Posted on 05/25/2002 7:33:40 AM PDT by TaRaRaBoomDeAyGoreLostToday!
A week's worth 9-11 smear-mongering by leading Democrats and their media handmaidens has failed to dent President Bush's popularity, according to the latest CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll.
More than three-quarters of those surveyed gave Bush a positive job approval rating, despite an onslaught of politically motivated accusations that administration officials failed to connect the dots on intelligence data that could have forewarned of the 9-11 attacks.
Sixty percent of those surveyed said the information available before the attacks would not have been enough for administration officials to have predicted what was coming.
Nineteen percent said the Bush administration made "an understandable mistake."
Only 23 percent agreed that Bush officials made "a serious error" in not reading the tea leaves foreshadowing the attacks.
Leading Democrats began their full-scale assault last Thursday, with New York Sen. Hillary Clinton demanding, "What did the president know?" in advance of Sept. 11.
And while some, like House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, have softened their earlier rhetoric, on Friday Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Joe Lieberman was still invoking Watergate-like phraseology to suggest a 9-11 scandal.
"I don't think the question is the old White House question about what did he know and when did he know it?" Lieberman told radioman Don Imus. "The really more important question, as we look back, is what was he told and when was he told it?"
The CNN-USA Today-Gallup survey polled 1,000 adults between May 20-22 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent.
The Associated Press
Published: May 25, 2002
More than half of Americans say the FBI, CIA and President Bush's top advisers bear at least some responsibility for not preventing the Sept. 11 attacks, says a Time-CNN poll. Nearly half - 46 percent - said Bush himself is very or somewhat responsible for a lack of action to stop the attacks.
But 71 percent of those polled said they have confidence the FBI and CIA will prevent future terrorist attacks.
The poll of 1,007 Americans was taken Wednesday and Thursday and has an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Among the poll's other findings:
-About three in four of those polled have paid some or a great deal of attention to the recent terror alerts from the Bush administration. About one-fourth said they have paid little or no attention.
-More than one-fourth of Americans have little or no confidence in the CIA or FBI in preventing future terrorist attacks in the United States.
AP-ES-05-25-02 1522EDT
OK here are some facts on this weeks vote from the USA Today map.
Counties won:
Gore 677
Bush 2,434.
Square miles won:
Gore 580,134
Bush 2,427,039
Population of counties won:
Gore 127 million
Bush 143 million
Murder rates in counties won by:
Gore --- over 13 per 100,000
Bush --- less than 2 per 100,000
And what was the only state that did not have one single county vote for Al Gore? Hint. It was the only state that Bill Clinton never visited during his presidency.
If we were to move to a popular vote in this country those counties up there in blue would be the counties that our politicians would concentrate on. Nebraska would, for all intents and purposes, cease to be a part of this country insofar as presidential politics is concerned. After all, there's a reason Bill Clinton never went to Nebraska while making dozens of trips to California.
Also --- think about this! My bet is if you took those blue counties and compared them to the red counties in terms of federal government spending, you would find out that much more federal money is spent in those blue counties than those red companies. Also --- look for concentration of government workers. Again -- you'll find them in the blue counties.
You want a popular vote for the presidency? I'll assume you don't live in one of those red counties.
NEAL BOORTZ
Instead, Bush stated that he had full confidence in these men and their agencies, and thereby made himself responsible for their incompetencies.
The hypocrisy of the Democrats in attacking Bush over what is basically a Clinton national security policy failure is incredible, however, and so is the duplicity of the liberal media in letting them get away with this.
I predict this will die down like the Enron flap will, as soon as the public is educated by conservative media in the fact that the Clinton Administration's fingerprints are all over this failure.
If the Democrats were thinking, they'd have saved this one for the last week in November, which is usually when they drop their 'bombshell' (eg, the Bush DUI charge) so that it creates maximum hysteria and the shock value doesn't die down before the election.
I suspect Democratic contributions are way down, and hence the Democrats are frantic to reduce Bush's poll numbers this early before the election.
Deep down, I agree with you...but Dubyuh's actions over the last nine months have not borne that out, IMHO. Perhaps he's got a few too many spineless RINOs in his inner circle who preclude him from being as aggressive in pursuing a Conservative Agenda as Dubyuh would be inclined to do naturally.
"He may feel he has to give too much away on domestic issues in order to make any headway on foreign policy...a mistake his father made."
Hotdog, c_c, you nailed it there!! I believe Bush, Jr.'s instincts are properly anti-Big Guv'ment, but he's tending to lead a whole lot like his Daddy. I respected the heck outta Bush, Sr., but I still believe he squandered the momentum created by the Reagan Revolution by trying to meet the DemonRATS half-way. We can't afford to compromise with the RATS, though, we must take them on and destroy them and all they represent. Consensus with Socialists is not a viable option...we must endeavor to dramatically shrink the size and scope of the Federal Leviathan, not slow its relentless growth. If we fail, I fear many principled conservatives will come to the logical conclusion that there really is no significant difference between the Republicrats and Demoblicans, and take their energies to third parties like the Constitution and Libertarian.
FReegards...MUD
And I hope the terrorists that are in our country right now running the political correctness gambit of profiling; with 'their religion' get THEIR arses kicked out of our country PRONTO.
Me too...and I believe...don't think I'm being naiive, because I'm not...I believe that it is up to US to remind the CURRENT Bush administration that the left wing is doing to GW EXACTLY what they did to his father in '92'...and somehow, we have to make the president see and react to this base tactic by the left. Heck, you can see it coming a mile away...it's like an experienced chess player watching a relatively INEXPERIENCED chess player open for a six mover. It's rather obvious.
I disagree 100%.
...Don't bet money on that.
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