Today's News from Washington

[infrogmation]

The President admitted he's faliable.

Torture was declared to be a bad thing that we generally shouldn't do.

And it was decided to take action to prevent one of the nation's major cities from disappearing beneath the sea.

It says a lot about where we are that none of these events was a sure thing in advance, and that they can be hailed as unusually good news.

Comments

flip flop

[ex-askesis860.livejournal.com]

Those poll numbers fall far enough, and he'll reverse on just about anything.

Were I to describe this administration in one word, it would be "craven."

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, Bush's job-approval numbers seem to have recovered a little bit and are back in the low forties. I doubt they're going to spike much more than that; I think what's happened is that, after a first term characterized by general descent punctuated by upward leaps associated with big news, Bush's job approval actually had its first-ever negative spike from a combination of Katrina, bad Iraq news, the Scooter Libby indictment and a bunch of other negative stories. They're starting to fade in the public consciousness leaving only the residue of general distaste. The question is whether this is a stable floor or if he's going to keep getting gradually more unpopular over the long term.

On the other hand, in a sense it doesn't matter any more, since Bush is an official lame duck and other Republicans are distancing themselves from him and the administration a little; the question is whether the administration's unpopularity translates to any movement in 2006 or '08, and that probably depends mostly on people outside the administration.

[asienieizi.livejournal.com]

I'm such a dope! (Slaps forehead with hand.)I just _now_ figured out
why he cares so much about the polls! I couldn't figure out why he cared so much when he's not running for re-election anyway. D'oh!

Well, even if he hadn't been on my list before he made it there forever when he showed up in my town to do the Habitat for Humanity publicity stunt which caused everyone here to be late to work from blocked off roads and nightmare traffic gridlock thus having to either make up the time or take a cut in pay for missing those hours. I know it sounds like a little thing everywhere else but here it was a huge source of anger and frustration in the aftermath of what had already happened with our recent government experiences.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

The main consequence of Bush's continued unpopularity right now is internal struggle in the Republican Party. The Republicans were able to parlay a pretty thin legislative majority, with paper-thin plurality or even minority popular support, into a powerful governing bloc because they had such tremendous party discipline and loyalty. But the more people hate Bush, the more of a potential liability he is to the reelection of other candidates, the less he can keep other Republicans reined in and doing his bidding. He's losing control of the Congressional majority that used to basically be a rubber stamp for administration policy.