Bill Clinton is still very mad at Barack Obama because Obama's supporters painted Bill as racist.
It has long been known that Mr Clinton is angry at the way his own reputation was tarnished during the primary battle when several of his comments were interpreted as racist.
But his lingering fury has shocked his friends. The Democrat told the Telegraph: "He's been angry for a while. But everyone thought he would get over it. He hasn't. I've spoken to a couple of people who he's been in contact with and he is mad as hell.
"He's saying he's not going to reach out, that Obama has to come to him. One person told me that Bill said Obama would have to quote kiss my ass close quote, if he wants his support.
"You can't talk like that about Obama - he's the nominee of your party, not some house boy you can order around.
Barring some unforeseeable event Obama is going to become the next president. Bill Clinton will probably get even madder as his friends all try to kiss up to Obama.
Bill had black loyalties when they did not have a black choice. The overwhelming black loyalty for Obama demonstrates the truth of an old saying: blood runs thicker than water. This tendency to put genetic loyalties and other loyalties ahead of a rational evaluation of the candidates reduces the quality of the people who win elections. We are going to see more of this in the future.
I expect Barack Obama to win this election because the incumbent party always loses in a recession, the US unemployment rate just jumped up by the largest amount since 1986, people are feeling poorer from the popping of the housing bubble, and the price of gasoline is about $4 per gallon. That's far too much bad news for the incumbent party to emerge victorious. Oh, and the war in Iraq is unpopular and Obama is more against it than John McCain. So McCain does not matter and Obama is the only candidate worth discussing. With all that in mind: Obama can not fund his spending program by increasing taxes only on the wealthy.
Yet limiting tax hikes to the $250,000-and-up set probably won't pump enough money into the U.S. Treasury to pay for new spending programs and deal with the ballooning deficit, even when combined with proposed corporate tax increases. Analyst Daniel Clifton of Strategas Research Partners has tallied some $350 billion in promised new annual spending by Obama. He has outlined plans to pay for new programs without increasing the deficit, but budget analysts are skeptical. "Targeting just a fraction of the population [for an increase] is not going to generate the revenues they need," says Roberton Williams, an ex-Congressional Budget Office staffer now with the independent Tax Policy Center. Adds Clifton: "They are going to have to find a way to get more from the middle class."
Well, if Obama manages to pull US troops out of Iraq then he'd free up $150+ billion per year from the deluded fantasy (turned nightmare) project to bring democracy to the Middle East. He could then use some of that money to waste on Obama's own deluded fantasy about how another big increase in educational funding could turn dumb students into higher performers. Yes, Obama embraces the big Blank Slate illusion that education is the answer to the problems of a large dumb dysfunctional lower class. Never mind all the evidence to the contrary. Why is it that Washington DC attracts people who seem to focus and amplify the nation's delusions?
Having gotten shafted by George W. Bush how are we going to get shafted by Barack Obama? I figure he'll push harder for racial preferences. His views on race and those of his wife make that a certainty. Plus, he'll push for lots of social welfare programs and higher taxes. But a lot of economic trends are going to limit how far he can go with his agenda. James Pethokoukis points out that even before considering Obama's spending proposals we have serious problems in funding entitlements.
Obama has shown no interest in trimming future Social Security benefit growth while at the same time pushing more government spending, which Mallaby approves of. Now here, courtesy of the Congressional Budget Office, is what would have to happen to tax rates to pay for rising entitlement spending, not including all of Obama's spending plans:
The tax rate for the lowest tax bracket would have to be increased from 10 percent to 25 percent; the tax rate on incomes in the current 25 percent bracket would have to be increased to 63 percent; and the tax rate of the highest bracket would have to be raised from 35 percent to 88 percent. The top corporate income tax rate would also increase from 35 percent to 88 percent. Such tax rates would significantly reduce economic activity and would create serious problems with tax avoidance and tax evasion. Revenues would probably fall significantly short of the amount needed to finance the growth of spending; therefore, tax rates at such levels would probably not be economically feasible.
The entitlements problem is bad enough. But another big trend is going to hit hard during the Obama presidency: Peak Oil. Most worryingly, oil exports are in decline from major oil producers. Declining oil supplies will cause an economic crisis that will cut tax revenues and force yearly cutbacks in government spending for several years in a row.
Steve Sailer thinks we can prevent a President Obama from doing too much damage.
The good news about Obama and his radical past: he can probably be deterred. Barack Hussein Obama is more Hussein than Osama, an opportunist rather than a fanatic.
While his heart may be black, his head is quite white, the epitome of the small-town Midwest where his maternal grandparents originated. He's conflict-averse, cautious, polite, eager-to-please, sensitive, and insecure, with a Sally Field-style need to be liked.
So, Obama's radical principles have repeatedly pushed him left … right up to the point where he starts worrying that if he goes any farther to the left, not everybody will like him anymore, and that could endanger his amazing rise to power. Thus, he compromises and accepts promotion to the next level in return for selling out.
Up through now, Obama has been focused on attaining more power for himself rather than on actually using the power he already has to benefit the people in whose name he has promoted himself. He's kept his eyes on the prize: the White House.
I hope Steve is correct about this because I think Obama has the best odds of getting elected President.
Once Obama is in power will he continue just as hard to try to get everyone to like him? Will this attempt to get people to like him eventually turn him bitter? He's got to reach a point where he realizes this is as high as he's going to go. Will he find that perch as insufficiently satisfying? Will he try then to satisfy himself more by accomplishments that appeal to his base?
A friend who is old enough to remember the 1960s calls up to relate her emotional reactions to the election. She tells me "Obama is Malcolm X light - and I liked him!". Then she says "But Malcolm X was way better than Obama." Then she says about Obama: "He's just not as real.... but he doesn't want to offend anybody." Malcolm X didn't need white votes.
She tells me that people are voting for Obama to feel cool about themselves. White people do all sorts of things to feel cool and boost their status relative to other white people.
She adds "I like him. He's very likable." I have to agree. He doesn't come across as grating or obnoxious or hostile. He seems to really like people.
She thinks Obama really helped a lot of Democrats by giving them a reason to get out of their obligation to vote for Hillary Clinton. They don't have to hold their noses and vote for Hillary.
In the same hotel ballroom where conservative activists greeted John McCain with a mix of cheers and boos just 16 hours earlier, President Bush tried to calm his party's base yesterday. Without naming McCain, Bush assured the group that the eventual Republican nominee will "carry a conservative banner" to the White House.
Eight years after they battled it out for the presidency, Bush and McCain find their fates linked again by history, but this time they are on the same side. With McCain virtually guaranteed the Republican nomination to succeed Bush, they head together into a general election campaign depending on each other. McCain needs the president to help reunite their splintered party, and Bush needs the senator from Arizona to validate his presidency and carry forth its strategy in Iraq.
