BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower

Subject: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 12:00 AM

In the latest AP, Newsweek, Gallup, etc polls, conducted in the past week:

-By more than 2 to 1, Americans say the federal government should have been better prepared for a disaster the magnitude of Katrina. Minorities, 83 percent, were more likely than whites, 64 percent, to feel that the federal government should have been better prepared.

-Just over half, 54 percent, said they blame President Bush for the slow response to the storm.

-Two-thirds of respondents said they had a deep feeling of anger that relief for the victims came so slowly. Women, 72 percent, were more likely to feel this way than men, 62 percent. Blacks, 93 percent, and those who live in cities, 75 percent, also had strong feelings of anger.

-More than half, 55 percent, said they had a deep feeling of shame about the way the hurricane response was handled.

-Just over a third said they felt deeply that the government would have responded faster if the victims weren't mostly black and poor. Almost two-thirds of minorities said they deeply felt that way, while a fourth of whites said they felt deeply that this was the case.

-Almost two-thirds say the country is headed down the wrong track. Those who are the gloomiest include people from 18-29, 77 percent wrong direction; nonwhites, 79 percent; those with a high school education or less, 73 percent; those with low incomes, under $25,000, 69 percent; $25,000 to $50,000, 72 percent; Democrats, 86 percent; non-investors, 72 percent.

-Just over half disapprove of how Bush is handling the hurricane response.

-Seven in 10 disapprove of how the president is handling gas prices.

But! They weren't able to include Floridians or other states impacted by the hurricane and it's aftermath in the poll, so we have no sense of how the locals feel (though I think it is safe to say we can make a pretty good educated guess at this point).

Overall, Bush's approval rating had slipped to it's lowest level ever, and into Gingrich resignation territory: only 39% approve of the way Bush is handling the job. When asked the question "And when it comes to domestic issues like health care, education and the environment, do you approve or disapprove or have mixed feelings about the way George W. Bush is handling that issue? The number sinks one more point to 38%.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: Azizi
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 12:09 AM

And when the cold weather comes and with it high prices for gas & heating oil, and if Grand Jury indictments against Rove and Libby come down in October 2005, and American fatalities in Iraq hit 2,000-then Bush's approval numbers will drop even lower.

At Nixon's resignation, his approval numbers were 24%. Bush has only 14 percentages points to go.

But do we really want a President Cheney???

[I mean officially, that is?]

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: Sorcha
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 01:22 AM

Well, doh...but who is Guest that is starting these???

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 05:16 AM

It's the black fingernail!
(English joke!)

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 07:04 AM

"Being president is hard work..."

Bush (during the debates)

Ahhh, yeah, it is, Gorgie=Porge and that why American's have tradtionally steered away from have drunk frat boys in the position... BTW, sorry yer 6 week vation got shortend by a few days but it kept Cindy Shehannn off the front pages...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 07:15 AM

Cindy isn't even on the back pages. Another 'flash in the pan?"

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: Azizi
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 08:28 AM

My predictions:

History books will describe George W Bush as the worst US president ever

and

History books will describe Cindy Sheehan as the symbol of American parents who lost their sons and daughters for GWB's needless war in Iraq, a war that resulted in the numerous American and Iraq deaths & casualties, higher gas prices in the US and elsewhere, the rise of terrorism in the world, and civil war in Iraq.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: Azizi
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 08:45 AM

[A continuation]

History will also document how G. Dumya Bush's federal government actions prior to Hurricane Katrina and inactions in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina resulted in needless human [and animal] deaths and also resulted in the destruction of New Orleans- a world famous cultural irreplaceable city.

