Wow. Abe Lincoln Would Be Proud

You can fool all of the people some of the time. But you can only fool 34% of the people all the time:

Poll: Bush Ratings At All-Time Low : (CBS) The latest CBS News poll finds President Bush's approval rating has fallen to an all-time low of 34 percent, while pessimism about the Iraq war has risen to a new high.... CBS News senior White House correspondent Jim Axelrod reports that now it turns out the Coast Guard had concerns about the ports deal, a disclosure that is no doubt troubling to a president who assured Americans there was no security risk from the deal.... In a separate poll, two out of three Americans said they do not think President Bush has responded adequately to the needs of Katrina victims. Only 32 percent approve of the way President Bush is responding to those needs, a drop of 12 points from last September’s poll, taken just two weeks after the storm made landfall.

Impeach George W. Bush. Impeach Richard Cheney. Do it now.

Comments

[Arun Khanna]

I don't want to say anything against Abe Lincoln but doesn't his saying imply that there are no fools in America (hence one needs to make a fool of some Americans).

[tech98]

Only 32 percent approve of the way President Bush is responding to [the needs of Katrina victims].

32% approve on KATRINA?
Is the Pro-Drowning, Pro-City-Destroying lobby really that large?
To paraphrase Einstein, the most powerful force in the universe is Republican stupidity.

[ogmb]

"32% approve on KATRINA?"

Always an interesting conversation starter: What would Dubya have to do to get the bullwark 35%, the ones that stood by him when he nominated Hurricane Harriet for SCOTUS, to turn their backs on the preznit?

[Steven Andrew Miller]

Two things:

#1 This is not a poll of "likely voters." CBS very carefully uses the term "Americans."

#2 Check page 18 of the PDF file.

http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/poll_bush_022706.pdf

Total Respondents: 1018
Total Republicans: 272 (weighted up to 289 )
Total Democrats: 409 (weighted down to 381)
Total Independents: 337 (weighted up to 348)

This poll is trash.

[leo]

The numbers on the economy (32%) were revealing especially when to hear every "Business" show across the nation, things are booming.

I sometimes think, if the Depression happened today, would it even be reported?

[ogmb]

> #1 This is not a poll of "likely voters." CBS very carefully uses the term "Americans."

This is not an election poll, it's a poll on how "Americans" think about current events.

> #2 Check page 18 of the PDF file.

Yup. Does not seem popular to self-identify as Republican right now.

[liberal]

Steven Andrew Miller wrote, "This poll is trash."

Just because they re-weight people based on party affiliation doesn't make the poll trash.

[ajay]

Yes, what's your point? That any poll that fails to include equal numbers of each party is flawed? Maybe - shock - there aren't equal numbers of each party. If those numbers were for men and women, then I'd agree it wasn't representative.

And I wish I could find the link to the blogger who pointed out that the hard floor for Bush and Republicans generally is 27%, because this was the Keyes vote in Keyes-Obama. Couldn't have been a racial or gender element, obviously - both men were black. Couldn't have been local preference - both men were from out of state. And it couldn't have been that they thought Keyes personally was a better candidate, because he was obviously, definitely insane. No (this blogger, whoever he was, concluded)
the fact is that 27% of the US population will just vote for anyone with (R) after their name.
People talk about Yellow Dog voters, but no one had ever actually run the experiment until then.

[Michael Robinson]

ajay: "No (this blogger, whoever he was, concluded)
the fact is that 27% of the US population will just vote for anyone with (R) after their name."

Or, more to the point, will just vote against anyone with (D) after their name.

[debbiehamil]

My friend’s daughter is being deployed to Iraq. This is just terrible and senseless, but it is being replayed all over our country. I am sick about this, because I have no power alone to do anything about it. Together we can make a difference. Now that Bush’s approval rating on the handling of Iraq is only at 30%, we need to push Murtha’s plan:

To immediately redeploy U.S. troops consistent with the safety of U.S. forces.
To create a quick reaction force in the region.
To create an over- the- horizon presence of Marines.
To diplomatically pursue security and stability in Iraq

The people need to “speak up” against continuing this war. It is over. Iraq is close to or in a civil war. A civil war is not our fight. Please write to everyone you can think of and push them to end this madness. We need to bring our troops home before we lose anymore of our true treasure – our men and women.

[Barry]

"I sometimes think, if the Depression happened today, would it even be reported?"

Posted by: leo

Waves of business bankruptcies, and the stock market tanking? Certainly.

And the lazy trash in the breadlines would be blamed.

[ajay]

The "27% crazy" figure is from Rogers at http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2005/10/lunch-discussions-145-crazification.html. Thanks to Richard White for emailing me the link.

[Howard]

ajay, thanx for that: it's a very interesting point, although whether you can extrapolate from illinois to the country as a whole....

anyhow, it fits with my point, which is the support richard nixon retained until very nearly the end was around 25%, and even at the end, it was in the teens.

as for steven andrew miller: presumably, he's just another college republican propaganda robot. when i see piffle like his, i truly fear for the american educational system, since apparently we are turning out people with enough ability to type and operate a computer but without any ability to think.

[dubblblind]

"32% approve on KATRINA?"

"Is the Pro-Drowning, Pro-City-Destroying lobby really that large?"

Is the Katrina pork barrel group really that large? is what I was thinking.

Two thirds of the money has already been spent and they haven't even cleaned up the rubble yet, let alone rebuilt anything. Just like in Iraq, when this administration gets to spending taxpayer money it disappears into well connected pockets and produces little in the way of tangible results.

[Steven Engelhardt]

ajay,

Barack Obama was not from out of state. He was an IL state senator from 1996 until winning his U.S. senate seat. Outside of a three-year stint at Harvard Law, he has lived in Chicago since a year after graduating college.

[foo]

The astonishing thing about this poll is how high Bush'd rating is. Yes, you have the 20-27% that will give him the thumbs up even as he applies the thumb screws.

But there is still the ~8% who could turn against him. What is their threshold? How much evidence of corruption, incompetence and weakness do they need?

[ogmb]

"although whether you can extrapolate from illinois to the country as a whole...."

I was gonna say, if you adjust for inter-state variation the number becomes more like 35%.

[John]

My wife, who watches TV news, told me the news report said Bush's approval rating was less than 50%. No mention of 34%. This is the Dallas/Ft Worth area. Yep. Now how is that for reporting?

Unfortunately, she did not note which channel.

[DuckedApe]

Impeach, impeach...and what about damages? Do we sue before, after, or both?

[Charles]

Oh, come on, Brad.

Bush is still waaaay above the 10 percent who never get the word.

Plenty more ponies for Holden. A whole herd of 'em.

http://tinyurl.com/g2c5d

[MDtoMN]

You know how Bush's popularity was slight above 90% after 911? I like to think that the ~5% who opposed him represent the exception to Lincoln's "You can fool all of the people some of the time."

[ajay]

"Barack Obama was not from out of state" - quite right, I was quoting the original from memory and got that bit wrong. Sorry. Read the whole thing from kfmonkey.
The point they were making is that Keyes was from out of state, and thus his 27% support couldn't be due to a strong local support base.