Bush gets double bonus points with a McCain nomination: Iraq and immigration amnesty. McCain wants to keep fighting in Iraq and McCain has tried very hard to get immigration amnesty passed. Even now McCain has only backed off on immigration to the point of saying that border enforcement comes before amnesty. But McCain and Bush just want to make it easier for Hispanics to enter legally. They are not for immigration restriction. They are for immigration increases.
We are approaching my nightmare scenario: John McCain versus Barack Obama. Who is worse?
Mickey parses John McCain and the results are not pretty.
2) McCain said that "only after we achieved widespread consensus that our borders are secure" would he pursue the semi-amnesty part of his immigration reform. This non-trivial concession would be more reassuring if proponents of that reform didn't righteously claim a 'widespread consensus' in its favor in 2006 and 2007. ( "[A]national consensus has formed around what the president calls 'comprehensive' immigration reform."--Fred Barnes, May, 2006.)
3) McCain said he had "respect" for opponents of his immigration plan (which he didn't renounce) "for I know that the vast majority of critics to the bill based their opposition in a principled defense of the rule of law." Not like those others who base their opposition on bigoted yahoo nativism! McCain's semi-conciliatory words aren't what you say when you really respect your opposition--then you say "I know we have honest disagreements." Not "I know most of you aren't really racists." Even his suckup betrayed how he really feels. Which I suspect is sneering contempt! (See his former campaign manager and informal adviser Mike Murphy, who--writing under cover of a pseudonym--likened Tom Tancredo to the "Bund"!). .... 10:49 P.M. link
I liked Reagan because he didn't hate the Republican base.
Mickey also thinks Obama is very far left.
Remind me again, what is the evidence--in terms of policies, not affect or attitude or negotiating strategy--that Obama is not an unreconstructed lefty (on the American spectrum--a paleoliberal or a bit further left)? For example, would he roll back welfare reform if he could? ... P.S.: One way to know Obama isn't the black Gary Hart: He's been endorsed by Gary Hart. .... Update-Reminders: Obama "fails to denounce" free trade. OK, that's one. ... More: This site, featuring anonymous posts on what he was like as a law prof, is worth monitoring. Most troubling post so far:
I took his Voting Rights Class at UChicago Law at the crack of dawn. His class was still packed. He was incredibly charasmatic and engaging, but is really, really, far-left liberal in the socialism completely rocks kind of way.
This is why I'm hoping Hillary gets the Democratic Party nod. Obama really looks to be left of Hillary. Of course Hillary is left of her husband Bill. In addition to pining for the fjords I also pine for the day when the major Presidential candidates were well to the right of our remaining 3 contenders.
Note that during a recession the party in power always loses. There's no exception to this rule in the post-WWII era that I'm aware of. So in theory whoever wins the Democratic nomination wins the Presidency. Hillary's weakness against Obama might just be setting us up for putting a guy in the White House who is further to the left than any President in the post-WWII era. We'll be at most risk in the first 2 years of Obama's presidency. Then the Republicans will probably win back the House in 2010 due to a backlash against Obama's policies. After that he won't be able to get what he wants through Congress.
On the other hand, if McCain could bring himself to take positions he doesn't really agree with he could create a big enough contrast with Obama to have a chance of winning. He could, for example, attack Obama for supporting drivers licenses for illegal aliens. Can McCain bring himself to take such a position given his general lax attitude toward illegal immigration? Maybe. He has shifted toward border enforcement before amnesty. Can he go even further and support interior enforcement before amnesty?
Audacious Epigone sees a leftward shift of the Supreme Court as the biggest downside of a Clinton or Obama win.
I'm mixed on a best-case scenario. The major hangup I have with a McCain defeat is what it will mean for the Supreme Court. Justice Stevens will turn 90 during the next President's term. There has only been one other nonagenarian judge in the Court's history, and he (Oliver Wendell Holmes) left within the year of becoming one. Scalia, Ginsburg, and Kennedy are all in their seventies. With Democratic control of both the Senate and the Whitehouse, that could spell a drastic leftward shift in the court, especially if Scalia retires.
But the worst-case scenario doesn't seem as cloudy. Obama versus McCain, with McCain winning, strikes me as the least desirable outcome of all. The GOP's performance among Hispanics would be maximized, possibly eclipsing the 50% mark, as Hispanics otherwise tending to support the Democratic candidate would be unenthusiastic about voting for a black. Many would stay home, and others would 'defect' to McCain and his pal Juan Hernandez. If you think the WSJ bilge over the essentiality of the Hispanic vote as garnered through support for open borders is nauseating now, just wait.
I think McCain is worse than Hillary on immigration because McCain has co-sponsored and actively worked for immigration amnesty bills. Also, immigration is more important than the Supreme Court. Demographic damage is very long lasting, much more so than Supreme Court appointments.
Once John McCain's winning of the Republican presidential nomination becomes certain watch for a big change in media coverage of him. When he was running against other Republicans for the nomination the media treated him pretty favorably because he was seen as the most leftward leaning Republican candidate on many issues. But once he is only running against Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama he will be the most rightward leaning candidate still in the race and then the media will likely go much more negative on him.
In spite of the fact that I'm rightward leaning myself I'm looking forward to this coming change in the tone of McCain press coverage. I think Republicans will be better off if McCain loses. Republicans will find it much easier to oppose a given set of policies if Hillary Clinton advocates those policies than if John McCain does. Well, I want to see Republicans oppose immigration amnesty and the continuation of the war in Iraq and other foolishness. With a Hillary presidency the intensity of Republican opposition to bad policies will rise.
Barack Obama won the Iowa Democratic caucus with a total of 93k votes (38%) versus John Edwards 74k (30%) and Hillary Clinton with 73k votes (29%). Okay, the Democratic Party's race changed direction because of only 93k votes. Evan Thomas says that now Obama will jump to the lead in New Hampshire. The purpose of the Iowa caucuses was to create winners and losers and now Obama is the biggest winner.
Isn't it bad that a single state at the outset plays such a big role in the final choices of party nominees? On second thought, the deeper problem seems to be that even with just a single state to hold an election in we can't get better candidates to show up and campaign for months before the caucus election. We are stuck with the likes of these people.
57% of those under 30 went for Obama. He got 35% of women versus 30% for Clinton. Even John Edwards beat Hillary. What does this say? Hillary is not a likable person. Even in a caucus of fairly activist Democrats Hillary can't manage to get more than 29%.
On the Republican side Huckabee won with 34% versus Romney with 25%, Thompson at 13% and then McCain slightly lower at 13%, Ron Paul at 10%, and Rudy Giuliani at 3%. I am not surprised by this result. Lots more liberal Democrats are eager to vote for a black man than Christian Republicans will vote for a Mormon. Also, as for Giuliani I never saw how Christians would vote for a guy on his third marriage. 60% of the Republicans who came out were born again Christians and Huckabee got 45% of them.