History will not be kind to GWB.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: Alice
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 11:22 AM

Dictionary definition of cronyism = a. Favoritism shown to old friends without regard for their qualifications, as in political appointments to office.
b. the administration of George W. Bush

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: Ebbie
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 11:45 AM

Where is Cindy Sheehan at this point, does anyone know? The last I knew she was touring the country in a bus.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 01:13 PM

She and many followers have been in Covington Kentucky raising hundreds of thousands of dollars and collecting and shipping supplies for hurricane relief. She has set aside her grievance to help those in immediate desperate need. She is still out there, and you will hear much more about her in the coming weeks.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 01:16 PM

In her own words...

update on cindy sheehan here

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: Don Firth
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 01:30 PM

The lady is not finished yet! Far from it!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: Peace
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 03:08 PM

She ain't even started yet.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: Peace
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 03:28 PM

"Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower"

They will likely hit negative quantities.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: Azizi
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 03:32 PM

You mean minus something?

You have more faith in Bush's core group than I do. I don't think anything will sway them from blindly supporting Bush.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: CarolC
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 12:08 AM

One thing I appreciate a lot about Cindy Sheehan is that she has enough integrity to take on both Democrats as well as Republicans if she feels they are being dishonest.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: Rapparee
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 10:47 AM

So, his approval ratings are sinking.

What makes you think that he, or anyone else in his administration, cares?

And I agree with that. Sometimes a head of state or any leader has to make unpopular decisions because those decisions are right (or believed so).

Even in his last days, when Germany was in ruins, people were dying without necessity, and he was living in a bunker in Berlin, Hitler continued to do what he felt was right.

It was only when the Russians were nearly literally at the door that he realized the truth and killed himself.

Isolate the leader. Don't let him or her have any contact with anyone who doesn't agree with them. Keep them convinced that the chain of command is God Almighty --> The Leader, who has been personally chosen by God.

Feeding megalomania has its drawbacks, though. There's Hitler, and several Caesars, and Marc Antony, and Oedipus, and Dugout Doug MacArthur, and I'm sure that you can add to the list.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 10:53 AM

His own are beginning to doubt him, for sure:

Sept. 19, 2005 issue - In September 1965, a massive hurricane hit New Orleans. By the next day the president—a Texan in a time of war—was in the city, visiting a shelter. With no electricity in the darkness there, Lyndon Baines Johnson held a flashlight to his face and proclaimed, "This is the president of the United States and I'm here to help you!" Almost precisely 40 years later, when another horrific hurricane hit the city, the president was, again, a Texan in wartime. But rather than hurry to New Orleans from his Texas ranch, George W. Bush decided, three days after Katrina hit, to fly back to Washington first. Photographers rarely are allowed into the forward cabin of Air Force One, but consigliere Karl Rove and other aides summoned them so they could snap pictures of the Boss gazing out the window as the plane flew over the devastation. Republican strategists privately call the resulting image—Bush as tourist, seemingly powerless as he peered down at the chaos—perhaps among the most damaging of his presidency.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 07:13 PM

The amazing thing is that there are so many people in the States who still appear determined to see nothing wrong.

I mean, I could understand people saying a plague on both your houses, Bush and his mates are no worse than the other ones would be, and the responsibility for what has gone wrong applies to people in both political camps.

But the fact that there are still so mnay people who actually think its been handled well - it just beggars imagination. What would it take?

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: akenaton
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 08:01 PM

Yes McGrath I think it must be something to do with the two party system, the country divided into two camps one blaming the other for all their misfortunes.
Political naivity, divide and rule,weak and corrupt media, deference to authority,stupidity......

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 08:39 PM

McG,

So many folks in the US have been turned into frothin-at-the-mouth-consumers (even if it means neever retiring because if the massibe debts they are rackin' up) that these folks would rather no be disturbed from their daily routines of shopping, eatin and burning up as many gallons os petro as they possibly can....

These are the Bush supporters... I am ashamed because I have two sons-in-laws, both livin' in the South, who I have just described...

They are like X-File aliens... All they do is work and shop???

Gotta be more to it than that...

But, at least in the South, these are the folks who support him...

Bober

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: dianavan
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 11:43 PM

Doesn't matter if his approval ratings drop or not. He's not trying to get re-elected. The best he can do now is steal as many tax dollars as he can and insure that the neo-cons who support him will be hired to clean up the mess he created in Iraq and New Orleans.

