have been brainwashed for so long that there's no going back. They have long believed in the hype of the God Bless America brand of conservatism -- limited government, balanced budgets, individual freedom, and a strong defense, and that liberals are the profligate perpetrators of sin, sex and spending. Of course they don't realize that the perpetrators of most of the sin, sex and spending are the corporatists who run the Republican Party. I doubt some of them can see their way through the maze they have created in their minds. It has to be very confusing to them that in reaching their nirvana of capturing every branch of the federal government they aren't getting limited government, balanced budgets, individual freedom, and a strong national defense. They are getting a rush to totalitarianism, torture, assaults on habeas corpus, out of control spending, huge tax breaks for people they don't know, a preemptive war of aggression that has blown up into a full-fledged disaster, far worse than mere quagmire, lies, corruption and hubris.

That Democrats in Washington are content to sit on their behinds and watch is disgraceful. This is a pristine opportunity for Democrats to speak up. The media says the Democrats don't have a plan or an agenda. IMO, Democrats can start by calling for the repeal of every anti-human piece of legislation that's been rammed down our throats for the past few years. The unrepentant Democrats that joined the Republicans and voted for all that garbage should just resign before they are defeated in their Democratic primaries.

[many a good man]

63. Great post! n/t

[serryjw]

69. That's the difference between Republicans & Neo-conservatives

Most of the country never understood PNAC, World Domination,Empire of the United States and what it takes to get there. Most Americans REALLY don't want a Christian Theocracy. Most people have friends of all religions and respect the differences. Most people were appalled at what Bushit & Co did/not did in LA. We may not agree with half the country politically, but most people are decent and want the best for all Americans.

[Hamlette]

17. notice they use Clinton as the example, not Reagan

who also hit the 30s. The reason is that Reagan cleaned house but Bush can't because he can't get rid of Cheney who is seen as the biggest drag right now.

What remains to be seen is if Cheney and Rumsfeld will take the fall for the good of the party (health reasons). If all three leave (Romsfeld, Cheney and Rove) we'll have Barbara Bush running the white house. Not literally but he is his mother's son. Mean to the bone. (Think of him mocking the execution of Carla Faye Tucker.)

[David Briggs]

24. Thank you for mentioning Carla Faye Tucker.

When Bush said that "Christ changes your heart," I knew he was just mouthing a slogan and actually full of shit. Carla Faye Tucker was the best example of a genuinely changed person I have ever seen, but it wasn't enough to get her sentence commuted to life without parole.

[mwb970]

35. I wish you hadn't mentioned Barbara.

Great way to ruin a Sunday morning!

[many a good man]

61. Bush 44 ?

[Montauk6]

18. Also, weren't people really getting sick and tired of the hyperbolic

gatemakers? (You know... Filegate, Inhalegate, Haircutgate, Fostergate, Zippergate, Troopergate, IFeelYourPaingate, Chinagate, LincolnBedroomgate, Guiniergate, Nannygate, RonBrownPlaneCrashgate, CaughtOnCameraPickingNosegate, YadaYadagate, you get the picture)

Yet, despite possibly one of the biggest sabotage attempts in this country's history (sorry to burst your precedent bubble, freeper friends, but, uhhh, Larry Walsh actually had something bona fide to investigate), the country, for the most part, did fine under a massively distracted Clinton Administration.

How they can NOW try to compare what Bushco is going through with Clinton/Gore shows that they must stock that chutzpah along with the bottled water, gold coins and dry goods.

This man had 4 years of free rein (reign?) as POTUS. 1000% embedded media (complete with one member uncut), 10000% cooperative legislature (we don't nee' no steenkeeng loyal opposition!), every desired program allowed unchallenged, and they STILL fumbled the ball!

[eleny]

19. You can only fool some of the people all the time

[stepnw1f]

20. Party Over GOPers!

Buh Bye!

[MalachiConstant]

23. honestly i'm kinda tired

of people trying to be PC about bush's intellect (or lack thereof). let's face it, the man is dumb. we don't need to sugarcoat it by saying things like "intellectually incurious."

with that said, you raise some very good points.

