Jackson Free Press

New polls are showing just how deep the discontent is with the Bush administration—including among vital parts of his base: "Those most likely to have lost optimism on that score include several groups that supported Bush in his re-election: white evangelicals, down 30 percentage points; Republican women, down 28 points; Southerners, down 26 points, and suburban men, down 20."

AP reports:

President Bush's job approval is mired at the lowest level of his presidency, and public feelings about the nation's direction have sunk to new depths in an Associated Press-Ipsos poll.
People are anxious about Iraq, the economy, gas prices and the management of billions of dollars being spent for recovery from the nation's worst natural disaster.

Only 28 percent say the country is headed in the right direction and two-thirds, 66 percent, say the country is on the wrong track, the AP-Ipsos poll found.

Previous Commentsshow

More from AP: "Politically, this is very serious for the president," said James Thurber, a political scientist at American University. "If the base of his party has lost faith, that could spell trouble for his policy agenda and for the party generally." Public sentiment about the nation's direction has sunk to new depths at a time people are anxious about Iraq, the economy, gas prices and the management of billions of dollars being spent for recovery from the nation's worst natural disaster.

ladd

Oct 7 2005

A good Ivins: Everybody and his dog in the political commentating trade now agrees the Bush administration is experiencing hard times -- the going is getting tough, and Bush is getting testy. Bush always gets testy under stress. This is not news. It seems to me what we are looking at was put best by noted journalist Billy Don Moyers, formerly of Marshall, Texas, who was home last week and observed that the Republican right came to Washington to start a revolution and stayed to run a racket. It has become a game of ideological flim-flam, a scam in which all manner of distracting hoo-hah -- abortion, judicial activism, even "the war on terra" -- is used to obscure the fact that the government has been taken over by people who are using it to make money for themselves and their friends. In the business world, this is called "control fraud," and it refers to an organization, like Enron or Tyco, that is rotten at the head. One of the key figures in this web of malfeasance is Jack Abramoff, the super-lobbyist, top fund-raiser for Bush's re-election and close buddy of Rep. Tom DeLay, himself the architect of the "K Street Strategy" to convert the entire business lobby into the fund-raising arm of the Republican Party in return for whatever legislative favors the major donors want. Abramoff is also the close ally and former college roommate of Grover Norquist, a key right-wing political activist and major leader of the "movement conservatives" in Washington. Abramoff has also bragged that he contacted Karl Rove on behalf of Tyco. Tim Flanigan, Bush's nominee to be deputy attorney general, left the White House Office of Legal Counsel in December 2002 to become the top lawyer for Tyco. Flanigan hired Abramoff to lobby for Tyco. He was to work against proposed legislation that would take away tax breaks from "Benedict Arnold" corporations that locate in tax havens outside the United States in order to get out of paying corporate taxes. Tyco is based in Bermuda. Abramoff told Flanigan he would use his contacts with both DeLay and Karl Rove, "Bush's Brain," to lobby for keeping the tax breaks for Tyco. Think about it. Bush now proposes to put in as second in command of the Justice Department, which is investigating this whole mess, the man who is Tyco's lawyer and who hired Abramoff. If Flanigan is confirmed, that will mean the five top appointees at Justice have zero prosecutorial experience among them. But Flanigan does have the only quality that truly matters in a Bush appointee: absolute loyalty to the administration. Washington, D.C., is theoretically covered by the largest concentration of journalistic talent anywhere in the world. This is just a straight, old-fashioned corruption story of the sort theoretically uncovered by many Washington reporters earlier in their lives at various city halls. Did everyone forget how it's done?[...] One definition of Establishment journalism is relying solely on press conferences held by people with public office and power. With the exception of The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, the Washington press corps appears to be standing around waiting for word from the official investigation. Why aren't they ahead of the official investigators? Talk a columnist who can now say, "I told you so." Hats off to Ms. Ivins for keeping her eye on the Bush ball when about noone else would.

ladd

Oct 7 2005

Donna, I'm totally with you on the I-told-you-so thing. I always thought he started the war in Iraq in order to stay in office because he knew that people would be afraid to elect a new president in the middle of a conflict. I also think 9/11 had a lot to do with it too. Did anyone else notice how rotten of a job he was doing befire 9/11? We already had an energy crisis then, even to the point of California having rolling blackouts. Everyone was ticked off at him until he started giving pep talks after the towers fell. Right then, even I had more respect for him then because I was so distraught after the terrorist attack. Of course, I snapped out of it after he started talking about defying the UN in order to shake things enough in Iraq. I saw who he really was - a war hero wannabe - and he played on people's moral beliefs to blind them long enough to get a second term. Now they're waking up from their drunken stupor, and they can't do much of anything since he has three years left in office. Is it just me, or is the democracy starting to look more like an empire?

L.W.

Oct 8 2005

Enron was engineering California's blackouts, I understand. It came out in one of the bankruptcy trials. Otherwise, I'll just note conspiracies always seem to fit the circumstances. Nice, eh? As for Bush; they lost track of the people. Simple.

Ironghost

Oct 9 2005

You're right, Iron, it is a proven fact that Enron engineered California's blackouts. But people who don't want to hear it would call that a "conspiracy theory" because they don't want to hear it. As for Bush; they lost track of the people. Simple It's true, they did. Now, I would also add that "the people" -- or at least the ones who turned out voted for Bush both times -- had lost track of something as well. But I'm not blaming them, per see. The media get a lot of blame, too, for not giving them the real picture of what they were actually voting for. That's not elitism, it's just true. You don't know what you don't know.

ladd

Oct 9 2005

An AP "newsview" today, GOP Battles Litany of Troubles: It's hard to tell which is more irritating for conservatives less than a year after they savored Republican election triumphs of 2004: President Bush's latest pick for the Supreme Court or his high-dollar pledge for recovery from Hurricane Katrina. Either way, the double dose of discontent might be easier for the administration and Republican-controlled Congress to manage if their list of problems stopped there. It doesn't, though. Not with bad poll ratings for Bush, a war president with 39 percent approval in the latest AP-Ipsos poll, and enthusiasm waning among evangelical voters, Republican men and southerners. Not with the indictments of Texas Rep. Tom DeLay that forced him to step aside as House majority leader, at least for the time being. And not with the insider trading investigation of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. "The Democrats say we should be worried. But I am not," Rep. Tom Reynolds, head of the House GOP campaign committee, wrote fellow Republicans as they left the Capitol for a weeklong break. I think they need a vacation, eh?

ladd

Oct 9 2005

Methinks someone else is out of touch with reality. :)

Ironghost

Oct 9 2005