New Developments II

[Sonic Youth]

Bush Seemingly Resigned to High Gas Prices

Saturday April 22, 2006 1:16 AM
By JENNIFER LOVEN
Associated Press Writer

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - As oil prices hit a record, drivers worried about $3-a-gallon gas and politicians feared the impact on elections, President Bush on Friday acknowledged the pain but seemed resigned to being able to do little about it.

``I know the folks here are suffering at the gas pump,'' the president said while promoting his competitiveness initiative at the Silicon Valley headquarters of Internet networking company Cisco Systems Inc. ``Rising gasoline prices is like taking a - is like a tax, particularly on the working people and the small-business people.''

But to address the immediate problem, Bush offered only a pledge that ``if we find any price gouging it will be dealt with firmly.''

....................................

Ho-hum. We've all seen this by now, right?

But lets skip to the 17th-18th paragraphs, where the REAL news lies buried:



Afterward, Bush talked privately with scholars from Stanford University's Hoover Institution, including former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, a Hoover fellow and early defender of the use of pre-emptive force to deal with Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.

Plans to hold the meeting at the Hoover Institution were scuttled when protesters blocked Bush's motorcade from going through the only entrance. Shultz, who was already hosting a private dinner for Bush later at his Palo Alto home, had the session moved to his two-story, gray-shingled house.


Protests were intense enough to force Bush to move the site of a meeting? SWEET!!

[criddic3]

I didn't say it wasn't close, but that given the circumstances (which Clinton didn't have the second time around) where the stakes were higher. Don't tell me that running against Dole and Perot the second time around was harder than running against Kerry and protesters with a war on.

It was a highly contentious election, yes. I didn't forget that Kerry won the second most votes, but he wasn't the winner. I give him his due, although the percentage was less than Gore got in 2000.

Fact remains that with all the articles and polls you guys have been posting about how everyone thought Bush was the worst and that he was doomed should teach a lesson here. In early 2004, as the post from Rolling Stone states, historians called Bush one of the worst presidents in history. Polls said he was in danger of losing his job. Exit polls the morning of said Kerry would clobber him. With all that ammunition the Democrats should have won. Why not? You down play the fact that Bush made his case so much better than Kerry did. When President Bush ended his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, there was an energy and an air of triumph. I don't think even many Democrats felt that after John Kerry's "I'm reporting for duty" speech. In fact, the liberals in my family (admittedly not many) said that he didn't make his case. And this was before the debate. After the debate, Kerry looked slightly more electable, but not exactly Presidential to these people. So, I submit that your arguments about how much Bush won why are infused with your own feelings about Bush. I have to say that I see it differently, and that paints my view too.

But you are really down-playing the success on the basis of polls that are showing after Hurricane Katrina, Tom Delay and Libby's indictment and a lot of other stuff that don't have much or very little to do with Bush himself. Bush offered help to the hurricane areas before the storm even hit. Only the local officials are allowed to request the guard. Until then, Bush's hands were tied in almost every possible area to help. And even then, he took responsibility and pledged to rebuild New Orleans. None of this played any role in the election.

The election was won on other issues. I do not think that if a Perot has entered the race that Bush would have necessarily lost. It may have actually helped him. Anyway, that is all speculation.

Don't count Bush out just yet though. He's got time to recover. I for one am rooting for it.

[Sonic Youth]

Bush approval rating at 33%... in a Fox News poll.

By the way, at the same point in Clinton's presidency (April of '98) Fox News had Clinton's approval rating at 68%. In other words, Bush's numbers are now LESS THAN HALF what Clinton's was, tsk tsk.

Nixon is the only recent president who has had a lower approval rating than Bush has now. Of course, he had to resign...

[Sonic Youth]

The election proved that our side was right, blah blah blah, because 52% of less than half all registered voters voted for Bush blah-blah

Someone hasn't been paying attention. Bush won the election based on a number of factors, few of which had to do with support for his war policies.

Both of you missed my point. Record numbers voted in 2004, so don't even start pretending that the number of people who re-elected Bush doesn't matter.

First of all, I made a mistake. Bush won with 50.7%, not 52%.