The Christians are why Romney has dismal prospects.
In the Republican contest, born-again or evangelical Christians comprised six in 10 Republican caucus-goers, and 46 percent of them favored Huckabee. Only 19 percent favored Mitt Romney, a Mormon who has been viewed skeptically by some religious conservatives.
The Christians who vote for Huckabee demonstrate the power of identity politics. It doesn't matter that Huckabee wants a huge immigration amnesty that the overwhelming majority of the Republican base oppose. That Huckabee is one of them in religious belief trumps mere policy positions - never mind how damaging those policy positions might be for his supporters.
Can some Republican besides Huckabee make big inroads among Christian voters?
The movement's old leadership, which looked as tired and confused as the conventional wisdom suggested, splintered. Pat Robertson stunned some in the movement by endorsing Mr. Giuliani, despite his three marriages and support for abortion rights. Paul Weyrich and Bob Jones III, both leaders among Christian conservatives, endorsed Mr. Romney, a Mormon. Sen. Sam Brownback, a Christian conservative favorite, endorsed Sen. McCain after his own candidacy flamed out.
And when former Sen. Fred Thompson entered the race, much of the punditry world figured he would be the man to consolidate conservative Christian support.
But what happened in Iowa was that the foot soldiers moved out on their own, without regard to where their leaders were heading. They singled out Mr. Huckabee, and turned him from afterthought to front-runner.
I like Fred Thompson's supposed laziness. Bush is lazy in the "I'm not going to bother to understand the real world before march off on some crazy campaign" way. Fred is more of the "I'm lazy and so I won't go marching off" way. I prefer the latter in Presidents. Do less. Mess up less stuff.
I hear Weird Al Yankovic singing "I lost on Jeopardy baby, woo ooo ooo."
For example, one cause of voter cynicism is the suspicion that the candidates are complete ignoramuses on every topic on which they haven't been preprogrammed by their handlers. So, instead of having them stand around and semi-argue with each other, why not have them play Jeopardy instead, with the categories weighted toward history and current affairs.
Sure, the frontrunners wouldn't be likely to agree to it, but why not let laggards like Duncan Hunter and Dennis Kucinich volunteer for a match. They don't even have to be in the same party. Come on, you'd watch that, right? And once a Hunter-Kucinich-Paul Jeopardy match got triple the ratings of the last debate, pressure would mount on the big boys and girls to pick up their buzzers and fight.
This is a great idea from Steve Sailer. Our current crop of Presidential contenders is pretty weak. To hear, say, Obama just go out and try to speak with really lofty rhetoric makes me disgusted. Sure, anyone can hire a speech writer. Yes, the published speeches of Churchill et. al. can be studied to look for ideas. And some of the candidates are pretty good performers (but no match for the Gipper). But what does this have to do with competency to carry out the duties of the US Presidency? Not much as near as I can tell. Good judgment and a highly excellent grasp of reality are more important.
Jeopardy is just a beginning. I have an idea for a reality TV show: Pair up Republicans and Democrats to survive in a wilderness setting. Let them choose each other. See who can best work in a bipartisan manner. Find out which pair can, say, figure out how to catch salmon without a fishing rod in a stream in Alaska. Or see which pair can build a raft to get off an island that is only a half mile from another island. Give them life preservers and homing beacons so none will drown. Plus, the camera crews will be on hand to fish them out.
I would also love to see them try to build a vehicle from parts. "We've given you each 3 times as many parts as needed to build a dune buggy and escape from the hell hole we've put you in. But some of the parts don't fit. You need some of the duplicates because some parts will fail part way through your trip. Have at it. First person to get into that distant old Western town on engine power wins."
Libertarianism is very much a fringe movement in American politics. Yet enough non-Democrats are sufficiently disgusted with Bush and repulsed by the Republican front runners for President that Texas libertarian Republican Congressman Ron Paul that he raised $5 million in the third quarter of 2007.
WASHINGTON — Rep. Ron Paul's presidential campaign reported today to have raised $5 million in the third quarter of this year, a sum suggesting that the Lake Jackson Republican's Internet-driven campaign continues to attract intense support despite his low standing in the national polls.
The libertarian-leaning Republican has drawn media interest and a group of devoted followers, in part because of his outspoken opposition to the Iraq war, which has set him apart from other GOP presidential candidates.
The Iraq war is a pointless waste. We have no national interests to defend there. Paul wants out and he is opposed to illegal immigration. So for paleocons and the non-open borders libertarians (and there are plenty such people) Paul's candidacy is attractive.
Paul raised almost as much as John Edwards.
True, $5 million pales in comparison to the $27 million Hillary Clinton raised this past quarter or the $100 million she and Barack Obama are each expected to raise this year. But Paul's haul isn't far behind the far-more-established John Edwards' $7 million for the third quarter.
And get this: Ron Paul's $5 million is about five times what former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee raised last quarter, despite all his enhanced publicity springing from a second-place finish in the Ames straw poll.
I'm skeptical of Paul's ability to win in a general election because as near as I can tell it sure looks like the welfare state is popular with the majority of the voters. Otherwise conservative Republican farmers support their farm subsidy pork. Lots of retired Republicans support Social Security and Medicare. Real limited government libertarianism is supported by a pretty small minority of the electorate.
Update: What is with Rudy Giuliani? He regularly interrupts public appearances to take phone calls from his latest wife. Can someone so nutting win the Presidency? Of course, George W. Bush won. But back in 2000 he tried to act sensible. Rudy can't be bothered. We seem to be looking at a President Hillary future.
Texas journalist Robert Draper was given access to George W. Bush and members of his inner circle to work on a book about Bush's Presidency. The book, Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush, is out. Robert Draper draws a picture that is not flattering. Bush can't remember what he decided on big questions about Iraq.
Mr. Bush acknowledged one major failing of the early occupation of Iraq when he said of disbanding the Saddam Hussein-era military, “The policy was to keep the army intact; didn’t happen.”
But when Mr. Draper pointed out that Mr. Bush’s former Iraq administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, had gone ahead and forced the army’s dissolution and then asked Mr. Bush how he reacted to that, Mr. Bush said, “Yeah, I can’t remember, I’m sure I said, ‘This is the policy, what happened?’ ” But, he added, “Again, Hadley’s got notes on all of this stuff,” referring to Stephen J. Hadley, his national security adviser.
On the title Dead Certain: Bush is not alone in confusing the feeling of certainty with the reality of being correct. No, you aren't automatically correct just because you feel highly certain.
Bush still believes that Saddam Hussein really had WMDs.
