Tuesday, February 28, 2006


The Politics of Ignorance and Arrogance


Apologists for the Bush Administration will do their best to spin yet another poll showing Bush at an all-time low once again, but they will do so at their own peril.

Let's just put some of the pieces together, shall we?

The most recent CBS poll puts the President's approval rating at 34% - lower than ever before. The Apologists will blame the "liberal media." Let's say they're right. Show me the poll that puts the President's numbers significantly higher than this, then. You choose.

When I was writing about the Vice President's public relations fiasco in Texas, the Apologists kept repeating over and over that it was a "non-story." Obviously not, as Cheney's numbers have fallen to an abysmal 18%. As in EIGHTY-TWO PERCENT of those polled disapprove of the Vice President. How do you like THOSE "non-stories?"

The Apologists will then state that "polls simply don't matter." This Administration doesn't govern according to polls. Let's again say they're right. Let's look at some of the other mounting evidence of the continued impotence of the Bush Administration, and let's try to frame it in the context of traditional Republican beliefs and values.

$300 billion spent (thus far) on a war that was supposed to cost $65 billion, and then completely mismanaged, placing our troops needlessly in harm's way, with no exit strategy in place and a civil war erupting.

A national debt of $8.2 trillion dollars, nearly double what it was five years ago. And they say that Democrats are the ones with the open purse strings.

A one trillion dollar annual trade deficit - $220 billion with China alone - in a single year.

Skyrocketing gas and energy prices, while the companies providing those energies reap the biggest profits in history.

While all of this deficit spending continues, the Administration fights to make the tax cuts permanent - tax cuts that a vast majority of Americans will never see.

For ALL of the details, please read Stephen Pizzo's article - I've summarized a few of the points for the sake of brevity, but you really must read his article to understand fully the utter failure of this Administration.

Is all this just a little too "liberal" for my Apologist readers who stop by from time to time? Well, then let's hear from the Republicans:
"We have to acknowledge we have a President who is not popular… The war in Iraq is the 800 lb. gorilla in the room and a major downturn could drown anything we do… We won in 1994 because we promised small government and going into the 2006 elections this is key idea we have abandoned." - Pat Toomey, former Pennsylvania Republican Congressman, and head of the Conservative-based Club For Growth.

"I feel the Republican Party in my state and nationally is a party that has lost its way… we need to find our way back to a reason to vote Republican." - John Andrews, Former Colorado State Senator.

"I believe these scandals are the end of the 1994 Revolution… all this seriously threatens the Republican majority. It might be hard to shrink government as we promised. But it's not that hard to be honest and we haven't." - John Shaddeg, Congressman from Arizona.
The point here is that every President will make mistakes (perhaps not in the volume of the Bush Administration), but the most damnable act is the simple arrogance of the Administration and its Administration to pretend that everything's fine. Stay the course. Sound familiar?

The sheer idiocy of watching this Administration march blindly off the edge of a cliff, seemingly because neither Bush nor Cheney will be running for office in 2008, simply baffles me. What they fail to understand is that these arrogant actions doom not only their place in history, but the future of the Republican party for quite some time to come.

For the faithful PTFers who have come this far, here's your reward... enjoy.

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Posted by FleshPresser at 3:23 PM /

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