Posted on 11/16/2001 1:11:37 PM PST by hawaiian
"President Bush's job approval rating shows no sign of decline. The latest Gallup poll, conducted Nov. 8-11, measures the president’s approval rating at 87%. Bush’s job approval has remained at 86% or higher in seven polls conducted over two months. In the history of Gallup polling, no prior presidents have been able to sustain their high approval levels, with no apparent decline, this long." Full Story
And why wouldn't they doctor them?
It's legal.
OK with the first amendment.
Furthers their cause.
'End justifies the means...'
Number one effective propaganda tool, in my mind.
I never trusted a single one, but dreaded their effect on the public.
Governor Taft is a RINO, but his father was about as conservative as you can get.
(Sorry for the freepmail- accidentally hit private reply instead of public)
Underneath it all, he believes in politics at his very core. I think it is a mistake to think that owning a professional baseball team was ever 'lifelong goal' for GWB. It, like his time in the oil business, was simply possible and good hobby.Then you agree with me that it is likely that Askel's theory, that he is a dunce who has just been moved as certain powers wish, is horsepucky?
BINGO!
The wheels were coming off the economy last fall and Bush and Co. knew it but noone would believe it due to all of the sympathy-spin/legacy-building from the press. If Clinton could not buy a Nobel peace prize then he was surely going to be remembered for the "greatest economic expansion in history... yada yada... all due to his tax increases!(?)"
When Bush pointed to the downturn in December/Jan he was smart to do so but the press howled and shreiked! Remember? Amazing how the truth eventually wins.
If he were not a Bush, he would not be the president.But if he hadn't skillfully navigated the campaign, he would not be president.
And had he not skillfully navigated the post-election lawyering, he would not be president.
And had he not handled the Texas governorship quite well, he would not be president. And had he not handled his campaign against Richards beautifully, he would not have been governor.
And if as President he had not handled the aftermath of 9/11 well, he would not have this sort of approval.
OK, but I'm still confused!!
That is indeed a very refreshing change for any politician at any level.
MM
Check out Drudge's site, it looks like the lamestream media is in financial free fall.
It does appear that lies have consequences. :)
It also helped that he pulled in a lot of outside the beltway talent, ignoring the political mercs of DC that use leaks and other illicit favors as common currency with the media and lobbiests.
Now to shovel out the rest of the smelly barn and flush the remaining x42 appointees and the bulk of the top civil service management loaded with traitors and deadwood.
All well and good, Hugh, but you're still missing the point that it's not Bush but his Actions and the meat of his words to which I'm speaking. I'm judging not him but whatever coterie of advisors and semblance of an agenda he's fulfilling as front man. Think back ... from the very beginning (as he decided there was something to global warming and laid out his Vision Thing for capitol hill) he's been NOTHING BUT CLEAR that he operates on summaries and advisors. I'm not dogging him by saying he's not a deep thinker ... I'm merely taking him at his word (and action).
And I certainly don't equate thinking well with thinking quickly. (Else I'd not be signing the occasional reply as "Emily Litella" and I'd never have any hope of understanding math, physics, chemistry or economics.)
May come as a surprise, but I don't equate speaking well with thinking well either. (If, for no other reason, than this would render me an idiot ... grew up painfully shy and am still working on speaking clearly and slowly enough not to mangle my words when I do speak loud enough to be heard.)
I couldn't care less about "Bush-isms" (it seems a family trait of sorts) or how long it takes for him to decide that funding experimentation on "already been killed" embryos doesn't mar his campaign promise of NO FUNDING FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF HUMAN EMBRYOS. What I do care about and what I am listening for are those bits of language which allegedly MEAN SOMETHING and so speak volumes about the men themselves: "Christ is my favorite philospher" and "I'm a strict constitutionalist" come to mind.
I'm just not a "Cult of Personality" sort who believes somehow that the "best man for the job" in ALL THE LAND has been either Bob Dole (if we HAD to lose the election) and a member of the Bush family otherwise since I was a kid. Doesn't add up.