Bush, for his part, was not disposed to second-guessing. Througout 2006, he read historical texts relating to Lincoln, Churchill, and Truman — three wartime leaders, the latter two of whom left office to something less than public acclaim. History would acquit him, too. Bush was confident of that, and of something else as well. Though it was not the sort of thing one could say publicly anymore, the president still believed that Saddam had possessed weapons of mass destruction. He repeated this conviction to Andy Card all the way up until Card’s departure in April 2006, almost exactly three years after the Coalition had begun its fruitless search for WMDs. [p. 388]
Looney Tunes. He gets a wrong idea and becomes highly attached to it. Won't let it go.
Bush likes Big Ideas that are A Really Tough Decision.
What’s more, when dissenting views did reach the president, the results could be an obstinate digging in of heels. For example, calls for Mr. Rumsfeld’s resignation from several retired generals in the spring of 2006 elicited this response from Mr. Bush: “No military guy is gonna tell a civilian how to react.” As one aide glumly put it: “The moment someone would say ‘Fire Donald Rumsfeld,’ Donald Rumsfeld would get a new lease on life.”
The best approach to selling the ever-competitive president on an idea, aides told Mr. Draper, was to tell him, “This is going to be a really tough decision.” Mr. Rumsfeld (whose own Big Idea was to “transform” the military and go into Iraq with a lighter, faster force) gave similar advice, telling his lieutenants that if they wanted the president’s support for an initiative, it was always best to frame it as a “Big New Thing.”
Mr. Draper writes that Mr. Bush was “at root a man who craved purpose — a sense of movement, of consequence” and that he was irresistibly drawn to Big Ideas like bringing democracy to the Middle East, Big Ideas that stood in sharp contrast to the prudent small ball played by his father, who was often accused of lacking the “vision thing.”
Bush believes he's got to be a big picture man.
"The job of the president," he continued, through an ample wad of bread and sausage, "is to think strategically so that you can accomplish big objectives. As opposed to playing mini-ball. You can't play mini-ball with the influence we have and expect there to be peace. You've gotta think, think BIG. The Iranian issue," he said as bread crumbs tumbled out of his mouth and onto his chin, "is the strategic threat right now facing a generation of Americans, because Iran is promoting an extreme form of religion that is competing with another extreme form of religion. Iran's a destabilizing force. And instability in that part of the world has deeply adverse consequences, like energy falling in the hands of extremist people that would use it to blackmail the West. And to couple all of that with a nuclear weapon, then you've got a dangerous situation. ... That's what I mean by strategic thought. I don't know how you learn that. I don't think there's a moment where that happened to me. I really don't. I know you're searching for it. I know it's difficult. I do know—y'know, how do you decide, how do you learn to decide things? When you make up your mind, and you stick by it—I don't know that there's a moment, Robert. I really—You either know how to do it or you don't. I think part of this is it: I ran for reasons. Principled reasons. There were principles by which I will stand on. And when I leave this office I'll stand on them. And therefore you can't get driven by polls. Polls aren't driven by principles. They're driven by the moment. By the nanosecond."
Our political system scares off most of the people who would make good Presidents. We are stuck with the likes of the Bushes and Clintons.
Isn't Rudy's marriage history too much to let him get elected to the US Presidency?
But Judith carries some distinctly un-Laura baggage. Like her husband, she has been married twice before. They also had a secret affair for a year before Mr. Giuliani announced it to the world — and to his second wife, Donna Hanover — at a news conference.
Her relations with Mr. Giuliani’s children by Ms. Hanover are by all accounts deeply strained, despite her efforts at rapprochement. And his son and daughter, ages 21 and 17, have said they do not plan to campaign for their father.
Sharply critical articles, most recently in Vanity Fair, have described Mrs. Giuliani as an imperious striver who shops extravagantly, demands a separate seat on the campaign plane for her Louis Vuitton handbag and has compiled a hit list of campaign aides she wants fired.
He'd have to get the nomination from Christian Republicans. Then he'd have to get some of those Christian Republicans to vote for him in the general election. I guess it depends on who the Democrats nominate. But his kids are down on him. He's married to his third wife who he started an affair with while still married to the second wife. Has America changed so much that he's got any sort of chance?
What he has going for him: He's not intellectual enough to turn off the mainstream voters because he's not that smart. Also, California moved up its primary date. So he might be able to get a bunch of delegates to the Republican convention early on and build momentum. But go on to win when married 3 times and to a woman who is also on her third marriage?
Some people are going to vote for Fred Thompson because he's old enough and seemingly content enough that he won't surprise us by, say, trying to convert the Arabs to democracy and he won't get divorced or have an affair. I'm guessing Romney's going to turn off most fundamentalist Christians due to his Mormonism.
Also, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama? Or does a third Democrat even have a chance?
Conservative leaders among House Republicans say that President Bush's upcoming showdown with them on immigration could threaten support for the Iraq war as well as for the president's other top policy goals.
"The White House should keep in mind that if they have a direct confrontation with House Republicans on [immigration], it could affect the vote on the Iraq appropriation in September," said Rep. Peter T. King, New York Republican. "It will not affect me. I intend to stand by the president. But I do think it is something they should keep in mind for other Republicans who are borderline."
King has introduced an enforcement-only immigration bill in the House. He obviously wants no part of Bush's immigration policy and he's probably quite eager to play good cop-bad cop with other House Republicans to pressure Bush to abandon his push for amnesty.
Meanwhile Bush's immigration allies, the Democrats, are tanking in popularity right along with him.
This week President Bush's approval rating took a further tumble from a position that was already below sea level. At 28 percent in a Newsweek poll, it has collapsed to Jimmy Carter's level during the Tehran hostage crisis. Worse, it is now only five points ahead of Richard Nixon's during Watergate.
...
That's small comfort to Democrats. As they emerged as Bush's crucial allies on immigration, they have shared his unpopularity. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has seen his approval rating fall to 19 percent. The Democrat-controlled Congress has reached levels of unpopularity that it took the GOP more than a decade of scandals to hit.
As Bush has demonstrated on Iraq he doesn't learn from his mistakes. He places far too much emphasis on his personal experience and personal judgment. Since he's not a big book learner and at the same time he wants to think that he understands the world he downplays the importance of empirical studies and trusts his own gut feelings over advice from those far more knowledgeable.
Congress critters need strong reminders that, yes, they should oppose Bush on immigration. Many are thinking this already. Tell them you expect them to vote against amnesty or else you will vote against them and tell all your friends and family to do likewise. Contact your Senators. Then contact your Representative in House and do the same.
Johns Hopkins University political scientists Matthew Crenson and Benjamin Ginsberg argue in a new book that the American Presidency has become too powerful (and I agree)
Picking up where Crenson and Ginsberg's first co- authored book, Downsizing Democracy, left off, Presidential Power: Unchecked and Unbalanced explains the exponential growth of the White House's authority since the second half of the 20th century. Writing for a general audience, they approach their subject as they would a murder mystery, looking at the motives, means, and opportunities leading to the aggrandizement of the commander-in-chief.