[QC]

25. I honestly don't think he's dumb.

He's not intelligent either, but he's obviously quite crafty. Let's face it--he's gotten nearly everything he wanted.

I taught a lot of rich kids like him: they think that learning is for geeks because they know they were born with everything they could ever need. You hire people to do the actual brainwork, as they see it.

Bush is very much a product of his class.

[MalachiConstant]

26. you said it right:

he does have plenty of "people to do the actual brainwork." a lot of that craftiness is political. it is a result of instruction and advising by the likes of rove, cheney, card, speech writers and other political advisors. i'm not trying to imply that he's a puppet (that's not for me to say) but i don't want to give him too much credit either.

[shanti]

29. oh come on

you can say it - he's a puppet! that's pretty obvious. he doesn't seem too happy though, it probably wasn't his idea. being a PRESIDENT is hard work, and georgie doesn't like to work too hard!

[MalachiConstant]

31. publicly it does appear that way

but i don't have any intimate knowledge of what goes on in the white house

[oxbow]

73. He's not a puppet!

what about Harriet Miers? What about going to Mars? Heck of a job, Brownie? Those were all W, baby!

[shanti]

84. i think that they ALLOWED

him to make that one....but you can see what happened in the end.

[xxqqqzme]

32. You need 2 add the Terri Schiavo

hysteria. The ONLY time he EVER cut his vacation time. I volunteer @ an open air event and people were thoroughly disgusted w/ that intrusion. It has not ben forgotten either.

[90-percent]

33. only place to go is further down

How can he level with us and admit he lied? He'd be saying he started a whole goddamned WAR based on lies! That's tough, if not impossible, to forgive!

If he decides to "go honest" he will simply be incriminating himself over mass quantities of misdeeds, most illegal, impeachable, and there's a whole list of Nuremburg level crimes these treacherous cretins have committed.

-85% Jimmy

[INdemo]

34. This is funny

Last week Clinton's lowest poll numbers were 40%,,now this week the lowest was 30%... for all those RW squeakers........President Clinton's poll number never ever got in the forties........

[QC]

39. Never in the forties in his second term.

I'm talking about his first term, which is precisely what makes the Clinton/Bush comparisons false. Clinton had a lot of time to recover--Bush doesn't.

[PATRICK]

36. More importantly

Bush once exposed for what he is has no redeeming features and extremely poor capacity to deal with any situation. If someone needs a figurehead THAT bad to rally around in a crisis their innate sense of doom must be severely repressed.

ANY popularity that seems to bounce up after a horrendous crisis will be even more phony and shallow than the idiotic, duplicitous and shallow "popularity" of the past. Bush could only be popular or perceived as competent by the wildest flight of fanatical imagination, the kind only reserved once for celebrities like rock stars or athletes. They latter MIGHT come back after a scandal but never as before and Bush is much more shallow and devoid of real talent than any other celeb I can remember. And as for politics, less than Nixon, less than Reagan even, less than Benedict Arnold. (This is a challenge to come up with other deflated reputations!)

[sendero]

37. I agree completely..

.... Bush** has something like a 5% chance of ever regaining popularity or power.

He's spread a layer of discontent over the country that will not be washed off with his usual blaming rhetoric. In fact, I really believe that the kind of speeches he made on Vet's day work against him.

He's like a friend you've loaned money to over and over, and you finally realize he is never going to even try to pay you back. No more.

[mwb970]

68. I wonder how many percentage points he lost with the 11/11 speech.

Isn't it usually a 2-3% drop after a "big speech"? Maybe 5% after this stinker.

[QC]

82. I'm wondering about that one, too.

Using Veterans Day as an opportunity to attack one's political opponents is reaching very low, even for this bunch.

[union_maid]

38. Clinton's lows were in the first term and early, too

It's not comparable. Bush is hitting the thirties five years into his presidency. His ratings are based on performance. So were Clinton's high ratings.

