The buzz right now is summarized in this misleading headline “Bush Hires Tough Critic to Keep Media at Bay“. Hiring a tough critic would seem like a good idea since Bush’s poll numbers remain at an all time low. However, they forget to leave out that his criticism is that Bush is not conservative enough. Does the public want a more conservative leadership?
Not likely as his rubber stamp Republican congress is enjoying a similar reaction with an 11 point approval rating drop in one month with the public leaning left. Russert and NBC try to lay blame on Democrats by citing “fighting between parties” as a major source of discontent, while a sixteen day old ABC/WaPo poll indicates that the public prefers the Democrat’s stance on the situation in Iraq, prescription benefits for the elderly, the economy, immigration issues, handling of the campaign against terrorism, health care, and corruption in Washington.
As prices climb higher with Iraq’s oil supply effectively cut off and saber rattling Iran increasing dollars per barrel, we are paying rpughly an extra $0.30 on the gallon for every dollar increase per barrel. Meanwhile Exxon-Mobil posted a 42% increase in profits last year with over $36 billion dollars in profits. Somehow, I doubt that Bush’s granting waivers on air-quality requirements is going to make a difference.
To reinforce the President’s line, anonymous Republicans quoted by Fox News still claim that this crisis is the Democrats fault for implementing any environmental regulations. Ignoring the claims that global warming is likely irreversible, Bush’s calls for “federal agencies to watch for price gouging, insisting that he will not accept price “manipulation”” is more than a little disingenuous. (Would the President really do something like that?) Remember that Republicans were the ones who refused to make Oil executives testify under oath back in February. Is it any surprise to see that “Oil and gas companies overwhelmingly favored Republicans over Democrats in their campaign giving.” With “just over 73 percent of the industry’s campaign contributions have gone to Republican candidates and organizations.” Greg from The Talent Show has this Graph to offer:
Of course we can’t forget the other victims in this oil run.