How did the world's most powerful democracy wind up delegating so much power and influence to just one person, despite our system of checks and balances? Crenson and Ginsberg point to a convergence of factors, including fractured political parties, a weak Congress and the return of national security issues and foreign policy matters to the center of American politics.
The American people also are responsible for strengthening the executive branch, thanks to waning citizen activism and a general lack of participation in politics. All this fuels presidential candidates who are pathologically ambitious, making the modern approach to electing a president much more cynical and calculated than in the past. Today, the authors say, a president is borne on the shoulders of an inner-circle of handlers and image-makers who fashion the candidate into an electable figure. Gone are the days when the candidate's political party shaped a candidate's character or the groundswell of a popular vote mattered. Crenson and Ginsberg call this "institutionalized ambition."
"Because of the way elections are orchestrated today, we have people running who are 'monsters,' to quote Mike Kelly of the Washington Post," Crenson says. "They spend their whole lives running for office. The party they belong to is irrelevant." Though the George W. Bush administration has capitalized on this situation, Crenson and Ginsberg are quick to note that it didn't create it. Presidential Power traces more than 200 years of political and presidential history, outlining how past presidents were chosen, elected and ultimately exercised their power.
I think the sheer size of the American population causes more power to concentrate in the center. As the population grows the vote of each person coulds for less and less. This breeds apathy. As the federal government cuts into the turn of state and local governments the authority of local leaders declines and this breeds even more apathy.
Look at the Iraq war for an example of too much power to the Presidency. Congress authorized the use of force in Iraq and now has no way to take back that power since it can't muster veto-proof majorities in both houses. So the war becomes ever more unpopular and get the US presence continues.
I see the promotion of national security issues to an exaggerated degree as harmful to the Republic. Not every potential fear amounts to much. Commentators who see dangers everywhere help to make the Presidency even stronger and much stronger than it needs to be.
If we simply kept the Muslims out of the United States our risk of terrorist attacks would decline dramatically. We wouldn't need to spend as much time thinking about threats emanating from the rest of the world. The resulting decline in fear would cause a big redistribution of power away from the center. That would be very healthy for the Republic.
Libertarian Republican Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) is the most consistent opponent of taxes and most consistent advocate of personal liberty in Congress. This makes him a fringe figure in the mainstream liberal media and the traditional gatekeeper editors in big media organizations If the next US Presidential election was fought on YouTube then Ron Paul wold win.
On Technorati, which offers a real-time glimpse of the blogosphere, the most frequently searched term this week was "YouTube."
Then comes "Ron Paul."
The presence of the obscure Republican congressman from Texas on a list that includes terms such as "Sopranos," "Paris Hilton" and "iPhone" is a sign of the online buzz building around the long-shot Republican presidential hopeful -- even as mainstream political pundits have written him off.
Paul is solidly libertarian and yet he's opposed to open borders and wants immigration laws enforced. Tom Tancredo seems too supportive of the Republican status quo outside of immigration. Paul is a refreshing alternative. However, I'd take either of them over any other Republican currently in the 2008 US Presidential race.
Libertarians are probably online far out of proportion to their numbers in the general population. So Paul's popularity online might be a reflection of number of libertarians on the web.
Rep. Ron Paul is more popular on Facebook than Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). He's got more friends on MySpace than former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. His MeetUp groups, with 11,924 members in 279 cities, are the biggest in the Republican field. And his official YouTube videos, including clips of his three debate appearances, have been viewed nearly 1.1 million times -- more than those of any other candidate, Republican or Democrat, except Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).
No one's more surprised at this robust Web presence than Paul himself, a self-described "old-school," "pen-and-paper guy" who's serving his 10th congressional term and was the Libertarian Party's nominee for president in 1988.
The proliferation of web logs, social networking sites, and other methods of mass communication usable by the masses weakens the influence of the establishment media organizations. Views which the mainstream could marginalize in the past are harder to shut out today. You don't need to get a degree in journalism, impress gatekeepers in a job interview, and spend years writing at their direction in order to get your views heard.
The lowering of barriers to publication increases competition and serves up talented writers and insightful analysts who in previous eras would have gone unheard. Thought police are less effective. Writers who earn their livelihoods in other occupations can more easily express their views without fear of punishment.
The on-going battle over the Senate immigration amnesty bill S.1348 demonstrates that when a measure is favored by elites and organized in secrecy that the masses can organize to stop it. When the measure is strongly opposed by the majority we can organize electronically and put up a lot of resistance to elite machinations. Elites try to project a sense of inevitability to their plans in order to sew the feeling of defeat and weaken opposition. Online communities need to develop greater feelings of independence from elites. If they reduce their respect to elites they'll become more immune to elite psychological games.
John Derbyshire answers questions on the 2008 Republican Presidential candidates.
DG: In your commentary on National Review Online, you often, at least indirectly, allude favorably to the GOP frontrunner, Rudy Giuliani. What are your thoughts on the mayor? Do you believe he is an acceptable presidential choice for conservatives?
JD: Yes, I like Rudy. He’s an arrogant, ruthless son of a bitch, a power-hungry bully with a mean streak the width of the Asteroid Belt. I like that in a presidential candidate. Ronald Reagan gave me a lifetime’s supply of sappy uplift delivered with actor-school Throaty Voice No. 5. Poppy Bush convinced me that affectless managerialism can do nothing to advance conservative interests. Bill Clinton proved that boomers are scum, as if it needed proving. Bush Jr. I looked forward to as an empty suit with an empty head, but basically sound instincts—patriotic and so on—who would do a lot of nothing, nothing being the thing I most wanted my president to do at that point. Well, see how that worked out. Let’s try the son of a bitch.
I would gladly put up with large doses of sappy uplift if it was delivered by a President who was deeply realistic and pragmatic. Spout platitudes galore while governing with a brutally accurate model of human nature. Placate the people who want to hear happy talk but make decisions based on accurate appraisals of reality.
As for Rudy Giuliani: I suspect he's not smart enough for the job. Also, I don't see compelling signs that he's be all that conservative. Plus, Guiliani's response to Tancredo in a debate suggests he's wrong on immigration:
MR. GIULIANI: No, I’m very uncomfortable with it. I mean, the reality is, it’s one thing to be debating illegal immigration. It’s a very complex subject. I think we’ve had a very good debate about it. And I think the bill needs to be fixed in the way that I’ve indicated. But we shouldn’t be having a debate about legal immigration.
Derb's own position on immigration would serve as a useful litmus test for all Republican Presidential contenders:
DG: Every single GOP presidential contender not named McCain has voiced opposition to McCain’s immigration bill. What sort of immigration legislation would you prefer the GOP candidates to spearhead?