Keep in mind, too, that although Reagan got clean away with Iran/Contra after sagging in the polls for a while, it was abstract to a lot of Americans. The death squads, the subversion of the constitution and the arms to Iran were things we'd never have known about if they didn't get caught. The war in Iraq affects every town in the country. And we're all paying for it. Also, the Reagan administration confined their most public domestic war to one on the poor - a popular target with too many people. The longterm affect on the middle class wasn't obvious to the majority. Bush's war on all economic classes except his own is becoming clear at last.

[indie_voter]

50. Spot on! n/t

[devinsgram]

43. Gore Vidal is right, but he should have went further

...and said that not only will he be the most hated (non-elected president, my words) in history, but he will be the most hated man in the world at this time in history.

[npincus]

44. Clinton never vacationed while 1,000 Americans DROWNED

HELL NO! Read my lips: the Chimp will NOT make a comeback!

[charlyvi]

56. True. He actually cut short an Asian conference

to get back home when Gilbert hit. Can you imagine Shrub doing that? Hell, he wouldn't even cut short his exercise time to meet with Cindy Sheehan. After all, he has his own life! How dare the common people infringe on his sacrosanct exercise and campaigning time!

[npincus]

57. maybe if Cindy paid $9 million like the President of Gabon

she could have had an audience with His Chimpiness.

[Joe Chi Minh]

65. ..and thousands, possibly tens of thousands, died of thirst, while

the survivors became homeless refugees.

[bonzotex]

47. he will never recover, but be very afraid...

Good points! Most Presidents compare more favorably when set side by side with Chimpy. Clinton especially is being redeemed. Unfortunately, it's not time to turn the "Worst President Ever" over to the historians for his much deserved vilification.

Like the nasty, spoiled, drunken frat boy he is, he will take everyone and everything he can down with him.

Shrub has not hit his "bottom" yet. Smart Republicans are finally beginning to realize how dangerously out-of-touch and out-of-control Shrub is.

Don't worry about him recovering; worry about how much damage he and his inner circle can do in 3 years.

[Joe Chi Minh]

70. 3 years? Not a chance.

And what do you mean, "Clinton is being redeemed?" He was one of the most successful American Presidents ever, while in office, even at the mercy of Satan's own. If anything, what he has done since retirement has taken a little of the shine off his tenure of the Oval office.

His sexual indiscretions are a complete and utter irrelevance in the context of government. Nor would people have been any the wiser about them than they were of JFK's, had it not been for the Republicans' scandalous campaign of detraction. And, incidentally, such indiscretions were at least matched by those of a number of other great national leaders. JFK, in particular, springs to mind; a US president whose memory is still revered, not just in the US but around the world. As indeed is that of Bill Clinton, though happily, he is still with us.

[bonzotex]

78. I agree mostly, ...I was speaking of how history would be written

Clinton was a good President. Hard to argue with 8 years of peace and prosperity. Clinton's sex life was hook for the radical right to foam at the mouth. For that they vilified him and tried to impeach him. It looks rather silly now. Thus the lens of history tends to look past the passions of the moment.

As far as being redeemed? Sure he is. In many people's eyes (including lots of Dems)he left office under a dark cloud. The one glaring stain was the Lewinsky scandal, and even conservative wankers are admitting that was "just sex" and the Starr investigation was a shameless waste of time and money.

The dark cloud Clinton left under was really the gathering darkness of the Neocons and Bushco. History will be much harsher on them than Clinton.

And yes, prepare for 3 more years of pain, deficit looting and murder. Even if we take back the Legislatures impeachment may not happen nor is it all that desirable in a realpolitik sense. Check out this thread on Kos.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/12/142933/14

I'd love to see Chimpy impeached and tried, but only if we can get Cheney, Delay and Frist and about 9 others too. It's not completely impossible.

[Joe Chi Minh]

83. I think you are muddling what you personally would like to see,

since you believe it to be more prudent (perhaps because of the kos article), and the realities that pragmatic men, even fairly far to the right, would consider altogether unthinkable.

