It's official: Bush's approval is actually DOWN after SOTU

[lancdem]

Fox has him at 53 percent (down from 58 percent), and Newsweek has him at 50 percent (down from 54 percent). Has this ever happened? Karl Rove is supposed to be some genius, but Bush's speech was pathetic, and it was drowned out by Kerry and Edwards' surprisingly strong Iowa performances. Go Dems!!!

http://www.pollingreport.com (Newsweek poll hasn't been posted there yet. I saw it another thread.)

[MidwestTransplant]

1. In my opinion

Howard Dean's scream helped to mute any bounce that Bush would have received from the SOTU since it made the SOTU a one news cycle event and focused the attention back on the Dems. which is what Karl Rove was trying to avoid.

[aquart]

4. No amount of attention to the the SOTU could have helped.

It stank. It bordered on insanity. It offered nothing to help and endless ways to hurt.

Karl Rove's genius days are over. Onset of Alzheimer's? Hardening of the arteries? Thyroid problems? His brain is coming up with dud after dud after dud.

Of course, no matter how much lipstick you put on a pig, eventually people with notice it's a pig and not a beauty queen.

[lancdem]

8. You seem to be to somethng re: Rove

how else to explain that really bad immigration proposal that backfired? Who knows, maybe Rove is worried about being fingered in Plamegate now that a grand jury has been impaneled.

[Beetwasher]

19. Rove is a MORON. He Always Has Been

He's a ham fisted thug with a limited bag of tricks. Here's what I think of him:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=436436

In summation:

I've never shared the opinion of many that Rove is brilliant. I've always thought he was a low-brow, ham fisted goon with a few obvious moves: Massive full frontal attack, or backstab and bait and switch. He's over rated.

He didn't get the Chimp in by WINNING the election. If he could have done it that way, with smarts and finesse, I would say it was brilliant. To actually successfully sell a defective product takes brilliance. His tactics however, were ruthless thuggery and threats of violence and complete reliance on the Supreme Court. Nothing brilliant there. The Chimps approval ratings skyrocketed because of 9/11, not Rove's brilliance. A brilliant Political strategist would have been able to sustain those numbers. Rove is unable to do that and has NEVER been able to do that. He's a moron and he sucks at his job. He doesn't understand subtlety or nuance or the big picture. He's neither the intellect, the insight or the instincts of a brilliant person. What he does have is vicious ruthlessness in abundance and a propensity to take big risks. That's not brilliant, as a matter of fact, with no sense of moderation, it's quite stupid.

[petrock2004]

23. you're absolutely right

and between that and picturing piggy rovewith lipstick on (thanks aquart) i'm laughing til milk comes out of my nose...

(and of course he's wearing high heels and fishnets)

ooh more milk!!! gotta clean the keyboard lmao!!!!!

[priller]

24. I'm with you, beetwasher

Rove's success has more to do with audacity and viciousness than with any brilliance.

[demothinker]

29. Underestimating your opponent

is the best way to lose to him.

Remember this, Bu$h may not have won the election, but Rove was smart enough to get Bu$h in position to be able to steal it. Since Gore should have won in a landslide, I'd say that was a pretty monumentous feat.

I know that we want to look our noses down at the Bu$h cabal, but the best thing to do is to treat them as brilliant-overestimating them is far better than underestimating them. Err on the side of caution...

[dusty64]

27. I think he's terrified

he may be indicted at any minute and is not getting much sleep. How many bets he'll be one of the first to get a pardon after chimp is dethroned.

[alfredo]

30. No matter how good the salesman, if the product stinks

it will fail.

[lastknowngood]

2. If you chocolate coat a turd

it looks like a Baby Ruth but once you get taste you know the difference.

[Comadreja]

3. Yar yar

:7

[calimary]

5. EEEWWWW! Disgusting! Which precisely pegs these bushies!

They are ALL chocolate-coated turds. Including their publicly acknowledged turd - KKKarl "Turd Blossom" Rove. How 'bout that? Turds coming home to roost.

[snippy]

31. LOL ! I will have to take your word for this.

[Fovea]

6. Fork Bush

He's done. His speech was a digrace. He showed America exactly how out of touch he was. His Iraq war assertions, his tax cut and PATRIOT act speil were met with shocked silence by everyone but the Republican cheering section. And if you looked at them, you could see the ones who were the true believers, and the frightened sheep.

But the speech shows what RoveCo is up against. This was the opening shot of their campaign, and it should have been jollier than the B&B circus. Instead, it floped onto the floor and died, where it currently lies, gathering flies like swine lake.

This adds up for zero chance for Bush to beat any candidate with a clearly opposable thumb.

[lancdem]

10. LOL!

Love your last line. BTW, Ruy Texiera has written some recent posts on how independents are much closer to the Dems on issues than they are to the Repukes. So the polarization isn't between Repukes and Dems, but between Repukes AND EVERYONE ELSE. The SOTU illustrates that perfectly.