JD: First and foremost, I want a president who will vigorously enforce current laws against illegal entry and visa over-stayers. Then I’d like to see legislation to (A) abolish EOIR —deportation first, due process later, (B) end chain migration—spouse and dependent children only, (C) end birthright citizenship, and (D) set very low numbers, and very high standards, for settlement. We need another 40-year pause, like the one from 1924 to 1965, so we can get some assimilation done.
Of course, even worse than Giuliani on immigration is McCain and Derb sees this clearly:
DG: Which Republican presidential candidate would you LEAST like to see win the nomination? Are there any candidates who would make you consider voting Democratic, or perhaps for a third-party candidate in the general election?
JD: John McCain, just for his blinkered stupidity on immigration. I can’t actually imagine voting Democratic, even in a Gravel-McCain matchup. I can imagine not voting, though, and I can certainly imagine voting for a Third Party candidate. I’m a conservative. The GOP is not really, most of the time, a very conservative party. It’s only that once in a while they will throw a bone to conservatives, while the Dems never will. I feel no strong loyalty to the GOP—a thing that sometimes gets me into trouble at National Review. A real conservative, of proven executive ability and clear principles, running on a Third Party ticket, would get my vote. Alas, no-one comes to mind.
Bring back Eisenhower. He's got the best track record on immigration of any President in the last 60 years at least. Anyone know any magic spells for bringing people back from the dead? Short of magic Tom Tancredo is our best bet on immigration.
The Republicans face one really big problem with the 2008 election: Iraq. If they were wise (which they aren't) they'd let the Democrats force a US withdrawal real soon. A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 61% of Americans think the Iraq war was not worth fighting. But any Republican Presidential candidate faces the problem that 37% of mostly Republicans still think the war was a good idea. If a Republican supports continuation of the war and manages to win the Republican party's nomination then that candidate will carry that war support as a burden in the general election.
For the general election the Republicans need a candidate who claims he wants to drastically cut back on troops in order to force the Iraqis to fight their own civil war.
In a nutshell: Republican primary voters are too dumb or ignorant or irrationally loyal to notice they are forcing Republican Presidential candidates to support an unpopular and doomed cause.
Mr. McCain declared in a speech at the Virginia Military Institute that defeat or surrender in Iraq was not acceptable, but he acknowledged that the hour was late and the result remained very much in doubt. He might well have been referring to his own political aspirations, the near-term future of the Republican Party and the historical verdict on George W. Bush’s presidency.
If polling is correct, Mr. McCain and the other Republican presidential candidates may have little choice. Republican primary voters, unlike the rest of the nation, appear to remain supportive of the president and the war, and the generals on the ground are asking for public patience in pursuing the new policy of pouring more troops into Iraq. Backing away from the White House and the war now could prove problematic for any candidate seeking the Republican nomination even if it could prove helpful in the general election.
All those Republican candidates are going to run in the primary supporting a huge mistake that the majority correctly perceives as a mistake. Then when the winner of the Republican nomination faces the Democratic contender in the general election that Republican will be saddled with that record of war support.
The Republican nominee for 2000 will benefit if an original war supporter wins the Democratic Party's nomination in 2008. Someone like Hillary Clinton has baggage of earlier war support. Barack Obama has the advantage of earlier war skepticism. But Obama doesn't seem as weighty and experienced about the world and in the general election people favor greater age and more experience when choosing a US President.
Vanity Fair is running excerpts from Presidential historian Robert Dallek's new book Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power. Dallek spent years going over phone transcripts and other now public records of the Nixon Presidency. One excerpt covers the period of the 1973 Yom Kippur war when Syria and Egypt attacked Israel while Nixon was distracted by Watergate.
Although Kissinger spoke to Nixon frequently during these four days, it was usually Kissinger who initiated the calls, kept track of the fighting, and parceled out information as he saw fit. On the night of October 7, according to a telephone transcript, Nixon asked Kissinger if there had been any message from Brezhnev. "Oh, yes, we heard from him," Kissinger replied, volunteering no more. Nixon had to press, asking lamely, "What did he say?"
At 7:55 on the night of October 11, Brent Scowcroft, Haig's replacement as Kissinger's deputy at the N.S.C., called Kissinger to report that the British prime minister, Edward Heath, wanted to speak to the president in the next 30 minutes. According to a telephone transcript, Kissinger replied, "Can we tell them no? When I talked to the President he was loaded." Scowcroft suggested that they describe Nixon as unavailable, but say that the prime minister could speak to Kissinger. "In fact, I would welcome it," Kissinger told Scowcroft.
What is striking is how matter-of-fact Kissinger and Scowcroft were about Nixon's condition, as if it had been nothing out of the ordinary—as if Nixon's drinking to excess was just part of the routine. They showed no concern at having to keep the prime minister of America's principal ally away from the president.
The whole article is very interesting.
If you read the full article pay especial attention to the sections on Vietnam. Note how what Nixon and Kissinger said publically about Vietnam contrasted with their private conservations. Then consider Kissinger's latest statements about Iraq.
"A 'military victory' in the sense of total control over the whole territory, imposed on the entire population, is not possible," Kissinger told The Associated Press in Tokyo, where he received an honorary degree from Waseda University.
The faceless, ubiquitous nature of Iraq's insurgency, as well as the religious divide between Shiite and Sunni rivals, makes negotiating peace more complex, he said.
"It is a more complicated problem," Kissinger said. "The Vietnam War involved states, and you could negotiate with leaders who controlled a defined area."
...
"I am basically sympathetic to President Bush," he said. "I am partly sympathetic to it because I have seen comparable situations."
Kissinger opposes a pull-out from Iraq even though he has a pretty dim view of the US position in Iraq. But what is he thinking about Iraq in the privacy of his own mind? Does he worry more about saving face for himself over his support for the war or does he think we should stay longer in order to avoid admitting defeat?
I used to think that top leaders surely must have more information and much greater insights than I do about the world. I no longer hold that opinion. It isn't so much that my estimation of my own views has risen but rather that my estimation of the understanding and insights of elected leaders (both American and foreign) has declined.
The trick to understanding the world is to figure out who has the right information. A lot of times the right person to turn to is someone directly doing something out in the world away from the top halls of power. Lawrence Auster points to a Powerline blog post that is supposed to come from an American soldier in Iraq who works in intelligence gathering. This soldier reports that the Iraqi government is so much like the Iraqi Shia militias that they are almost the same thing.
The Iraqi government and security forces are so thoroughly infiltrated by the Shia militias that you could say that the militias are the government and you would not be far off. Iraqi police in Southern Iraq are not in the fight against the militias at all. Top CF targets walk the streets freely in every city. In most cases police stations are manned by JAM members in police uniforms who actively aid the terrorists. On the rare occasion that a Shia terrorist is actually arrested by an ISF unit, he must be turned over to CF immediately or he will be released by the police or courts.
