'Today': W's Poll Numbers Fallen - and They Can't Get Up

Today Show/NewsBusters ^ | Mark Finkelstein

[governsleastgovernsbest]

by Mark Finkelstein

April 12, 2006

On a light news day, why not run a generic piece on President Bush's low poll numbers and his assertedly bleak prospects for reviving them? That was apparently the thinking at the Today show this morning.

Today themed the segment "Can Bush Save Presidency?", and NBC White House reporter Kelly O'Donnell seemed to answer the question in the negative, kicking things off with this gloomy assessment:

"For President Bush, low poll numbers have not just been a dip or temporary rough patch but appear now to be a sustained pattern that is different than his predecessors of both parties who went through their own tough times." She continued: "His . . presidency appears to have a chronic case of the below-40 percent blues."

After David Gergen was shown suggesting that "presidents have sometimes broken out of slumps when they've had big, bold initiatives and unexpected victories - that often shake things up" O'Donnell reappeared to dump cold water on the notion that W could have any such luck:

"Looking back, some second-term presidents have been able to rebound. President Reagan's approval fell to 34 percent with the arms-for-hostages scandal. Pres. Clinton hit 41 percent around impeachment. But both bounced back up to the 60s as they left office. Analysts say the prospects for Mr. Bush are not as good because of the weight of ongoing events: Iraq, gas prices, the CIA leak case and hurricane response."

Gergen popped back up to pessimistically proclaim: "After a while those negative feelings really do congeal, they crystallize, they become firm and then it's very hard to break out."

O'Donnell: "political observers claim big speeches and staff changes won't turn things around and suggest the president may have to wait to seize on any good news."

Commentator Stu Rothenberg then observed: "If there is something he can brag about he needs to quickly then be able to go to the American public and make his case and drive home the point. But for now he simply doesn't have much ammunition at his disposal."

Count on Today and its MSM cohorts to do their best to keep things that way.

[woofie]

I dont think GW has been that busy since he became Pres...You should invite him to a come to the border and stop a couple of million from crossing

[ModelBreaker]

I do not recall Reagan granting amnesty unless you are thinking about the boat people that were turned lose by Castro. That group included a lot of criminals. There was no way to send them back except to allow them to die on the high seas. The most egregious act of granting amnesty was perpetrated by Clinton when he allowed amnesty to illegals prior to his second election. That was clearly a fraud perpetrated on the American people ... although the numbers were not nearly as great as what we are now seeing. We are now talking about 10,00,000 to as many as 20,000,000 million illegals. Nobody really knows how many

Nope. He did. The deal then (in 1986) was there would be amnesty but the borders would be secured. Of course, there was no followup in either Bush administration or the clinton administration on the securing the borders part.

The effect of that was a huge new incentive for illegals to cross the border--the hope of future amnesty with no attempt to stop them.

That's why I am so adamant about only two issues on immigration--(1) It has to secure the borders first with a fence. Why a fence? Because that is a fixed reality that future dems would have a harder time undermining administratively than the expedient of, just, say, more agents. The INS can just have them turn their backs when they see an illegal per orders of Pres. Hillary. A wall makes it harder to do that; (2) We have to address the anchor babies issue.

If those two issues are addressed, I am much less concerned about bringing in legal immigrants or, even, guest workers.

But the problem is, if we do the same deal with the devil today we did in 1986 (amnesty for border security), we will get the same deal--amnesty and no border security. Amnesty is easy. It happens all at once. Border security requires ongoing commitment. There is no such commitment from any Dem and a lot of Republicans.

[kjam22]

GW is the chief law enforcement officer in our country. We've got illegal immigrants marching in our streets, waving foriegn flags. But W is unwilling to enforce the law. That's the bottom line.

[chris1]

Seeing millions in the streets waving foreign flags demanding goodies from the legal taxpayers sort of has that effect on people.

[woofie]

I'm sick and tired of it, and I'm sick of watching people getting whipped into a frenzy once again.

[driftless]

I don't doubt that there are many disatisfied Republicans and many who are really mad. Maybe the closer to the stove, the easier one is burned. But I would hope conservatives would look at the legitimately excellent things Bush has done and not cut off their noses to spite their faces. I'm a recent convert (1996) to the Republican Party, and I can state that I am much happier politically as a conservative Republican than as a conservative Democrat. I'll reiterate that I'm not happy with spending and illegal immigration either. But I'm not jumping ship to swim back to the Dems or sailing off in my own direction.

Put pressure on elected Republican officials to do the right thing. Send letters to the White House. But let's not lose site of the larger issue of the war on terror where the president needs our full support. Illegal immigration problems and overspending are issues that can be resolved much easier than winning a war or keeping an economy going.

Nobody has done anything substantive about illegal immigration for decades including Republican presidents. Yet Bush is treated like he created the problem. If we put the screws to our elected officials, we can get something good out of this mess. Let's not get discouraged or hysterical.

[woofie]

You could always try a citizen's arrest

[Coop]

I think they're nutcases, too. Can I take you off my ping list? (If I had one)

[kjam22]

Allowing these marches by persons in our country illegally to continue is just plain stupid. GW ought to be impeached for political stupidity if nothing else.