And no, I didn't miss the point. And no, I'm not pretending because I don't have to. When it's based on lies and money poured into a strategic advertising campaign, a vote has never been a mandate, rationale, or excuse for anything. And not all the votes were based upon the Iraq war. You're right, the majority of votes were not cast by those who wanted their religious beliefs integrated into American law. In fact, I think that angle of the election has been overplayed. But there's no denying that there were enough to tip the scales. Not all the voters were driven by one issue.

As for the numbers themselves, you constantly forget that more people voted against Bush than ever voted against any president in American history. So, what does THAT say?

If you recall that Bill Clinton couldn't manage a majority vote in either of his two elections.

We've had this discussion before, remember? And I explained why, and you acknowledged the explanations, and you forgot. Convenient.

In both elections, there were third party challengers that took significant votes away. There was no such challenge for Bush. Ross Perot won 19% of the election in '92. Perot and Nader took 9.2% in '96. Oh, and even then Clinton got 49.2% anyway... which is better than Bush got in '00. Nader and Buchanan only got 3.1% of the vote, and Bush STILL couldn't get a majority. Even you acknowledge he recieved fewer votes than Gore.

But as for the 2004 election Bush only won a mere 50.7% with only 1% going to all third-party candidates. Wow, what a mandate! If there was even one third party candidate who ran an even halfway successful campaign, Bush wouldn't even have received majority vote. And if there weren't the all-out, manufactured yet highly effective religion-driven vote drive, Bush would have LOST to the largest vote in history against a sitting president. Reagan won by a HUGE landslide in '84. And guess what. 4 million more people voted AGAINST Bush in '04 than they did FOR Reagan twenty years ago. So, what do these numbers mean, Criddic? That Bush is soooo popular? HA! What it really means is that there's more people living in the U.S.

Again, remember this number: 50.7%. That's the number Bush received in '04. And remember this number: 1%. That's the number that voted for 3rd party candidates.

And remember this number: 2.4%. That is the margin Bush won... THE WORST - (repeat) - WORST MARGIN ANY PRESIDENT WON A RE-ELECTION BY. There is absolutely no way in hell that makes a mandate. Want to know what the other re-election margins were? Wilson, 3.1%. Roosevelt, 24.3%, 9.9% and 7.5%. Truman, 4.5%. Eisenhower, 15.4%. Johnson, 22.6%. Nixon, 23.2%. Reagan, 18.2%. Clinton, 8.5%. And Bush... 2.4%.

So, what happened to the mandate?

Your gullibility continues to astound after all these years. You continue to fall for all the spin, cherry-picked factoids and half-truths O'Reily and Malkin and Coulter and Limbaugh keep dishing. Which is why you keep getting whomped in arguments all the time, as you are now.

When you consider that it had been 16 years (or four cycles of elections) since anyone got more than 50% it is an impressive achievement.

There was no serious third party challenger in 2004. How, exactly, does that make it an impressive acheivemnt? It doesn't.

[OscarGuy]

Anyone who says that record numbers voted discounts two enormous facts. One, in previous elections, evangelicals DID NOT turn out in droves for right wing amendments. Two, you use numbers of voters as a determination of record-setting when you should actually be using voter turnout percentages. Otherwise, you're using an inflated number that can, no doubt, go up each year.

National Voter Turnout in Presidential Elections: 1960–2004
Year Voting-age
population Voter
registration Voter turnout Turnout of voting-age
population (percent)
2004 - 221,256,931 - 174,800,000 - 122,294,978 - 55.3%
2000 - 205,815,000 - 156,421,311 - 105,586,274 - 51.3
1996 - 196,511,000 - 146,211,960 - 96,456,345 - 49.1
1992 - 189,529,000 - 133,821,178 - 104,405,155 - 55.1
1988 - 182,778,000 - 126,379,628 - 91,594,693 - 50.1
1984 - 174,466,000 - 124,150,614 - 92,652,680 - 53.1
1980 - 164,597,000 - 113,043,734 - 86,515,221 - 52.6
1976 - 152,309,190 - 105,037,986 - 81,555,789 - 53.6
1972 - 140,776,000 - 97,328,541 - 77,718,554 - 55.2
1968 - 120,328,186 - 81,658,180 - 73,211,875 - 60.8
1964 - 114,090,000 - 73,715,818 - 70,644,592 - 61.9
1960 - 109,159,000 - 64,833,0965 - 68,838,204 - 63.1

55.3% voter turn out is NOT a record at all. If you cite the number of voters that voted for Bush as a record, you're trying to pad his achievement.