In addition, politicians from the city council to the CoR, if not Maliki himself, make calls and appearances on behalf of the terrorist, often threatening the job (if not the life) of the offending ISF leader with the audacity to actually do his job. Imagine our Congress, and governorships, and police departments staffed with members of the Crips and Bloods. Imagine being a citizen, a victim of or witness to a crime committed by one of these gangs. What would you do? Where would you turn? Ignoring for the moment the systemic corruption, this is the “government” we hope to turn this country over to.
Does Kissinger understand this? How does he really see Iraq? I'd love to sit next to Kissinger at a computer screen and go over in detail some posts by soldiers serving in Iraq (e.g. see this one) and ask him how he thinks we can as a nation gain some benefit from continuing to stay in Iraq. I also wish Nixon wasn't dead so that we could hear from him on Iraq. Would Nixon take the same position of supporting Bush while sort of painting a bleak view of Iraq?
Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post goes over a recent Pew poll on George W. Bush approval ratings and finds interesting facts about the decline of approval among elements of the Republican base.
The president's job-approval rating has dropped in every region of the country, level of income, education level, and age group, but the slippage is particularly pronounced among self-identified moderate Republicans. Eighty-one percent of this group gave the president positive marks in December, while just 56 percent did the same in May -- a precipitous 25-point decline that outpaced the 20-point drop (89 percent in December '04, 69 percent now) among Republicans overall.
The numbers are less stark when it comes to President Bush's conservative base, but perhaps even more worrisome for Republicans hoping to hold the House and Senate in the fall. The president's job approval among self-identifying conservatives has slipped from 93 percent in December 2004 to 78 percent in May. But Courtney Kennedy and Michael Dimock, authors of Pew's own analysis, pointed out that the smaller dropoff is somewhat misleading.
"There are far more conservatives than moderates in the GOP; as many as two-thirds of Republicans identify themselves as conservatives," the duo wrote. "Translated into real numbers, just as many conservative Republicans as moderate and liberal Republicans have grown frustrated with the president's leadership over the past year and a half."
As evidence of the erosion in what has long been considered Bush's base, take a look at his job-approval numbers among white evangelical protestants. In December 2004, 77 percent of this voting bloc approved of how the president was handling his job; the numbers was down to just 55 percent in May. Among Southern voters, Bush's job approval has dropped twenty points (56 percent in December 2004, 36 percent in May 2006); among those who attend church weekly or more often it has slipped 17 (58 percent to 41 percent.)
The drop in approval among white evangelical protestants has been greater than the drop among self-identified conservatives. I suspect a substantial portion of the latter support Bush because the liberals are highly critical of Bush.
Bush's approval has bounced back a bit since May 2006.
President George W. Bush's job approval rating is at 37 percent, up 1 percentage point, in a NBC News and the Wall Street Journal poll taken after the death of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the formation of a new government in Iraq.
The new government in Iraq might be able to bribe some Sunnis into switching into an alliance with the government. It all might depend on how much oil money Ahmad Chalabi makes available for bribery of Sunni tribes. Perhaps Bush ought to send some of Chalabi's old neocon friends to Iraq to try to find ways to get Chalabi to funnel oil money toward bribing Sunnis.
But the president last week decided to keep Iraq on the front pages by convening a meeting of his senior intelligence and military advisers at Camp David and then sneaking out of the presidential retreat for a secret trip to Baghdad. To make sure the press stayed on Iraq, he invited reporters to the Rose Garden to fire questions at him -- all but a few were on the war.
The gambit paid off. A USA Today-Gallup poll taken from June 9 to 11 found that 48 percent of Americans think the U.S. will probably or definitely win the Iraq war, up from 39 percent in April. The poll showed Mr. Bush's approval rating at 38 percent, up from 31 percent in May.
I do not see how his bounce from the Zarqawi killing can last. Where in Iraq can the US military achieve some goal that would provide opportunity for Bush's people to spin it as a great success? Here's a long shot: The Bush White House could build up the images of some other insurgency leaders as the new bad guys. Then those leaders could be hunted down and killed with a benefit in the sphere of domestic US public approval.
A successful terrorist attack in the United States is the only scenario I can see that would substantially reverse Bush's approval ratings. People rally around their leaders when they feel threatened. So Bush would get a really big bounce from a terrorist attack.
The news from Iraq will remain bad overall. If you want to understand what is really happening in Iraq then the transcript of a recent US embassy cable from Baghdad is a great place to start. Also see my post John Tierney On Cousin Marriage As Reform Obstacle In Iraq. Given that Iraq's insurgency can't be subdued with a small military force the continuing bad news will eventually make the Zarqawi killing fade in the public's memory (along with Saddam's capture and the killings of Saddam's sons) and the bad news will drive down Bush's approval ratings once again.
El Presidente Jorge W. Bush has become something of an enigma in American politics. However did he manage to become such an unrelentingly bad President of the United States? What motivates him to pursue so many policies harmful to the United States of America? I've made comments here asking why our elites hate us and want to replace us. Noted evolutionary theorist Greg Cochran, responding specifically about Bush, advances some hypotheses to explain the destruction derby that is the Bush Presidency. First he points to one of Bush's quotes for a clue:
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." - George W. Bush
Then Greg lists various possible explanations for Bush's otherwise seemingly inexplicable behavior as President:
- There could be other explanations than hating us. He might have some really important goal in mind, a goal that's a lot more important than the fate of the United States—a goal so obviously more important that we'd cheer on our own destruction if we only understood. Or maybe Iraq is part of a subtle yet reasonable plan that just can't be explained in public. — I mean, if everyone knew that we were searching for that buried spaceship and/or time machine in Ur of the Chaldees, if everyone knew we had fought our way into the Garden of Eden and were right now analyzing the DNA of the Tree of Life (along with that of some cherubim that couldn't stand up to 6,000 rounds a minute of 30 millimeter DU), probably it'd ruin everything.
- Even if he does hate us, well, maybe we deserve it. Ever think of that? He could be God's judgment on us. Maybe it's self-reinforcing. He pulls a little shit, we put up with it, and his disdain grows. Iterate that. = After a while, we look utterly contemptible and he figures that any country that would put up with this kind of crap must also deserve it. Christ, at this point, he's probably planning self-nuking. Maybe he's a broad-band telepath and can feel the ocean of evil around him in Washington. We bad.
- Maybe the reasons are personal. That can happen: national destinies have been decided in the boudoir, or for that matter by a tumor growing at the base of some leader's brain. So, maybe he was mad at Saddam for that supposed assassination attempt on the family in Kuwait. Maybe Wolfowitz's Arab girl friend is the worm in the apple. Maybe Bush had that bad Lawrence-of-Arabia experience with some Ay-rab back in prep school. Maybe the twins were secretly dating Saddam and just couldn't give up a real man. Maybe Laura yells out the wrong name.