When the dems win the next round of congressional elections they'll move to impeach GW. I'm gonna laugh when they do, becaue he'll deserve it.

[Coop]

I completely agree with you, and it's why I haven't been posting much.

Please don't let 'em run you off.

[prairiebreeze]

I agree with your assessments PKM, especially on the motives of the thread spammers. And IMO, they should receive a suspension for incessant thread spamming. It is NOT helpful to discourse it is hijacking.

Friendly suggestion Jim and mods.

[prairiebreeze]

snort! LOL!

[dirtboy]

We used to have news from around the world and now it is becoming a site for the immigration nutcases (and yes I said nutcases) to gather.

Those people are the exception rather than the rule here. And any bigoted or violent posts get promptly removed.

I'm sorry, but Bush is on the wrong side of history and logic and public opinion with his pseudo-amnesty program. The guest-worker program in Europe led to their current crisis with Islamists. Reagan's amnesty failed - it failed to heed the conservative credo that if you reward illegal behavior, you tend to get more of it. And public opinion ranges from strong to overwhelming on issues relating to illegal immigration. Combine all those, and Bush's stance on this issue is puzzling at the least.

Bush is not up for re-election ever gain. But all GOP members of the House are up for re-election this year, and they are the vanguard against damaging changes to our immigration laws. Bush really needs to back off his pseudo-amnesty/guest worker calls because he is threatening the re-election chances of House members. If y'all are truly concerned about the long-term health of the GOP, I would suggest you start telling Bush that he is on the wrong side of the issue and he needs to get on the right side in a hurry. Until that happens, much of the vitriol directed against Bush on this site over illegal immigration and border control is deserved.

[ZULU]

Bush and his administration are interpreting the drop in his poll numbers to the war in Iraq.

Since Bush and a lot of his current advisors are apaprently not conservatives, that makes sense - to them.

Bush HAS popular support over an unpopular war because most Americans realize we have no choice here.

Bush's popularity has eroded in direct proportion to his support for "guest workers", failure to enforce border and immigration laws, and to a lesser extent, spiriling gasoline prices.

Bush may not be able to do anything about the price of gasoline, but he CAN recover his popularity with Americans by:

Firing Alberto Gonzales and replacing him with a conservative Attorney General who will enforce our border and immigration laws, forgetting about his "guest worker program" and the businesses who want it, and putting up an effective barrier along our southern border.

But he won't because he's basically myopic and a very stubborn man

[Sam's Army]

"When the dems win the next round of congressional elections they'll move to impeach GW. I'm gonna laugh when they do, becaue he'll deserve it."

So, your voting dem, I take?

[dirtboy]

I agree with your assessments PKM, especially on the motives of the thread spammers.

I'm curious as to your definition of thread spammers. Posting the same post from thread to thread is clearly spam. But is coming into various threads to post your opinion spam? Since the topic on this thread is Bush's poll numbers, it's hardly off-topic to discuss Bush's immigration position, since immigration reform is the leading subject lately.

Or is your definition of spam someone repeating opinions you don't want to hear?

[kjam22]

I haven't voted for a democrat in 25 years. I'm not going to start now.

[dirtboy]

that law was enforced, the IRCA of 1986 would have turned out to be what it was meant to be, a one time amnesty deal.

I respectfully disagree. Even if enforcement had been improved, we still would have had a lot more illegals, because the IRCA failed a basic provision of conservatism - namely, that if the government rewards illegal behavior, the country tends to get more of it. Sure enough, those who have come here illegally since IRCA are now close to being rewarded for their illegal behavior, showing they ain't stupid. Criminal, but not stupid.

And true to form, the Senate "compromise" managed to come up with a formula that rewarded those who had been breaking the law for the longest time. Only in Washington...

[chris1]

Yet the few "smarter than everyone else crowd" tells me I am a RAT voter, racist, dumb-A#$, etc etc.

[nicmarlo]

There are good people on both sides of the immigration issue that need to be heard. Rounding up 11 million people and shipping them back to Mexico is not the answer. If the zealots would bother to read the figures, they would realize that all 11 million people here illegally did not all come from Mexico.

You are mischaracterizing what post after post has been about; to generalize and say that everyone is calling for "rounding up 11 million people and shipping them back to Mexico" is blatantly false.

We used to have news from around the world and now it is becoming a site for the immigration nutcases (and yes I said nutcases) to gather. With some of the radical nutcase posts I have seen, it has made me become ashamed to be on the same site with these folks, but I hate to leave after all these years and leave it to these folks who just HATE.

Yet you said that there are "good people on both sides." You contradict yourself...those with whom you don't agree you call nutcases....or radical nutcases. Those with whom don't agree with you about praising Bush all day all the time about all his policies/actions are lumped as Bush-haters and RATS.

I'd appreciate you taking me off your ping list. I don't agree with your mischaracterizations of many folks who disagree with you; and I don't agree that to be patriotic, one must be a lemming. And most especially, I don't agree that those who criticize the president, or any other elected official, to the degree in which they deserve such criticism, is expressing anything other than what Republican President Roosevelt said is the DUTY of America's citizens:

"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else."