I haven't written much about politics lately (aside from a fairly wishy-washy post about immigration) because it's been hard to get all fired up to argue a point that all but the hardest of hardcore GOP kool-aid drinkers have already subscribed to: Bush is a miserable president.
The breathtaking run of scandals and mis-steps over the past month (from the New Hampshire phone jamming to Generals calling on Rumsfeld to resign to the lingering feeling of pending doom for Karl Rove to fumbling over high gas prices and on and on) have continued the annus horribilis for the Bush administration that kicked off with the shameful intervention in the case of Terri Schiavo and came to full-bore in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
So perhaps it's no surprise that a number of polls find the president's approval rating hovering around the speed of a long playing record. CBS has him at 33% in their latest poll - which is similar to other polls done over the past two weeks - and blame the one-two punch of Iraq and gas prices (remember when they said going to war on Iraq would lower gas prices?). Asked whether Bush has a plan for keeping gas prices down, 82% said no.
Much has been made today about the 3-year anniversary of Bush's woefully wrong "Mission Accomplished" speech. The liberal site Think Progress runs some of the numbers: more than 2,200 American soldiers dead, nearly 17,000 wounded, more than 240 billion dollars spent all since Bush strode across an aircraft carrier in a make-believe flight suit.
Over the weekend, they held the annual White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington, where the President usually gives a scripted comedic speech (this was where Bush showed his laugh-a-minute video of him looking under furniture for WMDs and where Laura Bush last year made jokes about her husband jerking off a horse - I shit you not) followed by a relatively tame roast of the president and the press corps by a comedian.
If you haven't yet heard, this year the guest comedian was Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert, who proceeded to do twenty minutes in character as his blowhard O'Reilly-styled talk show host. The result was, depending on your pre-conceived notions, either an genius piece of satire that skewered the President or a deadly dull and highly inappropriate diatribe filled with stereotypical liberal hatred (according to folks on the right who spent the better part of yesterday writing about how badly Colbert bombed). One thing's for sure, not many people in the audience were laughing at some of his sharpest attacks (you can watch a portion over at Crooks and Liars as well as read some of the web-recaps).
So, here we are, three years past Mission Accomplished, one year past Schiavo, deep into months-long funk that shows no signs of reversing, and the Washington press corps makes clear it prefers Bush clowning around with a doppelganger (or searching for WMDs, which unbelievably got huge laughs even though hundreds were already dead in Iraq) to a poker faced cable TV host who tells them in no uncertain terms that they and their president are doing a miserable job.
It's May 22 now and his numbers are hovering around 29%. (Single digits, anyone?)
I'd like to see a link for that hilarious video of Bush looking for WMDs.
What a despicable excuse for a human being.
Posted by: LizDexic | May 22, 2006 at 09:42 AM