There's a difference between a man's earning my profound respect (as did Reagan with his "Abortion and the Conscience of America") and surfing at the top of the polls thanks to our finally wreaking some revenge for the WTC.
Particularly when he's surrounded by men who've been in power and calling the shots my entire life. As Putin repeated in his biography (and for the NY Times recently), Kissinger once told him they were simpatico because "all decent people get their start in intelligence". Either you go the "frat boy" route and pretend George H. Bush just had some sinecure as head of the company or you hold them accountable -- despite the Howdy Doody Clinton Years and the Evil Clinton we blame for GOP Congress and Senate's legacy, whose actions at Waco, et al. were signed off on by Republicans and whose "moral war" in the Balkans (in which we, like the terrorists, targeted innocent civilians) the GOP assumed and re-formed as they put anything Soros didn't want on the auction block for cheap.
I look in vain for their repudiation of Kissinger's NSSM-200 ("abortion is vital to the solution" of population control at home and abroad) or George H. Bush's valiant removing of the "sensationalism" so that "population control" could become the "healthcare mechanism" the Democrats know it is today. I see nothing in W's words or actions to suggest he's anything but "with the program".
You're not going to find any of these things because -- unlike the more idealistic Reagan, perhaps, who actually fought tooth and nail that the Panama Canal was sovereign US territory -- the Bush family is "smarter" than Reagan was in many respects and has been a permanent fixture of the political and banking scene since WWII. (I'll stop at WWII, since I go back only so far as United Bank and the Harrimans ... I'm sure others on the forum can fill you in further.)
If Bush were "shrewd" as you say, I think there would be some evidence of this in his pre-Saul on the Road to Damascus life. Instead, his business dealings reveal someone who's had quite a lot handed to him that -- sans Advisors, perhaps -- he didn't manage well ... despite his sometimes profiting (particularly where the taxpayers of Austin were concerned) when his "partners" didn't. That's shrewd, I suppose.
I don't understand the point you're making about his love for baseball but I don't doubt for a minute that indeed it's as if he were Saul on the Road to Damascus and the Almighty knocked him off his horse and into politics.
Sure Teflon Silver(ado) Neil had banking "covered" and the likely even more shrewd (Catholic and father to the Hispanic George already poised and being groomed to carry on the family tradition) Jeb had they key banking/customs/electoral state of Florida nailed down. But ... when you're an eldest of the GOP's first family and your name is George, it's possible duty calls as in any royal family (save the totally bankrupt and thoroughly discredited royals in Britain whose sex lives, perpetual childhoods and reigning Mommy have served as a veritable model for the demise of respect for the White Man and Patriarchy).
As for the "son of a Bush family friend" ... I am speaking to this Common Knowledge: Bush Son Had Dinner Plans With Hinckley Brother Before Shooting
As becomes clear (to you and others, if not Pardek) in my subsequent posts, I find it merely an indication that things AREN'T always what they seem ... PARTICULARLY where the omnipotence -- or smarts -- of the Bush family is concerned.
Tools.
All well and good, Hugh, but you're still missing the point that it's not Bush but his Actions and the meat of his words to which I'm speaking. I'm judging not him but whatever coterie of advisors and semblance of an agenda he's fulfilling as front man.But you said that you see evidence that he just goes with the flow, and that he isn't particularly smart.
You said that he would go with the flow because what sort of frat boy rich powerful kid wouldn't? I pointed out that if he was as you said, he probably would have stayed with his love, baseball, living the good life.
But he got into politics, and got himself to be the man in front of all this shrewd talent. To me, this shows both motivation and shrewdness in and of itself. And it shows that he is not merely some wallflower, doing the bidding of those who control him somehow (and I am not buying that he is just happy to be there).
I took a few minutes and scanned extant articles for support to my statement. (Remember, as a fellow legal grunt, I type in real time practically as fast as you do on your steno machine.)
I wish you and M. Thatcher, et al. would lay off the perpetually snide remarks. I'm beginning to think ya'll are just a bunch of "ASKEL HATERS" and aren't listening to a word I say.
I know for a fact you don't countenance such behavior where our President is concerned ... why is it okay to treat me thus?
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