Oh and let us notice that since the 70s, voter turnout has only surpassed 55% when the country was trying to eject a Bush...too bad the second attempt didn't succeed.

2004: 50.73% - 48.27% - 2.46%
2000: 47.87% - 48.38% - .51%
1996: 49.23% - 40.72% - 8.51%
1992: 43.01% - 37.45% - 5.56%
1988: 53.37% - 45.65% - 7.72%
1984: 58.77% - 40.56% - 18.21%
1980: 50.75% - 41.01% - 9.74%
1976: 50.08% - 48.02% - 2.06%
1972: 60.67% - 37.52% - 23.15%
1968: 43.42% - 42.72% - .7%
1964: 61.05% - 38.47% - 22.58%
1960: 49.72% - 49.55% - .17%
(I can go back farther on this but since the first list only includes 1960 forward, that's where I stuck with this one)

Notice that two the five closest elections in the past 40 years were by Bush. Outside of the Kennedy/Nixon battle in 1960, Bush was put into office with one of the smallest margins in recent history. Add to this that his second election had only a slightly larger margin than the Carter/Ford battle of 1976.



Edited By OscarGuy on 1145552961

[criddic3]

April 19, 2006

Rumsfeld Staying Put

By Tom Bevan

Yesterday afternoon, both the Secretary of Defense and the President made it clear: Don Rumsfeld is staying put. This is good news.

For days I've been trying to wrap my head around the idea suggested by some that public support for the war in Iraq would increase if only Joe Lieberman is appointed to run the Pentagon. This strikes me as bogus. Support for the war is ultimately determined by what people read in their newspaper and see on TV. Unless Joe Lieberman has some magic formula to turn things around (Joementum for Iraq!), public support for the war in Iraq isn't likely to change until there are signs of progress on the ground.

Likewise, I've also been trying to figure out exactly what the retired generals who've called for Rumsfeld's resignation suggest we do differently in Iraq today and moving forward. Is there a strategy we should be following in Iraq but aren't? As Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution - who freely admits to being no fan of Secretary Rumsfeld - said in a radio interview the other day, without offering a current, strategic rationale for Rumsfeld's resignation (i.e. we should be doing "x" in Iraq but aren't) the retired generals' attacks on the Secretary of Defense amount to little more than a "referendum on his personality" which is neither constructive nor, in my opinion, terribly becoming.

When you're caught in the midst of a beltway tempest where opinions swirl and things become distorted, it's always a good idea to step back and take stock of the situation from a broad perspective.

Don Rumsfeld has operated at the highest levels of public and private life for the last four decades. He is by all accounts an exceedingly smart guy, a master at organizational management, and a deep thinker with a remarkable record of achievement. It's safe to say that over the course of those forty years the name Don Rumsfeld and the word "incompetence" have never been mentioned in the same sentence - until recently that is.

Rumsfeld is also, to put it bluntly, a hard-ass and a perfectionist. He's been known to send back DoD reports five, six, and seven times until they meet his standards. His "snowflake memos" are notorious within the Pentagon, as is his combative style of debating and discussing issues. Civilians and military personnel refer to it as getting "the wire brush treatment."

On top of that, Rumsfeld came to Washington and began implementing a vision of transforming the military into a lighter, more lethal, and more effective fighting force that could respond rapidly to changing threats and technology. This was especially tough to handle for a group of military officers who had gotten used to more or less running their own show under the Clinton administration. To use an old phrase, Rumsfeld has been making omelettes inside the Pentagon for the last five years, and he's cracked more than a few eggs along the way.

Has the war been going as smoothly as some people thought? No. Does Don Rumsfeld bear responsibility for this? Sure, as do the other civilian and military leaders who've been involved in the process. Is the war in Iraq a failure? Not at all, though removing Rumsfeld would have certainly given off that impression both to our friends and, more importantly, our enemies.

Think back to the fickleness that has governed the ebb and flow of public opinion with respect to Rumsfeld. Prior to entering Afghanistan in 2001, we were pelted with dire warnings about the cruel Afghan winter and Soviet failure and the utter impossibility of achieving success. Weeks later the world marveled at how we took control of the country with so few troops and casualties - and not a single officer complained about Rumsfeld's "contempt" or "arrogance" in helping put together what turned out to be a brilliant military plan on the fly in a matter of weeks.

