Public disgruntlement neared a record high and President Bush slipped to his career low in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll.
Eighty-two percent of Americans now say the country's seriously off on the wrong track, up 10 points in the last year to a point from its record high in polls since 1973. And 31 percent approve of Bush's job performance overall, while 66 percent disapprove.
Click here for a PDF with charts and full questionnaire. The country's mood -- and the president's ratings -- are suffering from the double whammy of an unpopular war and a faltering economy. Consistently for the last year, nearly two-thirds of Americans have said the war in Iraq was not worth fighting. And consumer confidence is near its lowest in weekly ABC News polls since late 1985....
Views on the nation's overall direction are sour across the board, again with a partisan and ideological slant: While 95 percent of Democrats and 86 percent of independents say the country's off on the wrong track, this eases to 62 percent of Republicans and 66 percent of conservatives.
In February, the Washington Post ran an article exposing John McCain's criminal campaign finance activity. The Chair of the FEC, David Mason, a Republican, wrote to McCain explaining how the FEC, not John McCain, decides the campaign finance law:
Mason's letter raises two issues as the basis for his position. One is that the six-member commission lacks a quorum, with four vacancies because of a Senate deadlock over President Bush's nominees for the seats. Mason said the FEC would need to vote on McCain's request to leave the system, which is not possible without a quorum. Until that can happen, the candidate will have to remain within the system, he said.
The second issue is more complicated. It involves a $1 million loan McCain obtained from a Bethesda bank in January. The bank was worried about his ability to repay the loan if he exited the federal financing program and started to lose in the primary race. McCain promised the bank that, if that happened, he would reapply for matching money and offer those as collateral for the loan. While McCain's aides have argued that the campaign was careful to make sure that they technically complied with the rules, Mason indicated that the question needs further FEC review.
If the FEC refuses McCain's request to leave the system, his campaign could be bound by a potentially debilitating spending limit until he formally accepts his party's nomination. His campaign has already spent $49 million, federal reports show. Knowingly violating the spending limit is a criminal offense that could put McCain at risk of stiff fines and up to five years in prison.
It doesn't help that the FEC is hamstrung by Mitch McConnell's refusal to allow votes on new commissioners. But, one commissioner who now won't get re-nominated by President Bush is the guy who called McCain's scam: David Mason.
Mr. Bush is purging the current F.E.C. chairman, David Mason, presumably because he was responsible enough to challenge the funding machinations of Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign. Mr. Mason shocked his fellow Republicans by notifying Mr. McCain that he might run afoul of the law by switching from public funding to private donations once he secured the party’s nomination.
John McCain is a campaign finance criminal. He's scamming the public finance system -- and his new best friend, George Bush, is aiding and abetting the crime.
"President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more specific and said `mission accomplished' for these sailors who are on this ship on their mission," White House press secretary Dana Perino said Wednesday. "And we have certainly paid a price for not being more specific on that banner. And I recognize that the media is going to play this up again tomorrow, as they do every single year."
She said what is important now is "how the president would describe the fight today. It's been a very tough month in Iraq, but we are taking the fight to the enemy."
At least 49 U.S. troops died in Iraq in April, making it the deadliest month since September when 65 U.S. troops died.
Now in its sixth year, the war in Iraq has claimed the lives of at least 4,061 members of the U.S. military. Only the Vietnam War (August 1964 to January 1973), the war in Afghanistan (October 2001 to present) and the Revolutionary War (July 1776 to April 1783) have engaged America longer.
Sure, Bush paid the price. But 49 more soldiers are dead in this endless war.
These people are unbelievable. They still don't get it. They actually think Bush is the victim here. Watch the pundits all agree. Poor Bush. It wasn't his fault the sign was wrong or the war has been a disaster.
It's sick. And, don't forget, last year, Laura Bush told us that when it comes to Iraq, "no one suffers more than their President and I do."
President Bush has set a record he'd presumably prefer to avoid: the highest disapproval rating of any president in the 70-year history of the Gallup Poll.
In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday, 28% of Americans approve of the job Bush is doing; 69% disapprove. The approval rating matches the low point of his presidency, and the disapproval sets a new high for any president since Franklin Roosevelt.
