After reading Chris Bowers’ analysis of Bush’s poll numbers, I wonder what to make of his conclusion:
When asking their new favorite question about how Bush can or will recover, it is important for members of the media to be aware of the historic nature of Bush’s unpopularity. No President to reach these lows has ever recovered. It is just as important for Democratic officials and activists around the country to realize this as well. When faced with the persistent pundit question as to how Bush can or will recover, the Democratic response must be simple, accurate, and to the point: Bush can’t recover. No President to reach these lows has ever recovered to once again have a functioning presidency. All of his political capital has been spent. By all historical comparisons, Bush’s Presidency is over.
Yes, yes, it all makes sense. Except Bush still has over three years to go and we have 150,000 soldiers in Iraq. So, what exactly does it mean that Bush’s presidency is over? And how long will it take for it to go from being virtually over to being over in fact?
Can we get someone up in the bullpen? Our pitcher is getting shelled.
Sixth inning, one out, several runs in, a dead arm on the mound- and no one getting warmed up in the bullpen. WTF, is this the National League or something?
Joe Torre would make a fine Speaker of the House and Acting president.
not only that, but our long relief guy’s trainer has been indicted, and there is a suspicion that he was giving out steroids.
I can’t follow your baseball analogies, but I think it’s WAY early to predict Bush and the GOP’s demise.
check out Bower’s article? It’s very interesting. Just watching Kit Bond on Hardball tonight made me even more sure that we are in a irreversible flushing state. The WH argument is unsustainable, and as Kristoff said, “If the American public ever becomes convinced that Bush lied us into war then his presidency is over.”
Well, well over 50% already think so, and over 50% think he should be impeached for it. Those numbers need to go up to about 65-70% and then it will happen. But their holding position isn’t holding and they can’t control Fitzgerald, they can’t completely control the Senate Intelligence Committee, they can’t control Scowcroft, Powell, Armitage, Wilkerson, former and anonymous intelligence agents, the press, or you and me.
The war is unlikely to go much better, but it could seriously deteriorate in the near future, and Bush’s own party is afraid to be seen with him on the campaign trail.
If Rove is indicted, it will get even worse. The pressure on Cheney is just going to build. Their whole legislative agenda is dead. DeLay in indicted, Frist may be indicted. Hastert is (perhaps) hiding his connections to Turkish drug and arms smugglers. Abramoff may be charged with murder, or lesser charges related to murder.
Add to all that, Bower’s analysis of the polls and it is getting hard to see Bush making it 3 more years.
Is it too early to predict their demise? Maybe. But I think it is better than even money now.
And then there is Blair. If Blair goes down that is another nail in the coffin.
Things look very bad for the country, and there is only so much apologizing the GOP leadership (what little is left of it) can do.
I think this sums up the problem that the Bush administration got itself (and us) into. They really are totally incompetent, as so many of us were pointing out in 2001 and 2002 before it was too late. We are heading to a true constitutional crisis, because the usual fail-safe measures failed. The next in line after Cheney is Hastert, whose incompetence probably rivals that of Bush, and it’s downhill all the way from there.
My best guess about what may happen in the event of a total breakdown is a shadow military government, with Bush as shadow president to keep up appearances. Congress will go along with this charade, because the alternative will be even worse. It will be a holding pattern to 2008 when we will get back to ordinary constitutional government. But the precedent will have been set.
Thanks alot, Mr. Bush, for destroying our democracy.
I will read it.
It’s just that the WH cabal didn’t just fall off the turnip truck.
They’ve got a few cards up their sleeves (mixing metaphors here).
Give ’em one horrific terrorist attack on U.S. soil, and they’re back in business.
they will claim that they weren’t even playing baseball, but if they were then the democrats were playing too.
And when they asked to show the scorecard it will be heavy with whiteout, and Ken Mehlman will try to explain that the game was rained out in the fourth, and as for cheating, that the democrats had approved of cheating by never claiming that cheating was bad.
And then they will ask for a new goalie, a new ref, a new stadium, and a redesign of the field.
And Judy Miller has already written the postgame wrap-up, with special guest Chris Matthews.
Oh ain’t that the truth. Mathews was practically pleading the Bushco meme for them tonight. Can this pundit not make up his mind where he stands? He was saying the dems all had the chance to vote against the war and now that is going so “badly” they are all saying they were really against it. That is not what the dems are saying at all. They are saying they were not giving all the intelligence. The intelligence that stated clearly that there was no proof of WMD, Curveball was a drunk, etc. DSM. Why isn’t anyone hearing this. They have been saying it for well over two weeks now. They closed the GD senate down and demanded that the investigation continue. God, the media makes me sick.
