Bush's Approval Rating Falls to New Low

AP via Yahoo News ^ | 3-10-06 | RON FOURNIER

[MikeA]

"He does need a team that pays attention to public relations. They simply can not communicate a message persuasively. It's very frustrating to watch."

But will the media report it when they do? How do we know what the Bush White House is saying in response to all this? Do you think the media would really report much of it? I don't. They might be responding to this stuff like crazy but all we ever hear is Harry Reid's take on everything.

[RockinRight]

We better do something!! Bush might not get re-elected!

...wait...never mind...

[jpl]

If Mr. Bush is foolish enough to try and push this horrible amnesty for illegals proposal of his, he might be down to around 20% in a couple of more months.

[roses of sharon]

Yes, they are more blatant because its working, as evidenced by those here who consistently agree with them, follow their script, become their rubes, and encourage others to do the same.

Those here who insist that the MSM/DNC mood makers are "reality" are simply enjoining them in their political campaign against the President.

LOL, its been obvious here for 5 years, and became laughable during the Cheney "scandal", in which they joined the MSM again.

[roses of sharon]

LOL, Don't be fooled by freepers who claim faux "frustration" at the Presidents supposed lack of PR.

They will feign disappointment as soon as a PR blitz begins, saying "old news, not enough detail, not tough enough, the timing is wrong, to little to late, ect,"

Contrarians are predicable, and effective in their political campaign against this President.

[COEXERJ145]

And you'd believe a poll that used 100% Democrat voters as being true and accurate.

Your obvious agenda is showing again.

[RHINO369]

You all need to really need to learn about honest and statistically accurate polling.
The presidents approval rating has always been the same exact question for several decades. They poll the same group, adults. So the approval rating shows that among adults X% approve of the job the president is doing. This doesn't tell you who they will vote for, nor does it try to. When they break down the number into how many democrats and republicans the poll had they didn't, make sure there were more democrats than republicans there just were that many. Who says there are as many republicans as there are democrats. The randomly called people, more happened to be democrats, all the polls so the same thing. This has no affect of the accuracy of the poll, it just tells you there are more democrats than there are republicans right now.

If you want to do a poll with only likely voters, then go ahead, but that doesn't mean the other poll was a bad one.

[HitmanLV]

I never accepted a poll with 100% democrats. No idea why you have the need to imagine things, pal.

[HitmanLV]

I agree. It's frustrating to me, more than anything else, because the admin really needs to effectively defend itself and they seem incapable of it.

[HitmanLV]

While media bias is a reason that Dubya can't communicate well, it's not an excuse. The admin's job is to make its case persuasively, and they haven't been doing it for a while.

I see conservatives fall for this line - it's just another angle of the chronic 'victimhood' that liberals enjoy. The GOP is a victim of the media - whether true or not, it's incumbent on them to help themselves with new ways of getting the message across.

[babaloo]

The MSM is an obstacle the WH has to overcome. The WH spokespeople have to be more effective than they have been--more proactive-and the President needs to speak out more. Three missteps in 6 months seem to have taken the steam/energy out of the spokespeople--Katrina, Meirs and the ports. Time to take charge of the agenda again.

[HitmanLV]

Exactly.

[MikeA]

You make some really good points. And honestly, I just don't think we're getting what it is the White House is saying and doing about all this. I think the media is a huge filter only interested in airing their biases while insulating us from any contrary points of view.

No one can claim that the armed forces don't provide outstanding briefings on a daily basis on what's going on in Iraq, much of it sober and realistic other aspects of it positive and upbeat. But the media never will report anything being said out of that gold plated communications op. They just report the negative crap fed to them by their Iraqi stringers, many of whom have suspect loyalties, rarely bothering to report anything said by the commanders which is often upbeat, INCLUDING the fact that they are all saying there is nothing like civil war in Iraq.

The only time we here anything reported about what the commanders are saying is one or two lines of congressional testimony by one saying something negative about the situation in Iraq but then ignoring the 2 hours of other testimony by the same person speaking of the positives we're accomplishing there.