Your point about the gathering storm cloud is certainly arguable. And on that score his indiscretions are culpable politically. But I think it's very clear now that there is nothing he or anyone else could have done to stop them in their deranged shenanigans for long.

[barb162]

89. By the time you get those entrenched people out like

Hastert, Frist...Bush will be out of office for a few years. That article was good and energenic but I don't know if it's realistic. The most we can hope for is to try to minimize the damage he does the next 3 years if we can win 2006 seats.

[barb162]

88. Three years almost certain.

Who is going to impeach him?

[Marr]

51. You know what's funny? Even if Bush did what the pundits suggest, and

"cleaned house", he'd only replace everyone with a new collection of incompetent ideologues and cardboard cut-out yes-men. Wouldn't make an ounce of difference.

[burythehatchet]

52. He will never recover because that is the pattern of his life

Everything he has ever embarked upon has been a miserable failure, and he has never redeemed himself, ever, as far as I know.

[buddysmellgood]

53. I agree. People see him for the liar he is. You don't recover from that

with more lies.

[Melissa G]

58. k-n-r! n/t

[Nictuku]

60. Clinton's Ratings

I found a great site that does list all of Clinton's
'approval' ratings during his presidency, and he did not go
under 40 in his 2nd term, but he did (briefly) in 1993 (which
makes me wonder what was going on at the time), however,
during the same period, other polls show him above 40.  So it
is a weak comparison, indeed.

Here is the link to the complete list:

http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/cgi-bin/hsrun.exe/Roperweb/PresJob/PresJob.htx;start=HS_fullresults?pr=Clinton

Job Performance Ratings for President Clinton 
 
Date       Organization  Approve Disapprove No Op SampleSize
8/8-10/93  Gallup        44      48          8   1003  
8/8-10/93  USA Today/CNN 44      48          8   1003  
8/6-8/93   ABC/WP        45      51          4   1216  
8/4-5/93   Yank/TIME/CNN 43      46         11    800  
8/2-3/93   CBS/NYT       38      50         12    870  
7/24-27/93 NBC/WSJ       45      45         10   1006  
7/19-21/93 Gallup        42      49         10   1011  
7/19-21/93 USA Today/CNN 42      49         10   1011  
7/9-11/93  Gallup        45      48          7   1002  
7/9-11/93  USA Today/CNN 45      48          7   1002  
6/29-30/93 Gallup        46      47          7   1008  
6/29-30/93 USA Today/CNN 46      47          7   1008  
6/27-27/93 CBS/NYT       50      43          7    622  
6/21-24/93 CBS/NYT       39      46         15   1363  
6/18-21/93 Gallup        39      50         11   1003  
6/18-21/93 USA Today/CNN 39      50         11   1003  
6/17-21/93 Yank/TIME/CNN 37      50         13    901  
6/11-15/93 ABC/WP        45      48          7   1006  
6/5-6/93   Gallup        37      49         14   1005  
6/5-6/93   USA Today/CNN 37      49         14   1005  
6/4-4/93   CBS/NYT       40      53          7    565  
6/4-8/93   NBC/WSJ       41      50          9   1502  
6/1-3/93   CBS/NYT       38      47         15   1347  
5/27-29/93 CBS/NYT       37      49         14   1184  
5/26-27/93 Yank/TIME/CNN 36      50         14    800  
5/21-23/93 Gallup        44      46         10   1023  
5/21-23/93 USA Today/CNN 44      46         10   1023  
5/12-13/92 Yank/TIME/CNN 47      42         11   1000  
5/10-12/93 Gallup        45      44         10   1011  
5/10-12/93 USA Today/CNN 45      44         10   1011  
5/4-6/93   CBS/NYT       49      37         14   1233  
4/28-29/92 Yank/TIME/CNN 48      39         13   1000  
4/23-26/93 ABC/WP        60      38          2   1507 

[Nictuku]

62. Link

The link in the previous post didn't seem to work, lets try this again:
http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/cgi-bin/hsrun.exe/Roperweb/PresJob/PresJob.htx;start=HS_fullresults?pr=Clinton

Hrrm... when all else fails, tinyurl!

http://tinyurl.com/936tf

[proud patriot]

66. Gore Vidal Rocks

:headbang: I have the utmost respect for him ,
especially since he came back to fight with us .