What they mean by Bush’s presidency being over is that no one wants to be connected to him anymore because of the CIA leak investigation, Libby indictment, Rove under possible indictment, Katrina, the war all of hid fuck ups will drag the repugs down. This will put the Bush agenda in the trash can. But then again, I am just a Gramma, apartment manager living day to day. What do I know?
I was disgusted with Mathews yesterday when talking about torture he said that he wouldn’t mind the US “pushing the envelope” with terrorists.
Did he ever consider that some of these guys are innocent?
and to some extent blogs are responsible because they kept on stories when the scms would have buried them.
But we are not out of the woods until Senators like Bond finally realize they are backing the wrong end of the horse.
and all they have left in the bullpen is Dick “Wild Thing” Cheney!
This is why I think there needs to be one of two possible turns of events.
…and they may do wonders to stop the Administration when it comes to domestic policy. But until Bush is out of the White House (and Cheney doesn’t take his place), we’re going to continue to see hundreds dead in Iraq each month and one of the most openly imperialist foreign policies since Teddy Roosevelt was running things. We’ve got 1162 days left of this regime, unless both these guys are impeached and convicted. So, the presidency is not “over.”
a revolution, whether the initial catalyst for such be internal or external.
…about “having a revolution” in the 1960s and early ’70s. Instead, we got the counter-revolution without the revolution. Without a unified political movement with trusted leadres, we’ll not have a revolution.
and bloodier than some might like, and the resulting entity will be far from ideal.
It will, however, be less of a threat to continued life on earth, which will be an improvement for 5 billion 700 thousand people.
As much as I might like to see it, I’d be surprised if it played out this way.
“That giant sucking sound” will be the corporate powers that be pulling their mojo from Bush/Cheney, leaving them to be removed, or to rot in the oval office as a form of living-dead until 2008. (Sounds like a plot line for Carnacki.)
A revolution would be very bad for business, so a sufficient sop will be thrown to the masses to keep that from happening, whatever it takes.
However, throughout history, corrections have occured, and US will be no exception.
The world can’t wait 😉
I am reminded of my past political science professor, McGraw SJSU, who emphasized just how much abuse humans takes before they truly rebel.
Look what the Russian peasant went through with the czars before change finally happened. Even to this day, 40% of our people don’t vote. [jesus save us] Sociology behavior experiments repeatedly show humans incredibly gullible to authority.
I am considered rebellious–the blog I write to (minimally) was recently described as “radical” by an Italian. I am one conformist son of a bitch, truly. I just don’t like being told what to do or what to think. But to most people, well, they just to do as they’re told. Makes me seem far outside the mainstream when it should be normal.
It will take several more Crescent Cleansing style operations, several dozen more Delphi payhalvings, as well as the Medicare donut death wave, at the very least before the American underclass (newbies as well as oldtimers) will dare to question their lords.
The American underclass, however is exceptionally meek, as one poster on Eurotrib called them, the “supine poor.”
US has not been successful in inculcating this docility internationally, however, at least as of this writing.
For that reason, I think that the correction will be more likely imposed externally, which would not be my preference, as I believe it would be better for ordinary Americans if they would do it themselves.
Just like Marx (a German writing in England) did inspire a revolution far away, the revolution in the 60″s and 70″s did affect people far away. They did change the world. They did bring Peace and Love.
That is the country became super conservative doesn’t take away their accomplishments.
and that is exactly why his continued Presidency is untenable, as is a Democratic opposition that tolerates his continued Presidency.
This tension will exist until something snaps, one way or the other. We can’t refuse to work with this administration for another 3 years, and we can’t work with them without becoming complicit.
Soon things will come to a head.
with this administration for another 3 years, and we can’t work with them without becoming complicit.”
This is not necessarily so Booman, as there are a great many actions or non-compliance type actions that can take place between the two extremes you mentioned.
Martin Luther King and Gandhi, for a couple of well known examples, came up with some rather creative techniques for dealing with a similar situation.
Let us not be inhibited by focusing unduly on an either or view.
The following is the best “recipe” available to a nation’s citizenry that I know of for dealing with authoritarian rule trending to fascism; On Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: Thinking About the Fundamentals is a great read for anyone interested in this topic. 189 page pdf download
Or see sig line for further info.