He's laughing all the way to the bank.

Must make those Republicans proud!

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 08:17 PM

His approval rating down 10% even among his own supporters.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 08:24 PM

Well some of the defenders seem to see matters more clearly even than Bush himself:

"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government, and to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," Mr Bush said at a news conference.

See here

Damage limitation I suppose...

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: Sorcha
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 08:59 PM

Even here in Red Red Wyoming, it's falling...national seems to be about 38% approval now....so, why did they all VOTE for him??????? Or, actually, did they?

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 09:16 PM

I seriously doubt that they did. However, had they voted in a Democrat (Kerry) in 2004, what then? More of the same, I expect. Would it be a tad better than having Bush? Perhaps. But there are no guarantees. Both those parties were bought out long ago by the people who sell oil, make weapons, and plan wars.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: Azizi
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 09:26 PM

Little Hawk, I'm convinced that the families of those who died in New Orleans as a result of the despicable federal response led by incompentent Bush cronies would have loved to have had that
"tad better" President Kerry.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: GUEST,G
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 09:52 PM

Azizi, most of those who died in New Orleans were the fault of the local and state governments. "First Responders" are always the local fire, police and medic services. Then State personnel.
Check the facts, with Hurricane Andrew, the Federal response was 5 fdays, with Katrina, 3 days?

Hatred of the magnitude demonstrated here clouds the facts of reality.

WAIT UNTIL THE REAL TRUTH IS REVEALED - WHAT SHALL YE HAVE TO SAY THEN?

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 09:58 PM

Bush is a lame duck president. I said it when he was reelected and I say it again: he is in many ways powerless.

Politics is sometimes described as "reward your friends, punish your enemies." Bush has nothing to reward his friends with after next year; possibly even now. I think that this truth is slowly sinking into the heads of those in Congress and even into the Americans who voted for him.

Red red red red Idaho is starting to see Bush for what he is. And if it can sink in here, it can sink in anywhere. I've seen several Bush stickers incompletely scraped off cars -- more, I've actually talked with people who have ADMITTED making a mistake by voting for Bush (of course, they also feel that voting for Kerry would have been a mistake).

I'd love to see a real choice in the next election.... Heck, I'll settle for a real choice in 2006.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: Peace
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 10:01 PM

"with Katrina, 3 days?"

You got a source for that little gem?

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: Peace
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 10:19 PM

Stuff worth reading--with documentation to support the opinions.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: CarolC
Date: 14 Sep 05 - 12:30 AM

The five day wait after Andrew is one of the reasons Clinton revamped FEMA, and made it into a much better and more effective agency. Bush gutted what had been a model agency, appointed unqualified cronies, and now we see the result. It wasn't the local people who failed. It was Bush's policies that failed the American people...

___________________________________________


Storm Exposed Disarray at the Top

By Susan B. Glasser and Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, September 4, 2005; Page A01

The killer hurricane and flood that devastated the Gulf Coast last week exposed fatal weaknesses in a federal disaster response system retooled after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to handle just such a cataclysmic event.

Despite four years and tens of billions of dollars spent preparing for the worst, the federal government was not ready when it came at daybreak on Monday, according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former senior officials and outside experts.
        
Among the flaws they cited: Failure to take the storm seriously before it hit and trigger the government's highest level of response. Rebuffed offers of aid from the military, states and cities. An unfinished new plan meant to guide disaster response. And a slow bureaucracy that waited until late Tuesday to declare the catastrophe "an incident of national significance," the new federal term meant to set off the broadest possible relief effort.

Born out of the confused and uncertain response to 9/11, the massive new Department of Homeland Security was charged with being ready the next time, whether the disaster was wrought by nature or terrorists. The department commanded huge resources as it prepared for deadly scenarios from an airborne anthrax attack to a biological attack with plague to a chlorine-tank explosion.

But Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said yesterday that his department had failed to find an adequate model for addressing the "ultra-catastrophe" that resulted when Hurricane Katrina's floodwater breached New Orleans's levees and drowned the city, "as if an atomic bomb had been dropped."

If Hurricane Katrina represented a real-life rehearsal of sorts, the response suggested to many that the nation is not ready to handle a terrorist attack of similar dimensions. "This is what the department was supposed to be all about," said Clark Kent Ervin, DHS's former inspector general. "Instead, it obviously raises very serious, troubling questions about whether the government would be prepared if this were a terrorist attack. It's a devastating indictment of this department's performance four years after 9/11."

"We've had our first test, and we've failed miserably," said former representative Timothy J. Roemer (D-Ind.), a member of the commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks. "We have spent billions of dollars in revenues to try to make our country safe, and we have not made nearly enough progress." With Katrina, he noted that "we had some time to prepare. When it's a nuclear, chemical or biological attack," there will be no warning.

Indeed, the warnings about New Orleans's vulnerability to post-hurricane flooding repeatedly circulated at the upper levels of the new bureaucracy, which had absorbed the old lead agency for disasters, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, among its two dozen fiefdoms. "Beyond terrorism, this was the one event I was most concerned with always," said Joe M. Allbaugh, the former Bush campaign manager who served as his first FEMA head.

But several current and former senior officials charged that those worries were never accorded top priority -- either by FEMA's management or their superiors in DHS. Even when officials held a practice run, as they did in an exercise dubbed "Hurricane Pam" last year, they did not test for the worst-case scenario, rehearsing only what they would do if a Category 3 storm hit New Orleans, not the Category 4 power of Katrina. And after Pam, the planned follow-up study was never completed, according to a FEMA official involved.

"The whole department was stood up, it was started because of 9/11 and that's the bottom line," said C. Suzanne Mencer, a former senior homeland security official whose office took on some of the preparedness functions that had once been FEMA's. "We didn't have an appropriate response to 9/11, and that is why it was stood up and where the funding has been directed. The message was . . . we need to be better prepared against terrorism."

The roots of last week's failures will be examined for weeks and months to come, but early assessments point to a troubled Department of Homeland Security that is still in the midst of a bureaucratic transition, a "work in progress," as Mencer put it. Some current and former officials argued that as it worked to focus on counterterrorism, the department has diminished the government's ability to respond in a nuts-and-bolts way to disasters in general, and failed to focus enough on threats posed by hurricanes and other natural disasters in particular. From an independent Cabinet-level agency, FEMA has become an underfunded, isolated piece of the vast DHS, yet it is still charged with leading the government's response to disaster.

"It's such an irony I hate to say it, but we have less capability today than we did on September 11," said a veteran FEMA official involved in the hurricane response. "We are so much less than what we were in 2000," added another senior FEMA official. "We've lost a lot of what we were able to do then."


More here...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090301653.html

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: GUEST,Not Apologist Guest G
Date: 14 Sep 05 - 08:13 AM

Helloooo--FEMA has NEVER been a model agency. Not under Clinton, not under Bush. I will agree that creating the Dept of Homeland Security and putting FEMA in it was a bad idea that possibly made matters worse at FEMA. But to say it was a "model agency" under Clinton is just plain wrong.

Don't let your partisanship blind you to what is going on. Democrats fuck up federal agencies just as well and often as the Republicans do. In fact, considering the history of who has held power in the federal government for the past 50 or so years, I think there is plenty of blame to go around.

But the buck stops with Bush. It was his administration that implemented the changes post-9/11. But they didn't do it alone: guess whose idea it was to create a cabinet level Dept of Homeland Security?

Democrat Joe Lieberman.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: CarolC
Date: 14 Sep 05 - 02:13 PM

I'm not a Democrat, and I'm also no fan of Joe Lieberman. But most disaster experts around the country are in agreement that FEMA was a very effective agency during the Clinton years (and also in Florida during a crucial election year under Bush... just goes to show, even his people can do it if they have the incentive).