Ditto 2003, when critics and the media carped about the plan for invading Iraq, deeming it a "quagmire" before the first shot had been fired. Weeks later we controlled the country and Rumsfeld was anointed a rock star by the press. For those who were paying attention, Rumsfeld was saying then what he's saying now: it's been a team effort. "I would be happy to take credit," Rumsfeld said of the Iraq war plan, "but the reality is, the whole thing was worked out by the CINC."

One of the witticisms collected and cataloged by Rumsfeld years ago in Brilliant Pebbles reads, "A friend in Washington D.C. is someone who stabs you in the chest." These days Rumsfeld is walking around the with more than a few knives in his back. But he's going to keep on walking, which is the right thing to do.

[criddic3]

The election proved that our side was right, blah blah blah, because 52% of less than half all registered voters voted for Bush blah-blah

Someone hasn't been paying attention. Bush won the election based on a number of factors, few of which had to do with support for his war policies.

Both of you missed my point. Record numbers voted in 2004, so don't even start pretending that the number of people who re-elected Bush doesn't matter. 60 million people, not all of whom were Republicans and not all of whom were even huge supporters of Bush during his first four years. Many of these people voted for him because no one on the Democratic side made a case that they could do better than President Bush, or that President Bush was doing the wrong thing.

Yes in some states the issue of gay marraige had a huge impact, but I think you can't dismiss the fact that the issue of Iraq was a major, THE major, topic (although filtering it through the history of Vietnam turned out to be unwise for John Kerry). By voting for Bush, with or without gay marraige or evangelicals, 60 million people-- more than any in history, were saying that they wanted to keep the president as Commander-in-Chief for four more years. Yes 3 million more is a huge deal in today's elections. If you recall that Bill Clinton couldn't manage a majority vote in either of his two elections. When you consider that it had been 16 years (or four cycles of elections) since anyone got more than 50% it is an impressive achievement. Especially since President Bush LOST the popular vote by half a million votes in 2000.

The item to which criddic links (the one that makes him moan over all this "misinformation")

Actually no that's not quite true but I can see why you say that. I was referring to the previous post about the newest polls. And my feeling that there is much misinformation was enhanced by reading the recent book "Strategery" by Washington Post reporter Bill Sammon, an author who has had three books on the New York Times Bestseller list. His recounting of events such as Hurricane Katrina, Memogate and other events of the last two years reminded me of how cynically the news media sometimes presents its stories. To gain a desired end, some news outlets embellish, change and sometimes invent facts (and other times leave info out) instead of letting the events speak for themselves. They don't seem to trust their readers to make up their own minds about what is happening. Unfortunately much of this kind of attack-journalism has been aimed at President Bush. This isn't a conspiracy theory, but some in the media just hate Bush so much that when a story comes along that could potentially damage his image, they help the story along.

The election of 2004 is also being viewed by this board, in hindsight, as if Bush won the election simply by having an amendment on the ballot in 11 states about gay marriage. I don't think so. They could have struck down the amendment idea and still have voted Bush out. The main debate was about the President's conduct on the War on Terror, particularly Iraq. John Kerry and John Edwards, among others, accused the President of lying, misusing intelligence and botching the Iraq effort. The President made his case that none of those things is true. The people voted on what they thought. Remember, the War on Terror was polled as the top single issue of the election in most polls. Iraq was at or near the top most of that time. So I don't see any legit argument saying that Iraq was not a concern for voters on either side. I certainly think the President's role as Commander-in-Chief was a major factor for voters. I don't remember having nearly as many conversations about gay marraige as I did about the efforts in Iraq. I'm from New York, so you can bet that some people argued against the President in these conversations, but the debate happened. Not only was it discussed, it was the main issue during both the Republican and Democratic Conventions. The two parties framed the debate differently, but that was what the campaign rested on. Vote Bush out of office if you think he was wrong to go to Iraq and you want troops out as soon as possible. Vote for Bush if you think we should stay and fight to win, especially if you don't buy the idea that he lied to get us there. All of this was said and all of this was played out.

