Polls So Very Droll

If you believe the press and polls, everyone, including Republicans now, hate George W. Bush. To me, that conventional wisdom seemed unwise. If people like me backed Bush, but felt he wasn't pushing hard enough, aggressively enough and were asked poorly worded questions--either too broad or too narrow to really be accurate then the President's ratings could very well be in the tank, but it didn't explain the stubborn resistance of most Americans to defunding the war in Iraq. How can people hate the Commander in Chief and simultaneously want his command funded?

Given that context, this news makes sense:

The poll also shows that rank-and-file Republicans have higher regard for the president than they do Republicans in Congress. They gave GOP lawmakers a 63% job-approval rating, 13 points below Bush's. And 72% of Republicans do not think Bush made a mistake sending U.S. troops to Iraq.

So if congressional Republicans figure the key to re-election in 2008 is taking a hard line against Bush on Iraq, they could be dead wrong. They might lure some independents, but they risk alienating their GOP base. To win, you need solid support from your base plus independents, not independents alone.

Additionally, I've noted before the silly framing of the Republican candidates as "weak" while the Democrats are ripe with fruity choices. Well, they are and they aren't. The Democrats have as many or more problems with the election as the front-running Republicans right now, but don't tell the media that. Newsbusters Warren Todd Huston point's to the Boston Globe's Robert Kuttner's love (or is it lust) proclaimed for all things Democrat:

Kuttner... again in his show of non-love... then ridiculously equates Obama as someone on the level of a Martin Luther King, Jr. or a Vaclav Havel. And, reaching for the height of absurdity, he then imagines Obama to be just like Thomas Jefferson. Yet, any perusal of these three men’s lives would show far more accomplishment, that they are men of far more consequence than Obama’s life has yet revealed. Obama appears as but a mere dabbler in achievement compared to Kuttner’s three men of history.

No, Kuttner hasn't fallen in love with Obama at all. You can REALLY tell that!

The syrup virtually drips from his pen.

Finally, Kuttner ends his piece with this laugher:

I could be wrong, of course. John Edwards, with his authentic populism, would also make a formidable nominee. Clinton, despite her flaws, has always done better than her detractors predict.

“Authentic populism”? John Edwards!? The man who owns HOW many palatial homes is an example of “authentic populism”?

In the same Boston Globe piece, the Republican candidates get savaged. Of course, they do! Just like everyone, EVERYONE, hates the President, the hopes for the next Presidential election are lost, LOST, I tell you!

The press believes that if they keep telling a big enough lie long enough, everyone will believe them. On Iraq, it seems that their drumbeats of doom have worked. But that is only because Americans hate the ambivalence of a war like this. With the Presidential election, two years out even, the press may be mis-playing their hand. It's a long time before people vote and you know that short attention span the press counts on when it comes to the dull-witted masses? Well, that sword cuts both ways.

Not that the press could lose much more credibility, but don't they realize that this agenda pushing is obvious? Ditto, Hollywood.