No, I'm not convinced this is a White House problem. Bush has given a million speeches on Iraq, Katrina, etc. He was even down there in the Gulf this last week. But despite that the media was fixated on "Bush is weakened by the ports issue," blah, blah, blah. Bill Clinton couldn't go Christmas shopping without the media falling all over itself to cover it and to hang on his every word. And any Republican who ever dared to rebut him was just made to look mean and partisan by the fawning Clintonite media.

The problem is the media reports so little of what Bush does and says, barely making note of important presidential trips to India or to the Gulf region and when they do they spend more time on some Democratic nitwit like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi spinning their fanciful deconstructions of the president's words more than they do reporting the substance of what the White House and president are saying.

I will say if by some miracle the media is accurately representing the White House's communications, or lack thereof, then it is a disaster and the communications team all need to be axed. And I'm certainly aware of selective failings like their refusal to show that indeed it does now appear Saddam did have WMD in the run up to the war and that he was a major supporter and trainer of terrorism. I just don't get their reluctance to speak to those facts. But as I say, I have absolutely zero confidence in the US news media so until I see differently I have to believe this is a failure of their biases reporting, NOT of the White House's lack of communications.

Anyway, some on here are all too willing to take the media and their rigged polls seriously. I have no doubt Bush's poll numbers aren't the greatest, but I think the skewed demographics of these polls, particularly on party I.D., are just news creation by the Bush hating media. And just like they did with the media's misreporting of the port's issue, too many Freepers are getting played by the media on the polls and the White House's communication.

[HitmanLV]

There's nothing faux about my frustration.

[pollyannaish]

So, are they zero yet?

Honestly, I half expect to see that one of these days.

[HitmanLV]

When they break down the number into how many democrats and republicans the poll had they didn't, make sure there were more democrats than republicans there just were that many. Who says there are as many republicans as there are democrats. The randomly called people, more happened to be democrats, all the polls so the same thing. This has no affect of the accuracy of the poll, it just tells you there are more democrats than there are republicans right now.

Thank you. Freepers have a pathological need to deny this very straightforward concept.

[MikeA]

See my post #73. You only need to look at the tone of the media's coverage of Bush and how they repeat in absolute lock step everything the president's enemies say about him to know this isn't simply a case of "GOP victimhood." Additionally, when was the last time you saw any negative news reproted about ANY Democrat by the MSM? I'm not talking about Worldnet Daily or Newsmax. I'm talking CNN, ABC, New York Times, etc. You would think the Democrats were running a sterling silver political opposition of incredible high-mindedness by the way the media never turns a critical eye on the not-so-loyal opposition, certainly not in the same eviscerating way it did the Gingrich Republicans when the GOP was in the opposition in the 90s. Remember that? Even a scandal-ridden impeached president got the benefit of the doubt by the media in those days while the president's opponents were painted as being Scrooge on the cover of Time Magazine.

Anyway, check out my post #73. I really think we have to be careful about how much we allow this Pravda-like propaganda machine we call a mainstream news media to shape our perceptions of things.

[jmaroneps37]

Always remember IPSOS means liar in french.

[HitmanLV]

I wasn't clear. The victimhood isn't saying that the media is out to get the GOP. The victimood is in making that an excuse for not communicating a message effectively.

It's just not an excuse (it is a reason, though). The president isn't a spectator in this - he is a player. If for every time the admin fails on a public relations matter, we say 'it's no use, the game is rigged against us,' that's not helpful and really is like the many dem's chronic victim status.

More and more I see the same afflictions impair both liberals and conservatives. Just another side of the same coin. Just the same melody with a different arrangement. It's disheartening to see so-called conservatives find it more comforting to chronically make excuses for failure, rather than take steps to improve the situation.

This is all so...democratic! Talk, after all, is cheap.

[PLOM...NOT!]

Why don't they just save us all alot of time and newsprint and drop him officially down to negative 57.5% or therabouts? This "news" is getting redundant.