How Low Can Bush's Approval Ratings Go?:
President Bush's approval ratings have had a straight downward slope for his entire second term, and the downward slope looks to be continuing straight to the end of the term. Remarkable.
UPDATE: Here's another interesting poll, this one on opinions toward Congress:
UPDATE: Here's another interesting poll, this one on opinions toward Congress:
Only half (49%) [of respondents to the poll] believe that the current Congress is better than individuals selected at random from the phone book. Thirty-three percent (33%) believe a randomly selected group of Americans could do a better job and 19% are not sure.
Either that, or it testifies to the enormous power of denial.
The media is to blame for this one, too, obviously.
In all fairness, were I a Republican living in denial right now would be preferable than reality. It's still possible for it all to change by election day, but increasingly unlikely.
This is a deeply unpopular President and he's dragging down everyone with an (R) next to his/her name.
1. Nuke Iran - they're totally asking for it! What's the worst that could happen?
2. Invade Pakistan. But don't catch Osama Bin Laden, cause that's what Obama said he'd do and you cannot agree with him.
3. Cut taxes. This would totally save the economy.
4. Say that Obama's a Muslim Manchurian candidate. Nothing unifies like mutual hate.
5. Deport all the illegals. This may be logistically difficult. Call up the national guard if you have to! Deputize the minutemen!
I really couldn't care less about GWB's popularity rating at the moment--indeed, I never did. History will judge him, for good or ill: and it's clear that history's judgment is often radically different than that of the electorate at the end of a President's time in office.
Truman (as we have all been reminded ad nauseam) was pretty darned unpopular when he left office: it took a half century for him to be fully rehabilitated. At the other end of the spectrum, Warren Gamaliel Harding died beloved of the American people: the entire nation mourned his passing. And where is he now, in the pantheon of American presidents?
Agreed. How is Bush's approval rating above 5%?
Because I cannot trust the press, I have only 2 sources of information: Things I see for myself in my bunker, and things I decide are true because they feel true.
I think, therefore President Bush is super-champion of America.
And for perspective, it was Nancy Pelosi's congress that recently achieved a single digit approval rating, the first time in the history of recording that particular statistic. It happened first in July and then again in August.
This point that you made at 7:11 was already made at 6:43 and 6:53. Next time, could you try to not be eight minutes late?
You do all know that it's my profession that decides these things in the end, right? So you'd better be very, very nice to me.
I don't know either. Maybe someone will emerge, or maybe we will just muddle through it. Remember, "Time resolves more problems that men solve."
Are you referring to this point, the fact Pelosi's congress has "achieved" single digit approval levels for the first time in July and then again in August?
The first time in the history of that poll number? Then the second time as well, just a few weeks later in August? I don't recall anyone making that point.
And do you think it's scenes like this that serve to substantiate those opinions? Scenes like that in tandem with Nancy Pelosi's guarantee to Rahm Emanuael, Barney Frank, Maxine Waters, Gregory Meeks, Lacy Clay, et al. that they won't be investigated for their part in the recent financial/credit crisis?
I think it depends on the phone book. Random choices from the Cambridge phone book, I'm not sure...Random choices from Las Vegas: YES! ("What happens in DC stays in DC" is a slogan that has MY vote...)
"The fundamentals of the economy are indeed strong, and John McCain shouldn't hesitate to say so. The quadrennial "greatest crisis since the Great Depression" is always an excuse to socialize something, thereby killing the engine of American prosperity. Let's not let it happen."
Was that the "liberal media," such as the New York Times via Judith Miller, that uncritically enabled the Iraq War through her White House and OVP pipeline to the "evidence" for Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction? Because that liberal media helped W get some of his highest approval ratings ever.
Maybe it was the conservative media, such as the Wall Street Journal and National Review, which helped nuke the Harriet Miers nomination and W's immigration reform bill and negatively affected his popularity in each instance.
What it can't be is the public coming around, if very slowly, to a rational assessment of W's presidency.
I think you are on to something. The #1 problem with politics today is that the two sides see the other as totally and completely illegitimate. Not as the "opposition," but as the "enemy" to be destroyed.
Why? I'd say a major part of it is the blogosphere. That trend in politics rose hand in hand with internet blogs and bulletin boards. Now conservatives and liberals don't have to engage each other. They all reside in their personal echo chambers where every little matter is an existential crisis.