- Maybe he's a Skoptsy. That could make a guy go sour. [ Skoptsism was, however, not exterminated, and grave scandals constantly arose. The most remarkable feature of this extraordinary sect has always been the type of people who joined it. Nobles, military and naval officers, civil servants, priests and merchants were to be found in its ranks, and so rapidly did the numbers increase that 515 men and 240 women were transported to Siberia between 1847 and 1866 without seriously threatening its existence. In, 187? many trials of Skoptsi took place all over Russia. In 1874 the sect numbered at least 5444, including 1465 women. Of these 703 men and 100 women had mutilated themselves ]
- Maybe he's loaded. Of course it's impossible to imagine a President who's high as a kite half the time—impossible to imagine, but easy to remember [ JFK and Max Jacobson] Maybe the whole Administration is a cult centered around some really potent weed—naw, no one's ever seen anything like that in the Middle East.
- Maybe the aliens replaced his pineal gland with an AM radio receiver and he's channeling Rush (who channels him. scary. ).
- Maybe he's dying and wants to see Armageddon before the end.
- There's always the possibility that he's the high-intensity version of Bill Ayers—an SDS bomb-thrower who was the son of the CEO of Commonwealth Edison. You know, child of the power elite who turns against the system.. losers striking back at a hyper-competent father. Bush did it right - his way is slow, but is enormously more effective. Of course he had a few helpers - obviously Cheney and Rove are part of the cell.
- Or, maybe he's a mole, a loyal agent of some power that wants the US ruined - or that once did. Sometimes those sleeper agents don't get the word, especially when the power in question doesn't really exist any more. Such a left-behind mole must frequently ask himself - what would Andropov do?
- Maybe he's trying - rather successfully, I might add - to discredit representative government and bring back the King over the Water. A Jacobite, rather than a Jacobin.
- Maybe it's all really the outward manifestation of a power struggle within the Masons.
- You can't forget impersonation, the old switcheroo. The real George W. Bush is choking on pretzels in the Château d'If right now.
Maybe Bush is a time traveller who has seen a future where robots created by American industry took over the world and killed off most of humanity. Maybe he's trying to bring US industry down to Latin American levels of creativity and innovation in order to save the human race from extinction.
Maybe Bush wants a dumber society where he can feel superior to a larger fraction of the population.
Maybe Bush thinks he has to ruin US relations with the oil producing countries in order to force us off our dependence on oil for energy. Or maybe he secretly hates Israel and is trying to increase animosity toward the Israelis in the Middle East.
Bush's determination to drive up the national debt, let in massive numbers of low-performing ethnic groups, pursuit of a foreign policy in the Middle East that decreases US national security, and still other obviously bad policies all call out for an explanation. I gotta say on the effort to discredit representative government that he's having considerable success with me. Bush has played a big role in creating a legacy with the pre-schoolers that promises to make the electorate much more stupid in future decades. You might think the people who elected Bush are dumb. Well, future electorates are going to make our current voters look like geniuses in comparison..
Do you have any novel explanations for the Bush Presidency? Is he a poster boy for the brain damage caused by alcohol abuse? Did the devil send him among us to discredit Christians as a bunch of con artists and fools? Or is he just lazy?
On the bright side the plunging appoval ratings for George W. Bush (he now has two polls that put him at 31% approval) make a Jeb Bush run for the Presidency very unlikely.
With Bush's approval rating plummeting to new lows with Fox (which is the most pro-Bush news network in Americ) putting Bush at 33% approval and CNN reporting at 32% I became curious about how his approval rating compares to other modern era US Presidents. Carter left office with a 34% approval rating and Nixon resigned wiith a 24% approval rating. So Bush is now less popular than Carter was when he left office. See the chart at that link. LBJ left office with 49% approval and the rest of the modern presidents starting with Eisenhower and later left office with more than half the populace approving.
Curiously, Clinton comes in at the top at 65% and Reagan at 64% comes in second place after him. The dot com bubble of the late 90s combined with fairly cheap oil had people feeling happy in spite of the scandals and the impeachment. Bush is dogged by Iraq, expensive gasoline, a middle class feeling more pressured by debt and job fears due to globalization, and his own dogged insistence on alienating his Republican base and quite a few others on immigration.
My question: Can Bush descend all the way down to Nixon levels of approval? I figure he has a chance of getting there for a few reasons:
- People are unhappy with high gasoline prices and those prices will rise even higher in the summer of 2006. At $3.50 per gallon of gasoline people are going to be quite unhappy. Even higher prices are reachable with, say, a bigger rebellion in Nigeria or a bomb in a Saudi refinery or perhaps another Gulf coast hurricane in the fall of 2006.
- Bush might eventually launch an attack on Iran that will drive oil and gas prices much higher.
- The high energy prices could push the US economy into a recession and people go even more negative on Presidents when they are in fear of losing their jobs during recessions.
- Bush is alienating his Republican base and some other elements of the electorate on immigration.
- The news from Iraq looks to stay bad and even worsen as the ethnic cleansing progresses.
Bush only needs to drop another 8 or 9 points to get down to the level reached by Richard Milhouse Nixon when he resigned. Can Bush achieve such a low level of approval and such a high level of disapproval? I figure he's up to the task. What do you think?
Bush's popularity continues to crater.
For the first time in his presidency a majority of Americans question the integrity of President Bush, and growing doubts about his leadership have left him with record negative ratings on the economy, Iraq and even the war on terrorism, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows.
On almost every key measure of presidential character and performance, the survey found that Bush has never been less popular with the American people. Currently 39 percent approve of the job he is doing as president, while 60 percent disapprove of his performance in office -- the highest level of disapproval ever recorded for Bush in Post-ABC polls.
Read the full article for the bigger list of ways that the American people have a negative view of the Bush presidency. He can't hit numbers this low without it being a sign that even a substantial number of people in the Republican conservative base are turning against him. Bush is a faux conservative. Wake up Republicans. The article reports Republican support for Bush has dropped from 91% to 78% since the beginning of 2005.
The American people are catching up with me on the character issue.
The survey found that 40 percent now view him as honest and trustworthy -- a 13 percentage point drop in the past 18 months. Nearly 6 in 10 -- 58 percent -- said they have doubts about Bush's honesty, the first time in his presidency that more than half the country has questioned his personal integrity.
We can't trust that man. He's demonstrated this again and again. Can't trust him on immigration, on spending, on racial preferences, on foreign policy, etc. On the bright side thanks to Dubya's performance it'll be a lot harder for a Bush family member to win a future US Presidential election.
Check out this graph "Historical Bush Approval Ratings". The trend is obviously downward. At some point he'll probably hit bottom where a core of dedicated religious and partisan faithful just refuse to see him in a bad light - at least when answering questions put to them by pollsters. I have a hard time seeing how he could recover some of his lost popularity unless he uses Ayatollah Sistani's coming request for the US to pull out of Iraq and decides to point to it as a reason to declare victory and withdraw.