This isn't just "talking points" or "towing the line" as you suggest. This is what happened and you want to reinvent history. You want me to forget that Iraq was the one constant issue during the election? I have tapes to prove you wrong on that point. Both sides debated the issue relentlessly. In addition, the talk about Vietnam was brought up as a way to criticize Bush's policies in Iraq. It wasn't a successful venture, since a lot of time was initially spent on both candidates' military service. But Kerry spoke almost daily about his opposition to Bush's Iraq policies and Bush spent most of his campaign defending them. To say that people decided at the last minute not to focus on that is just ridiculous. Give credit where due, folks. President Bush won the election with all of the accusations and all of the arguments on the table. So my point wasn't that Bush won and should be considered the greatest feat of all time, but that he won because he made the case to the voters that they should stick with him on the important issues, which included to a large degree his policies in Iraq. So you (the voters) gave him the job. Let him do it.

The other point is that people are complaining about him doing his job the way he said he would. Well, duh, I say. If you vote for someone when he says he will do his job a certain way, don't complain when he follows through.

Every election sees many registered voters not vote. That's their loss. Every election sees ignorant people who choose not to register. That's their loss. Those people, in my view, do not have the right to then complain that they didn't get the kind of leader they want. They chose not to participate in the process. But it's not like they didn't have the chance. Both parties had huge "get out the vote" campaigns for a long time, even before the election got under way. So you can't say they didn't reach out to people. In addition, i think that foreign citizen have a right to criticize a world leader, but please don't tell me that I'm a dunce for supporting a strong leader.

I will say again that i like President Bush. Not because he would make a "good drinking buddy." I don't drink. Not because he talks tough. That can be effective sometimes, but it isn't a prerequisite for good leadership. It's because he is consistent when it matters. He knows the stakes are too high to start saying, "oh the polls are down so i should withdraw from Iraq." Give me a break. Any leader worth his salt is not gonna change an important policy just because his approvals are down. If Iraq is successful, President Bush will also be a success in the history books. If it fails, we may not live to disapprove three decades from now. He took a bold direction in his first term and was re-elected to continue it. Let's move on.

[Mister Tee]

I mostly pass by criddic's drivel because, like his leader, he's so far in the weeds, it's too much effort to walk his assertions back to a place where they approach reality. But once in a while his unrelenting sycophancy will irk me to the point I need to respond.

The item to which criddic links (the one that makes him moan over all this "misinformation") is an opinion piece by Republican lackey, John Leo, who's endorsing a Fred Hiatt Washington post editorial -- an editorial so obviously and directly contradicted by the same paper's front page reporting that a reader uproar arose over its falseness. (The public editor was forced to weigh in with a lame "news articles are for facts; editorials are to persuade"). Leo also approvingly quotes Christopher Hitchens, a David Horwowitz-wannabe, who, having dropped his left-wing out-there contrariness (he once wrote an article defaming Mother Teresa, called The Missionary Position -- want to endorse that, criddic?) is now determined to be the most unquestioning of right-wingers. He daily proves the truth of Robert Frost's old dictum: I never dared be radical when young, for fear I'd turn conservative when old. Let's put it bluntly: people who still believe there were WMDs in Iraq are like those who believe Vince Foster was murdered -- they've decided not based on any available facts, but on theological belief. THAT is misinformation.

And, as Sonic rightly says, Bush's slithering past re-election (and you can intone "3 million more votes" all you want if you think it sounds impressive, but, please, be aware it was the smallest re-election margin for any incumbent in American history) is no more insurance against current difficulty than Nixon's more truly impressive 1972 victory was against Watergate 1-2 years after. The public that barely returned Bush to office in 2004 didn't know what they now do about the Plame leak, the ongoing horror in Iraq, the deep corruption of the Abramoff scandal, and the utter incompetence/indifference to everyday Americans exposed by the Katrina response. We're going to have to wait excruciatingly till November for a chance to express our outrage (in a parliamentary system, Bush would have been out already). But you're a fool if you think the toxic poll numbers Bush and his party have been drawing for the past 8 months aren't a sign of a country that has turned on its leadership with a vengeance.

[OscarGuy]

Someone hasn't been paying attention. Bush won the election based on a number of factors, few of which had to do with support for his war policies.