[BlueIris]

72. Gore vidal does, in fact, rock.

Hee.

[RazzleDazzle]

74. Good points, and one more

It was all bogus to begin with and most of the American people recognized he was just being hounded, thus the beginning of MoveOn.org, which started as a petition or something to just "move on" from the whole impeachment circus.

[Seansky]

75. sad thing is that now it's irrelevant whether he recovers or not, things

have been too damaged and if he lasts two out of the three years left, the lost lives will not be recovered...so much will not be recovered for a long time.

[JJackFlash]

76. irrelevant is right

I don't see how he can recover anything like his former "popularity," but he's already won, hasn't he? He got reelected, fairly or not, he's passed more massive tax cuts skewed to the uppercrust, he's succeeded in bankrupting America to dry up social spending, and he's about to weight the Supreme Court far to the right for the next generation.

Oh, I remember now. Ralph Nader said that none of that would matter, because the Democrats & repugnicans are the same, or there would be a progressive revolution ... or something like that.

I feel better now. Thanks, Ralph.

[SammyWinstonJack]

80. If not for 9/11, Boy George would be long gone and long forgotten.

He should have quit before he earned the title of the MOST HATED pRESIDENT IN HISTORY! I was going to say, he should have quit while he was ahead, but he was already behind before 9/11. He should have stayed Governor of Texas. At least the damage would have been contained, and only us Texans with a brain, would have hated him.

[Nictuku]

87. You are So Right Blue!

I got this from du today:

Missing Trillions

Does anyone remember this?

Rumsfeld Buries Admission of Missing 2+ Trillion Dollars in 9/10/01 Press Conference

On September 10, 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld held a press conference to disclose that over $2,000,000,000,000 in Pentagon funds could not be accounted for. Rumsfeld stated: "According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions." 1

Such a disclosure normally would have sparked a huge scandal. However, the commencement of the attack on New York City and Washington in the morning would assure that the story remained buried. To the trillions already missing from the coffers, an obedient Congress terrorized by anthrax attacks would add billions more in appropriations to fight the "War on Terror."

The Comptroller of the Pentagon at the time of the attack was Dov Zakheim, who was appointed in May of 2001. Before becoming the Pentagon's money-manager, he was an executive at System Planning Corporation, a defense contractor specializing in electronic warfare technologies including remote-controlled aircraft systems. 2-3 Zakheim is a member of the Project for a New American Century and participated in the creation of its 2000 position paper Rebuilding America's Defenses which called for "a New Pearl Harbor." 4

References

1. The War On Waste, CBSnews.com, 1/29/02 http://tinyurl.com/6f82l
2. Radar Physics Group, sysplan.com, http://tinyurl.com/99vlj
3. Flight Termination System, sysplan.com, http://tinyurl.com/76lqt
4. Profile, Dov S. Zakheim, rightweb.irc-online.org, 11/22/03 http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/zakheim/zakheim.php


Missing TRILLIONS

What fools we are.

[Hailtothechimp]

85. George is now like a substitute teacher no one listens to...

I've done that before, and it's a hard way to live. Kids, past maybe 7 or 8, know that a sub isn't their "real" teacher, and they can pretty much do what they want unless the teacher and/or principal are really on the ball.

George is not a "real" president in my mind. Never really has been for me. But many others are starting to see this too (maybe the only good that came from Katrina) and now everything's up for grabs until the 2006 elections. I just hope there isn't an attack between now and then.

[QC]

90. Good comparison, considering how party discipline is breaking down. n/t

[Mr_Spock]

86. Oh, and Bush is a lying mass-murdering war criminal

who needs to be tried and properly punished for treason.

He will only recover in that same place where he hears voices coming from...