[madrchsod]

13. out of touch??

i thought his steroid part of the speech was timely and important. well maybe years ago..this guy hasn`t enough brains to realize that no one gives a shit about riods -people care about putting a roof over their heads and feeding themselves and their families. they want jobs or better jobs,decent working conditions, and more time off. they want to live in safe surroundings,free from crimes and violence.there were no issues that bush said even touched on anything the Americans want. all we got from this little boy is fear and death,lies and deception.is that is the state of the union?-lies and deceit,fear and death???

[are_we_united_yet]

32. Man great prose!!

:)

[alcuno]

7. Apparently, the answer is "yes". They have gone down.

Here's a link.

http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1056757/posts

[Nite Owl]

9. Who are these

50-53% anyway? It should be more like 30%, 40% at the most. If only the media told the truth about him there's no way he could even be that high.

[lancdem]

11. True

[JohnOneillsMemory]

20. Those who don't read or are religiously insane. My fallow merkins...n/t

[OneTwentyoNine]

12. What??...the sheep finally waking up to all these BS promises??? damn

Hard to belive,heads are probably rolling at Faux,Pigboy is being chastized by Rover. Well,you can only spoon feed BS for so long before it caves in...


David

[BeatleBoot]

14. "WMD Related Program Activities"

Need he say more?

[Bucky]

15. Kar Rove *is* a genius. But imagine daVinci working w/ crayons.

An artist is often limited by the materials he has at hand and the medium in which he creates. Karl Rove is a political genius, but there's really only so much one can do if your Pinocchio is George W Bush.

[Pax Argent]

21. Its not just Bush's shortcomings that are bringing them down

Its the fact that with the Repugs controlling every lever of government at this point they are still wildly out of control fiscally, domestically, and in foreign policy.

Bush's administration is also straight-jacketed by their own hard-right ideology that they've stood on so rigidly for the past few years. It doesn't leave them many places to go without appearing inconsistent to their base. Blind adherence to dogma is what keeps the faithful faithful.

Bush's performance over the past few months is reminiscent of a college student cramming for his finals on the night before the test. He's trying to stack up "victories" and "visions" on things that the middle would care about, and is giving his base fits while confusing the hell out of the folks he's trying to impress in the process.

Rove's challenge is not just to sell the American people an incompetent candidate, but an hidebound, ideologically limited philosophy that ultimately harms those that he's trying to sell it to. Granted, he has the corporate media to assist, but its still a hard sell, especially when we are now looking down the barrel of three years worth of the failure of these policies.

[TahitiNut]

16. As Pinnochio's nose grows ...

... even the most skilled puppeteer can't keep Pinnochio from knocking over water glasses and falling on his face. Watch for a stronger string to be attached to the nose. Karen Hughes has returned to handle that one.

It's Howdy Doodoo time, it's Howdy Doodoo time!

[annagull]

17. The Andy Rooney SOTU speech

saw this on Bill Maher last night. He said Bush's SOTU speech was like an Andy Rooney monologue:
You know what I hate? Gay people. I also hate steroids. Education is good, I like that...

[JohnOneillsMemory]

18. The silly 'Mars' proposal set up that ole "he's oughtta touch" dynamic.

Since the * cabal has been sitting on the FEAR button, the public is heads down on very earthly survival issues.

The Mars mission proposal was rejected by 60% of those polled, it wasn't mentioned in the SOTU. It had become a Leno-Letterman joke.

This had the same effect that his father's surprise at a supermarket checkout scanner had. It spells out: THIS GUY DOESN'T HAVE A CLUE ABOUT MY LIFE.

And so now every Dem candidate looks much more 'like me' to the undecideds.

[Ridley Park 704]

22. haha you guys n gals are funny

the replies to this post are some of the funniest i've seen.

Bush talking about steroids in a SOTU speech was about as relevant to the American people as Bush talking about tax incentives for thimble manufacturers.

Yeah, I agree, Rove can only do so much.

[drb]

25. The smirking took him under....

....especially the half-dozen, "I can't believe they're falling for this tired old bullshit" smirks....

[SharonAnn]

28. And what about "you stick your tongue out between your lips"

Did you see this article from Greg Palast?

http://www.gregpalast.com/

I thought this "and then that little tongue came out; that weird way you stick your tongue out between your lips like the little kid who knows he's fibbing. Like a snake licking a rat. I saw that snakey tongue dart out and I thought, "He knows."" was great!

[PurityOfEssence]

26. It was bad on all levels

There was no oomph, it was very blah on content, it was delivered poorly, it used bad rhetorical techniques in a bad way (such as the introducing of the Iraqi) and it pointedly avoided the obvious. Where was Mars?

The last two were at least somewhat memorable, but this one was like the bad last sequel of an overblown action movie franchise.