Record turnouts from the conservative community for Gay Marriage Amendments as well as a motorization of the religious right helped Bush win again. After all, we know what his core constituency is. To say that he won because people supported his Iraq war policies is to disregard the facts that are out there which would be that if there weren't conservative values voters who saw Bush as a way to curb what they consider immoral, then we'd be looking at a fresh world view with President Kerrey.

[Sonic Youth]

I sympathize, but obviously not everyone feels the same way, since there have been many who have re-enlisted for duty in Iraq.

Including this guy, so as usual your statement proves nothing.

Oh, by the way... both re-enlistment AND recruitment are at record lows. Doh!

The whole question of WMds and why we went to war was debated in the 2004 election or does no one remember this?

God, you are such a tow-the-line cliche. "Blah, blah, blah, we've talked about this before, so there's no need to bring it up again blah, blah, blah. The election proved that our side was right, blah blah blah, because 52% of less than half all registered voters voted for Bush blah-blah. So you have no right to criticize us for what we knew back then blah blah." If there is a more ludicrous argument than this, there hasn't been an IQ number low enough to come up with one. And yet it keeps coming up. The argument is saying "disregard all the polls NOW, never mind all the people who disapprove of Bush NOW, put aside how many people believe the war was a mistake NOW, forget about the fact that so many people who believed everything Bush said back then NOW see more and more proof that what he said were lies." What you're saying is that the election in 2004 is a permanent mandate, and whatever the same people believe NOW isn't worth squat. If you can't see how preposterous that is, you are beyond hopeless.

And no one disagrees that we have to succeed in Iraq if we are to live the free lives we have at home.

Are you out of your effin' mind???

[criddic3]

I sympathize, but obviously not everyone feels the same way, since there have been many who have re-enlisted for duty in Iraq.

The whole question of WMds and why we went to war was debated in the 2004 election or does no one remember this?

It's not as if these same issues weren't being raised then that are being raised now. So if the American people truly didn't believe that President Bush's policies regarding Iraq were correct or that his goals couldn't be met then why re-elect him over the very people who criticized the whole premise in 2004?

The people should give him more credit. After all, he is doing exactly what he promised to do. Stay the course, help Iraq to get a stable government up and running, continue to fight alongside Iraqis until they can take the fight themselves and keep the terrorists occupied there rather than here. This is what he said was the mission in Iraq. He said in 2003 and again during the 2004 campaign that our involvement in Iraq would not likely end during his time as President. People still voted for him, 60 million of them -- more than 3 million more than voted in opposition. So, despite all of the criticisms, all of the protests from the other side that said the mission was flawed or that the leaders were incompetent, President Bush is in the second year of a second term. And no one disagrees that we have to succeed in Iraq if we are to live the free lives we have at home.

I am in agreement with the common perception that some things need to change, be made fresh again and that a return to the more energetic and confident leadership would be a big help to everyone. But that doesn't mean that we should have the same old debate we had in 2004 about whether or not Bush lied to get us into Iraq. The people rejected that when they re-elected him. This is rehashing old arguments.

[Sonic Youth]

I read the article last posted and found it a tad alarming. All of the misinformation out there has been dragging President Bush down, which of course pleases many of you. But did it ever occur to any of you that if Bush loses, especially in Iraq, we all lose?

Why don't you ask this former Marine captain who served two tours of duty in Iraq? To his face?

Three years ago, I was a Marine Corps captain on the Iraqi/Kuwaiti border, participating in the invasion of Iraq. Awestruck, I heard our howitzers thunder and watched artillery rockets rise into the night sky and streak toward Iraq — their light bathing the desert moonscape like giant arc welders.

As I watched the Iraq war begin, I completely trusted the Bush administration. I thought we were going to prove all of the left-wing antiwar protesters and dissenters wrong. I thought we were going to make America safer. ...

And what he says next is what you need to read.

[criddic3]

Interesting

I read the article last posted and found it a tad alarming. All of the misinformation out there has been dragging President Bush down, which of course pleases many of you. But did it ever occur to any of you that if Bush loses, especially in Iraq, we all lose?

[Damien]

From US News & World Report

YOO-HOO, IS ANYONE LISTENING TO ME?
Losing ground, even in the likability department
by Kenneth T. Walsh
4/24/06

Things aren't getting any easier for President Bush. Even his good-old-boy personality, which once was so appealing to so many Americans, seems to be wearing thin. His underlying problem, pollsters say, is that growing numbers of Americans question his competence and credibility. Only 38 percent of Americans approve of Bush's job performance, and--just as important--only 39 percent have positive feelings about him, according to an NBC News/ Wall Street Journal poll. "What you're seeing is a negative cycle," says a senior GOP strategist, "with bad news feeding on bad news, and it's having an effect."