Take it from a Mariners fan. If your team is down by ten in the third, there might technically be six innings to play, but the game is over. It’s time to get up, stretch, have another beer, take the kids to the playground out past center field (the only part of Safeco Field that my granddaughter really likes), chat with those people you keep seeing in your section, and just in general take in the ambience of the ballpark, and oh yeah, there’s a game going on and hurrah if your side gets a run or two, but barring absolute miracles it’s over.
Everything you say is true, but it’s hard to imagine how His Nibs will manage to implement any of his ambitious plans with his poll ratings so low, his party’s leadership in the toilet and the American people catching on to what he’s really trying to accomplish. I can take a year of gridlock if it means the Democrats take control of one, or preferably both, chambers of Congress and that looks increasingly like what’s going to happen.
His credibility (amongst those with whom he had some) is running on empty. Only the hard core wingers will hang on. Stick a fork in him, he’s done.
As long as Cheney is in office, Bush won’t be indicted – everyone can see the cure would be worse than the disease.
If Cheney is removed / resigns, then Bush might be impeached or resign.
So the key is someone to replace Cheney that is acceptable to both parties, someone who Democrats could accept as a caretaker for the remainder of the term, and the Republicans might see as distant enough from Bush/Cheney that he or she might be electable in 2008. (Or if the deal is that the person not run, someone who’d return the Republican party to respectability for 2008.)
If that comes to pass, I’d bet on McCain.
The biggest hold-up would be the Republican zealot wing, and frankly, they’re going down with the neocons. Having gotten their 2 supreme court justices out of Bush, they might be satisfied enough with the deal and return to their caves and lairs before the sun rises and they’re turned to stone.
And whatever happened to that FL investigation into Rush Limbaugh’s doctor shopping? Can we get rid of him as part of the package too?
The alternative would be to hang on with the corpse of the Bush presidency rotting in the oval office, which could well happen; that might actually be the most probable outcome, especially if the Democrats do not win a solid majority after the 2006 election. Bush will be their Jimmy Carter or Woodrow Wilson, waiting, waiting, waaaatiiing for the clock to run out.
it’s about time. i’ve been waiting 5 years.
From your lips to God’s ear.
unpopular doesn’t mean “over”.
as you say booman.
there are REAL powers involved, there is real time.
it’s not over.
indeed, it’s getting MORE DANGEROUS.
popularity is just an asterix in politics… I guess they have us thinking it is the end all be all reality of politics… what with being a democracy.
but I recall we only get democracy a few hours every few years, and there is a lot left over after that.
When Cheney and Rumsfeld can meet with AHmed Chalabi and no one cries foul or maybe HELP! nothing is over it’s just beginning.
Hilliary will meet with him next. She thinks it will help her numbers…..
But he’s still in the WH so it’s more than a little early to say anythings over yet.
What happens next hinges on the 2006 elections. The Repubs have until then to bring in the adults and try and right the ship of state, and the Dems have until then to step up to the challenge of taking the country back.
On that point it gets interesting – Bush’s inability to change and the Dems so far limited ability to be an effective counterweight to Bush (although Reid has made giant steps to change the status quo) leaves us in the lurch for now. I think Bush will continue to poll new record lows until his admin fragments to the point where new Repub leadership can force change in the WH.
What we’re seeing right now is the Repubs just starting to figure out how to struggle with this issue. Bush is still being told he can recover (probably by Rove) from his current position if he goes on the campaign attack trail. This will no longer work because it really only worked by enforcing total conformity in the Repub camp which no longer exists. Too many Repubs have their butts on the line in 2006 for that to work. The current action by the Senate regarding toture and Iraq war investigations is the first steps by the rest of the Repub party lighting the barbecue on which Bush and neocons will get roasted. If it gets bad enough (and it may) we may see the first President impeached by HIS OWN PARTY.
The Dems have to use the time between now and 2006 to paint the whole Repub party as the problem and Bush as the lead rotten apple in a whole barrel of apples gone bad. That’s the easy part as continued pressure in the Congress to point out just how bad things have gotten will force the Repubs to fragment, the hard part will be developing a plan to lead us out of the current mess (because truth be told – it’s a big stinking mess). But the clock is running for the Dems – they must cement their gains with wins in the 2006 midterms.
It’s fair to say that no matter how it turns out Bush has dug the country into a huge hole which will take decades to recover from. (I often picture a big smoking crater as the best design for W’s Presidential library.) The Dems need to use this as an opportunity to move the country forward will real change rather than the same-old same-old policies which worked when the Dems were last in charge.
I am very interested in this
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