Love Him, Hate Him President (Check out the cover of TIME)

TIME ^ | 11/23/03 | JOHN F. DICKERSON AND KAREN TUMULTY

[Brian Mosely]

There is an axiom in American politics that says whenever a sitting President is running for a second term, the election is more a referendum on him than a judgment on his opponent. President George W. Bush has taken this truism to a new level. With just under a year to go before Nov. 2, 2004, Americans are already finding ways to show how passionately they feel about their President.

In August, KB Toys rolled out its George W. Bush Elite Force Aviator doll, a 12-in. action figure in full naval flight gear. At $39.99, it has set the sales record for collectible action figures on KB's website. There's also brisk traffic on the Web for donations in memory of Sally Baron, 71, of northern Wisconsin, and Gertrude M. Jones, 81, of Mandeville, La. Obituaries for both women contained requests that money be sent to any organization working for the removal of Bush from office. And in Jefferson County, Colo., West Jefferson Middle School teacher Martha Swisher sparked a furor by wearing a he's not my president button on her coat during a sixth-grade field trip.

Republicans in Colorado's state legislature honored the family that lodged the complaint; the teacher now wears a lapel pin to class that features an American flag and a peace sign. But there is little evidence of peace out there in an increasingly restive electorate. If Ronald Reagan was the Great Communicator, Bush is proving to be the Great Polarizer. Reagan and then Bill Clinton ushered in the modern age of the acrimoniously divided electorate, but George Bush has cleaved the nation into two tenaciously opposed camps even more than his predecessors. He is the man about whom Americans feel little ambivalence. People tend to love him or hate him without any complicating shades of gray. Shout "George Bush"

In a crowded theater, and people dive into two trenches. A new TIME/CNN poll shows that Americans are almost equally divided in their support for President Bush, with 47% suggesting that they are likely to vote for him and 48% saying they are not. For Bush, some of the signals are ominous: the poll shows his job-approval rating stands at 52%, down from its peak of 89% in October 2001, and his disapproval has reached a new high for his presidency of 43%.

But those numbers do not reveal the intensity on both sides—the zeal of those who regard Bush as the very ideal of American presidential leadership and those who regard him as an embarrassing and dangerous usurper. Nor does it take full account of a more paradoxical group: those who like his personality but loathe his policies and want him out of the White House. Fully 81% of Republicans say they like the job that Bush is doing; only 31% of Democrats do. "The President is a strong leader. He's very determined. He doesn't seem to be swayed too quickly by polls," says Jerome Kohel, 59, an accountant from Richland, Mich. But another fellow of the same age in that same crucial electoral state, car hauler Jim Carothers, fumes, "I think he's doing a horrible job. You'll never convince me (Bush) didn't know he was lying about the pretext for war."

[RoseofTexas]

OOOPS...board as in BILLBOARDS....Good gosh! I was so upset seeing the Times cover I didn't even checked my spelling...:]

[longtermmemmory]

When newt took over the house and the rublicans controlled congress.

[Libertina]

WHAT A WASTE OF
T i m e

ROTFLOL That sums it up nicely. TIME gave me a year's free subscription and I let them KNOW why I didn't sign up when it expired... I had no idea what a liberal rag it was.

[Prime Choice]

Notice that even in the "Stinking Mess" cover, they still show nothing less than Clinton looking dignified and Presidential? Look at any picture they put up of a Republican President and all you'll see is simpering smiles, dopey grins, befuddled looks, sideways squinting, and the rest.

Is this because only Republican Presidents look stupid in front of a camera and Democratic Presidents look regal even when they're taking a dump? HELL NO. It's because Time has a definite bias and it manifests itself from cover to cover.

[solo gringo]

At one time was a respected news source.Now they are lower than the globe on the news chain and today cover proves just that.

[petercooper]

Time is a liberal RAG! just like Newsweek, US News, NY Times, Wash Post, Brokaw, Jennings, Rather, CNN, PBS, NPR....

mainstream my A*@!!

[longtermmemmory]

This is just the dnc energizing their wayward base. They are loosing and these of the efforts of a dying political party.

[Libertina]

Dying...I hope so, but Europe has certainly held on and become even more extremist...

[Eva]

It is not George Bush that is polarizing the country, it is the Democrat party that is pulling away from mainstream Americans, and American values. The left is just trying to take a pre-empt the accusation that Hillary and the Clintons polarized the country so greatly that the Republicans were able to win control in 2000. The left is trying to do a turn-about and claim that it is Bush who did the polarizing. It's the old divide and conquer strategy.

[ChinaGotTheGoodsOnClinton]

Thanks Brian for the heads up...

Now does anyone around here have contact information for Time?

[teletech]

These leftists are sooooo panicked about the President's approval ratings they will try ANYTHING to bring him down. The funny thing is the more they try to hurt the President, the higher his approval ratings go. I hope they keep this stuff up. More and more people will see them for what they are, a hateful bunch of commie leftists.

[relee]

Now that's funny!

[Eva]

I have a suggestion, why don't we start an e-mail campaign to TIME and tell them that George Bush can't be the great polarizer because Susan Estrich already declared that Hillary is the most polarizing person in US politics and include the quote by Estrich if we can find it?

[Levante]

"But another fellow of the same age in that same crucial electoral state, car hauler Jim Carothers, fumes, "I think he's doing a horrible job. You'll never convince me (Bush) didn't know he was lying about the pretext for war."

"Car Hauler"? Is that this guy's euphimism for CAR THIEF?

[hripka]

Luvya Dubya

[JediJones]

I found contact information through Google on this "fair and balanced" page:

http://www.fair.org/media-contact-list.html

Nice irony to use the liberal media's resources to promote our conservative philosophy. :-D

[maxwellp]

We haven't read TIME in years - so long I've forgotten. We read "FreeRepublic", watch FoxNews, listen to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. And Ann Coulter! We are so fed up with liberalism in America, we refuse to buy, subscribe or watch their crap!

[longtermmemmory]

Europe had no conservative awakening. There is no Rush in Europe, no Fox News Channel. There is no true FR because in some EU countries you pay your land line phone bill in MINUTS like a cell phone! You can't surf for hours or chat endlessly on FR. (I hurts when I travel because I have to limit my time)

The sources of news are Euronews, CNNeurope (which is even more anti-american than the original here) and BBC whis is just anti-americanism and socialist with an accent. They have no dialogue of ideas.

To borrow from the matrix, they only have access to the blue pill. Those that find the red pill are far different. This is particularly true of emigrees that return to the home country. They expose their european families to a different thought.

However that alone would never be enough to compete with the knowledge blackout imposed on the europeans. They really are the ignorant peoples in the global equation.

[1L]

These people are brain dead. To think Bush is more polarizing then Clinton, one has to be oblivious to the real world.

[longtermmemmory]

This is just gearing up for the 2004 campaign. Time is trying to stop it from being a blowout. The problem for the leftists of time is that Bush IS a uniter. He united the nation after 9/11. He has united the nation for 2002 elections. The proof is in the fact that there are "nine dwarfs" with nine voices and nine agendas and nine democrats who are only united in bush bashing.

Thanks for reminding of the Estrich quote. Hitlary is trying to travel under the radar as much as possible. She is running the most badly kept secret stealth campaign in history.