If you think Republicans like myself are in denial about how great George W. Bush is, then I hope you can point me to some books or websites that help explain the greatness that I have been missing.
And Polling people for their opinion of "Congress" is kind of silly, since individual districts are mostly happy with their own Congressman but think everyone else's Congressman is an idiot. I've never understood how people like Barney Frank and Don Young can keep getting reelected, but that's up to the people they represent.
People who want to blame the media for the imploding Republican Party should . . . well, actually, as a Dem myself, you should go right ahead. Really, the problem couldn't be anything else.
I think that's true and the Republicans deserve it. But only a fool wants to be captain or a crew member on the Titanic. It would not surprise me to see the emergence of a strong third party in the near future as our ruling parties have failed us utterly.
Americans are going to have to swallow a very bitter pill to fix what's wrong. It means hard work and little fun. It means giving up on globalism until America's industrial base is restored. Other world powers have fallen by replacing industry with finance. A nation can't be rich and great by moving assets around-- it has to create them.
McCulloch will be a busy man. I'm still anxiously awaiting his vindication of James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, and Richard Nixon.
This is why my mother always told me that "those who do not remember their history are doomed to repeat it in summer school."
The specific subject addressed however was the enormous power of the media in shaping public opinion, not some conception of greatness.
For perspective however and as to the subject of greatness more broadly considered, historians and others help to affix that standard to individuals, often enough decades and more after the fact (A. Lincoln as a preeminent example). And of course the standard itself is subject to the vicissitudes of time. In short, I didn't waste time arguing Ronald Reagan's greatness c. the 1980's, but twenty years and more after the fact I would be willing to engage in defense of that proposition (e.g., RR's role in bringing down the Soviet Union and, domestically, an ability to speak to and fortify the confidence of Americans in America and what it stands for and further to help advance those principles).
As the wag might say, vicissitudes come and vicissitudes go ...
Regardless, I'm not seeking to extend the debate concerning denial.
Aaron Burr and Benedict Arnold have found champions in the profession, and now "right-thinking" academics will say that they "weren't as bad as all that."
So I'm sorry to disappoint all the Bush-Bashers out there. But history will almost certainly go back and forth on Bush. Because historians need to say things that haven't been said before.
The Athenians tried something like that, with results not discernibly worse than the present system.
But history will almost certainly go back and forth on Bush.
Correct. Was he the worst president ever, or merely one of the worst? A subject for endless discussion.
Because historians need to say things that haven't been said before.
I believe David Irving said a few things that hadn't been said before, at least not outside the original German. Didn't seem like a model for practicing history, however.
(Just tweakin' ya, Hoosier -- you're one of the good Republicans. Not quite good enough to vote Obama, alas, but ...)
But that mischaracterizes what was stated.
What was stated and alluded to was the fact that 1) it is a Democratic Congress, 2) Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House, 3) for the first time in history public opinion polls for Congress reached a single digit level.
Those are plain facts and that's what was stated.
Beyond polls per se, a brief, supportive audio/video link, allowing congressional Democrats to speak for themselves, was also provided.
If you think Republicans like myself are in denial about how great George W. Bush is, then I hope you can point me to some books or websites that help explain the greatness that I have been missing."
Orin, you should give up on this point. Nietzsche aptly anticipated Michael B when he wrote, "[he] mudd[ies] the waters to make them appear deep."
"I think President Bush's approval ratings could in fact blow through the X axis, travel back in time, and start dragging down Bush41's."
Interesting thought--to those who have studied the Selfish Gene and like works of social biology, would Bush 41, in an unusual inversion of the normal drive for preservation of his genome, now have an adequate incentive to actively prevent his son from breeding further?
Hoosier, I'm begging for some Burkean wisdom here . . .
Yes, and these same people surveyed are going to elect more Democrats to Congress. What does it mean? That even a single Republican in Congress is enough to 'get to zero' in these polls? I think this all is pretty meaningless.
I do think Repubs made this mess and we should elect Repubs to clean the mess up. These next 4 years are gonna be pretty crappy.
Oh, I'm sorry. You were just pointing out the Nancy Pelosi is Speaker and that Congress has a low approval rating, without meaning to imply that the two were related, or that Congress's low approval rating meant people specifically disapproved of Democrats. You know, in the same sort of way that disapproval of Bush has -- what's the delicate phrase? -- "damaged the Republican brand."
Because that's what most right-wingers mean whenever they try to counter Bush's record unpopularity with cites about Congress.