The previous record of 67% was reached by Harry Truman in January 1952, when the United States was enmeshed in the Korean War.
Bush's rating has worsened amid "collapsing optimism about the economy," says Charles Franklin, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies presidential approval. Record gas prices and a wave of home foreclosures have fueled voter angst.
And, John McCain, who doesn't know all that much about the economy, wants to inherit the Bush mantle and run on the Bush legacy. Okay.
Oil hits a new high today and closes at $113.79 after testing $114. We're now in a no mans land and it's not going to take much to test $115. Gordon Brown and Bush can groan all they like but they should have thought about the consequences of invading Iraq and promoting conservation long ago. Since the US and UK invaded Iraq the cost of oil has gone through the roof and it's not going to ease up just because two leaders of two countries that the oil producing countries detest have a public temper tantrum.
President Bush's approval trend has taken a sharp downturn in recent weeks, to fall to a new low for the administration at 28.3%. This follows a lengthy period of stable approval at around 32-33%.
Recent polls from Gallup and AP/Ipsos put approval at 28%, a new low for the Gallup poll. Harris recently found approval at 26% while CBS News put approval at 28%. Pew similarly has approval at 28%, though the Diageo/Hotline result for registered voters (as opposed to adults in the other polls) has approval at 35%, the only recent poll over 30%.
This chart from Pollster.com is fascinating. And, McCain wants to be Bush. Okay.
Odd how we no longer hear "all options are on the table" from Bush these days, isn't it? Once again we see Bush exposed for the ridiculous fraud that we've known him to be for years. Even Reagan would have told China to pound salt, though somehow I doubt he would have agreed to go in the first place.
As I wrote the other day, the NYT can self-censor as much as it wants, the Republicans will continue to bash them anyway (and they did). This is the best never-published lede ever, from Krugman:
I’m almost never censored at the Times. However, I was told that I couldn’t use the lede I originally wrote for my column following the 2007 State of the Union address, in which Bush made ethanol the centerpiece of his energy strategy:
“Before the State of the Union address, there had been hints and hopes that President Bush would offer a serious plan to reduce our dependence on imported oil. Instead, however, he took refuge in alcohol.”
Put aside his false statements (OK, lies) that the abstinence programs work and put aside his strange comment about not wanting to give money to people who steal from the people (cough, Iraq, cough Halliburton, cough) and you still have an amazing quote from Bush. He has to be the center of attention and it must be driving him mad that he's become a complete has-been and is irrelevant.
At the news conference, both leaders dodged a question about the presidential race in the United States and the candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., whose father was Kenyan.
Bush, momentarily taken aback by a question about the excitement surrounding Obama's candidacy, said: "Seems like there was a lot of excitement for me."
Gee, our president is once again calling Democrats soft on national security and at the same time an internal Defense Department study says that the Bush administration's malfeasance killed and injured 100s of Marines unnecessarily. Will the Democrats finally turn this issue around on Bush?
Hundreds of U.S. Marines have been killed or injured by roadside bombs in Iraq because Marine Corps bureaucrats refused an urgent request in 2005 from battlefield commanders for blast-resistant vehicles, an internal military study concludes.
The study, written by a civilian Marine Corps official and obtained by The Associated Press, accuses the service of "gross mismanagement" that delayed deliveries of the mine-resistant, ambush-protected trucks for more than two years.
Cost was a driving factor in the decision to turn down the request for the so-called MRAPs, according to the study. Stateside authorities saw the hulking vehicles, which can cost as much as a $1 million each, as a financial threat to programs aimed at developing lighter vehicles that were years from being fielded.
Okay, somehow Mitch McConnell and his band of right wingers in the Senate think they can trick the American people into thinking McCain is somehow different from Bush. But when all the Republicans support a bad policy, like torture, McCain is implicated. He's one of them and everyone knows it. It's all Bush-McCain policy now:
Senate Republicans are circling their wagons around Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) — a significant strategic shift to protect their presumptive presidential nominee and leave President Bush more isolated.
They opted to avoid a showdown with Democrats on Wednesday over an intelligence bill dealing with torture. By punting the issue to the White House, the GOP helped shield McCain from claims he and his party condone waterboarding, which simulates drowning, and other harsh interrogation methods.