At this point the direction of the polls--down--seems pretty well established, and Democrats contend that there has been a fundamental public shift in attitudes. "People used to see him as the kind of guy they'd like to have a beer with," says Matt Hogan, a Democratic public-opinion analyst for Democracy Corps. "They don't see him that way anymore. It used to be that while they didn't necessarily agree with his policies, they felt he talked straight and they could trust him. They don't trust him anymore." Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg says only 41 percent of Americans today feel warmly about Bush, compared with 50 percent who are cool to him. Just after the 9/11 attacks, 78 percent felt warmly about Bush; only 13 percent were cool toward him. "People don't like Bush now," Greenberg says. "There's a culture around him that is driving people away."

Day after day, the president's credibility has been under assault, even when the facts are in dispute. Last week, the Washington Post reported that in 2003 Bush declared that U.S. troops in Iraq had captured two trailers outfitted as mobile biological weapons labs even though a secret intelligence report at the time found the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons. White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan attacked the Post report as "reckless," saying it was a preponderance of intelligence, now seen to be erroneous, that led Bush to make the statement about the Iraqi trailers, not a desire to mislead anyone. In another episode, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker that Bush has accelerated Pentagon planning for attacks on Iran's nuclear sites, including potential use of nuclear "bunkerbuster" bombs, a story the administration tried to shoot down as "speculation."

All this came on the heels of the disclosure that Bush authorized the declassification and release of information about prewar Iraq's nuclear capabilities in order to discredit critics like former Ambassador Joe Wilson. Democrats quickly condemned Bush as a hypocrite because he has been a longtime critic of leaks. Even more damaging is news that a growing number of retired senior military officers have turned against Bush's Iraq policy--which has become the biggest political millstone around his neck--and are calling for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's replacement.

Disconnect. Bush has run afoul of public opinion on important issues, with only 37 percent of Americans approving his handling of Iraq, 33 percent in support of his handling of immigration, and 23 percent endorsing his approach to rising gasoline prices, according to the ABCNews/ Washington Post poll. Ominously for Bush and the Republicans, only 40 percent rate the economy as excellent or good, even though 60 percent rate their personal finances as excellent or good. This disconnect has Republicans concerned that Bush doesn't even get credit for positive developments anymore. There is one bit of good news for Bush: The ABC/ Post Poll found that 50 percent approve of the way he is handling the U.S. campaign against terrorism.

White House strategists say Bush won't back off his policies and vow that he will continue his cross-country campaign to rebuild support. "It's important for people to hear from him and know more about his thinking," says a senior Bush adviser. "But we know this won't have a short-term effect. It will take time."

For now, the late-night comedians, who often shape public perceptions, are piling on. "President Bush is denying that he's planning an airstrike on Iran," David Letterman said last week. "So you know what that means: They're planning an airstrike on Iran." As the history books show, once a credibility gap widens, it's mighty tough for a president to close it up.

[Sonic Youth]

From The Guardian:

GENERAL JOINS ATTACK ON RUMSFELD OVER IRAQ WAR

· Fourth retired officer calls on defence chief to resign
· Rift between military and civilian leaders deepens

Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Friday April 14, 2006

In the latest in a torrent of criticism centred on the Pentagon chief, Major General John Batiste, who led a division in Iraq, said Mr Rumsfeld's authoritarian leadership style had made it more difficult for professional soldiers. "We need leadership up there that respects the military as they expect the military to respect them. And that leadership needs to understand teamwork," he told CNN on Wednesday.

Gen Batiste's comments were especially startling because he is so closely associated with the civilian leadership, having served as an aide to one of the architects of the war, the former deputy Pentagon chief Paul Wolfowitz.

The Guardian is behind the times. Now a FIFTH retired general has just called for Rumsfeld to step down. This one is Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack. I don't suppose he's anyone of great consequence. He just led the 82nd Airborne Division during the Iraq war, that's all.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/04/13/iraq.rumsfeld/index.html

A partisan play, right Criddic?