But I guess we agree that the two points you snipped from my original point do undercut that idea.
Zarkov: You have a point.
Nothing that a jolly little war with Iran won't fix!
The Iranian people will greet us with flowers.
All too true. Reminds me of my all-time favorite line from Doonesbury. In a strip satirizing the Vietnamese re-education camps, he had someone ask Phred whether they'd be teaching revisionism. His response was "No, the truth will suffice."
Nothing was "muddied" and alluding to Nietzsche doesn't aid your silly flim-flam. Likewise, I'd suggest that what was offered was more in line with a truism than anything "deep." Outside of partisan sniping, what was forwarded is commonly accepted.
JosephSlater,
So you're saying I said something I didn't say?
(I also didn't say they were entirely unrelated and if you'd care to take this previously linked video into account, that would help to substantiate why I wouldn't say that, either.)
Actually, Norman Podhoretz and others have written at some length defending President Bush, whereas the only thing I have ever read from Prof. Kerr are blog posts of snide ridicule. Now maybe Prof. Kerr writes at more length in some other forum that I am not aware of, but based on what I know, Prof. Kerr doesn't have the standing to claim that it is his opponents who shirk reasoned debate.
Democracy only works if you believe the other side to be legitimate but misguided. If the other side is unpatriotic traitors, then it is treason to let them take over the country without a fight, and you are duty-bound to engage in any dirty trick you need to to defeat them. That way lies civil war and the politics of Latin America and Africa.
On the issues I'm fairly split (McCain domestically, Obama overseas), but because I remember who threw the first stone and first called their opponents traitors for holding mainstream political views, I have a side to support.
And, to offer the most salient recent example only, after observing Nancy Pelosi in the House of Representatives recently, you're suggesting it's the Pres. who reflects this "us-vs-them" outlook?!?!?
Wow!
"Worse, I find it detestable that these same persons 'argue' by pointing at the opposing party, as if it vitiates the low approval rating itself, and saying, "see! you're wrong!" The consequence of this is defending the near-indefensible. I think the most lasting legacy of Bush the 2nd may very well be the forceful push towards bankrupting the intellect of conservatives (and even some libertarians) and replacing volumes of critical thought with conceptial fiat, digestible to most, and shrunken down to fit on an index card. Somewhere in this is a parallel to Jonestown."
Because what you've forwarded there reflects an example of "intellect" and a cogently forwarded argument? Are you serious? Good grief, literally all of it is one assertion and assumption after the other. In precisely the same vein, the "Jonestown" allusion is positively fatuous.
So in lieu of anything that's remotely rational and cogent, you've forwarded several assertions, you've likewise declared or implied that you're the party of the "smart ones" and you're kinda' upset that more people aren't willing to admit and applaud you for those smarts. Further, that all that is suppose to reflect "intellect."
Got it.
"The #1 problem with politics today is that the two sides see the other as totally and completely illegitimate. Not as the "opposition," but as the "enemy" to be destroyed."
I doubt I agree with Angus on many non-social issues but this comment is 100% on the money. And at this point I don't care who started it.
Best. Comment. Evar.
Hoosier, I'm begging for some Burkean wisdom here . . .
Ah, yes. And I'm always happy to help with such a request. But Burkean wisdom begins with this: Thanks to our sullen resistance to innovation . . . we still bear the stamp of our forefathers.
In other words, Don't vote for a novice who promises "CHANGE!"
But I suspect wisdom is not really what voters want right now.
Firstly, the comparison isn't intended in an exactingly parallel or linear sense. But when Nancy Pelosi's Democratic Congress reaches single digit approval ratings for the first time in the history of that recorded marker, it's worth taking note of.
Secondly, it's a national Congress and legislature, not a local legislature. It would be similar to suggesting we should only observe the President's approval rating as measured within the state of Texas.
I can think of lots of hypothetical X who are/were hated by many, and I would not agree they were doing the right thing. I am not willing to make an exception for Bush.
You can't convince me someone is a good president by showing how unpopular they were. I agree that a good leader can be unpopular; but the unpopularity itself is not evidence of being a good leader.
Of course, Congress's approval ratings are even lower, and our likely next president, Obama, looks to be a corrupt Chicago machine politician and left-wing ideologue.
Sigh. We could have used a moderate president -- rather than a liberal or a "compassionate conservative" who will spend us into bankruptcy.