Instead of blocking passage of the bill using procedural maneuvers, Republicans let it come to a vote. It cleared along party lines, 51-45, and now goes to President Bush, who has promised a veto.
Figures a Capitol Hill publication fell for this attempt at GOP spin, but it doesn't make any sense. There is no shield for McCain. Based on today's vote it is clear that he and his party condone torture. McCain and Bush lead the GOP now. A Bush veto is a McCain veto. They're the same thing. It's really not that complicated.
Quack, quack, quack. That said, the Washington Post does a fine job of quoting the always popular John Bolton *and* Ed Gillespie just so we can have both sides of the debate. Nice work, fellows! They even manage to quote one person in the the region who complains about American isolationism. So after seven years of expensive overseas failure and a crashing economy at home, is it OK to just leave such a remark out there without question? It's more a sign of well-founded concern at home and frustration with Bush-specific failures and less a sign of any long term trend. Why has the Post become so lousy?
Hence the alarmed reaction of M. Giscard and M. Balladur. M. Giscard, 81, told a committee of the French National Assembly he would not be a candidate but added that the job must go only to a politician from a country which "respected all Europe's commitments" and whose public opinion was whole-heartedly European. In other words, no Tony Blair and no Brits.
M. Balladur, who was prime minister from 2003 to 2005, said in the newspaper Le Monde: "To be accepted by all, the president of the Union must come from a country... determined to build European independence, especially in defence and foreign affairs.
"How could Mr Blair embody this ambition when, in the disastrous episode in Iraq, he always clung zealously to the views of the US or even incited them? Mr Blair is, for sure, a remarkable person but he cannot be the symbol of a Europe which wants to exist."
Let's just say the reviews are about as positive as they have ever been in the region. That reminds me...no news on the Saudi blogger being imprisoned.
Seldom has an American President's visit left the region so underwhelmed, confirming Bush's huge unpopularity on the street and his sagging credibility among Arab leaders he counts as allies. Part of the problem was the Administration's increasingly mixed message, amplified by the intense media coverage of his trip. For example, in Dubai he gave what the White House billed as a landmark speech calling for "democratic freedom in the Middle East." But during his last stop in Sharm el-Sheikh Wednesday, he lauded President Hosni Mubarak as an experienced, valued strategic partner for regional peace and security and made no mention of Cairo's ongoing crackdown on opponents and critics - and the continuing imprisonment of Mubarak's main opponent in the 2005 presidential election.
Who needs to study history any way? What could we possibly learn about people lying to drag a country into war? Then again, if you were drunk or blowing coke at the time, you might not have remembered any of it anyway.
The author of the report "demonstrates that not only is it not true, as (then US) secretary of defense Robert McNamara told Congress, that the evidence of an attack was 'unimpeachable,' but that to the contrary, a review of the classified signals intelligence proves that 'no attack happened that night,'" FAS said in a statement.
"What this study demonstrated is that the available intelligence shows that there was no attack. It's a dramatic reversal of the historical record," Aftergood said.
Just days before Bush departs for his Middle East tour, the Pentagon reports a "significant provocative act" from Iran. Unbelievable (quite literally). The boy who cried wolf strikes again. Somehow I feel like we've been here before.
I understand the commercial benefits to American companies, but why does Bush want to provide high tech help to China, who may then sell to Syria and Iran? Is Bush on America's side or not? How does this sale benefit the country and our long term national security? More on the Bush change, after the jump.
Six months ago, the Bush administration quietly eased some restrictions on the export of politically delicate technologies to China. The new approach was intended to help American companies increase sales of high-tech equipment to China despite tight curbs on sharing technology that might have military applications.
But today the administration is facing questions from weapons experts about whether some equipment — newly authorized for export to Chinese companies deemed trustworthy by Washington — could instead end up helping China modernize its military. Equally worrisome, the weapons experts say, is the possibility that China could share the technology with Iran or Syria.
The technologies include advanced aircraft engine parts, navigation systems, telecommunications equipment and sophisticated composite materials.
The questions raised about the new policy are in a report to be released this week by the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, an independent research foundation that opposes the spread of arms technologies.