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: TIA
Date: 14 Sep 05 - 02:15 PM

And guess who initially opposed creation of the department, then flip-flopped and accused Democrats of being unpatriotic if they didn't create it exactly his way (clicky to follow if you don't believe me).

(Not a Democrat either btw)

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: Arkie
Date: 14 Sep 05 - 07:58 PM

This country is certainly in trouble. Not just because we put opportunists who use their positions for personal gain in office but because we do not demand that the people we elect serve the real needs of the country. When they foul up we make excuses for them, "the other party was no better", in the case of hurricane victims, "they got what they deserved", when the tax coffers are raided to provide breaks and cuts for wealthy corportations and CEOs people "are tired of the government supporting folks who are not working.   We are in trouble because Democrats spend so much time worrying about what Republicans are doing. I am doing enough worrying about that. I would like to see leaders projecting plans and policies that will ensure adequate and affordable health care, I would like to see the military's efforts directed to protecting the citizens of this country rather than becoming an agent of imperialism. I am tired of seeing the erosion of the middle class and the growing impoverishment of the poorer citizens of all ages while seeing government create policies to enhance the life of the aristocrats. It is particularly sickening to see people professing a Christian faith abandoning the message of the Gospels to support a religious establishment that has joined forces with a corporate government. This very thing happened 2000 years ago when the Sadducees collaborated with the Romans and a young carpenter who came to the aid of the needy, the ailing, and the outcasts was nailed to a cross. Christianity is at its best and its strongest when it engages in changing peoples' hearts and when people's actions are motivated by care for each other.   People do not become "good" by obeying laws and rules.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: Amos
Date: 14 Sep 05 - 08:04 PM

People do not become "good" by obeying laws and rules.

The good people, though, do become better by living under a rule of law. Regardless your point is well stated.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Sep 05 - 09:13 PM

Hear, hear, Arkie...

Couldn't agree more...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: Azizi
Date: 14 Sep 05 - 09:17 PM

Arkie,

I also definitely agree with your statements. They were very well put and unfortunately very true.

God help us to help ourselves.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: Azizi
Date: 14 Sep 05 - 09:58 PM

Better late than never.

For those, like me, who didn't see last Friday's Bill Maher's show on HBO, here is a classic clip:

Bill Maher: 'America Must Recall George Bush Now'

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Sep 05 - 10:37 PM

I agree with Arkie.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: dianavan
Date: 15 Sep 05 - 03:24 AM

Arkie is exactly right.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: bobad
Date: 15 Sep 05 - 05:16 PM

George Bush was asked where he stood on Roe vs. Wade, he replied that it didn"t matter how people got out of New Orleans.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: GUEST, Ebbie
Date: 15 Sep 05 - 05:47 PM

On last night's Jay Leno, Wanda Sykes was a guest. He asked her for her opinion on the Katrina debacle.

She said, 'I don't blame the president. I blame the American people. Hey, they knew the president was slow when they elected him. Hell, you can't blame a blind man for wrecking your car when you're the one who gave him the keys.'

The camera stayed on her- I would have loved to see Leno's face. The audience responded but rather cautiously, I thought. It always surprises me but it seems to me that most of the audiences that Jay Leno attracts are pretty red-stateish.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: UncleToad
Date: 15 Sep 05 - 05:47 PM

Remember...as long as bush is in Washington, Crawford TX has to do without its VILLAGE IDIOT...

Uncle(ShameOnDubya)Toad

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: Sorcha
Date: 15 Sep 05 - 05:52 PM

LOVE that comment from Wanda!

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: Peace
Date: 15 Sep 05 - 06:16 PM

Love that observance from Bobad.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Sep 05 - 09:16 PM

Roe vs. Wade- I'm surprised he didn't say that if those people had thought ahead they'd have seen to it that they had airplanes and helicopters.

Subject: RE: BS: Bush approval ratings keep sinking lower
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Sep 05 - 09:26 PM

Just difficult to believe some of the comments here - this place is certainly not without its' share of "village idiots".