Disfavor for Bush Hits Rare Heights; "It's Not Just Iraq. It's Everything."

[BurtWorm]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/24/AR2007072402263_pf.html

In Modern Era, Only Nixon and Truman Scored Worse, Just Barely

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 25, 2007; A03


...

The historic depth of Bush's public standing has whipsawed his White House, sapped his clout, drained his advisers, encouraged his enemies and jeopardized his legacy. Around the White House, aides make gallows-humor jokes about how they can alienate their remaining supporters -- at least those aides not heading for the door. Outside the White House, many former aides privately express anger and bitterness at their erstwhile colleagues, Bush and the fate of his presidency.

Bush has been so down for so long that some advisers maintain it no longer bothers them much. It can even, they say, be liberating. Seeking the best interpretation for the president's predicament, they argue that Bush can do what he thinks is right without regard to political cost, pointing to decisions to send more U.S. troops to Iraq and to commute the sentence of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff.

But the president's unpopularity has left the White House to play mostly defense for the remainder of his term. With his immigration overhaul proposal dead, Bush's principal legislative hopes are to save his No Child Left Behind education program and to fend off attempts to force him to change course in Iraq. The emerging strategy is to play off a Congress that is also deeply unpopular and to look strong by vetoing spending bills.

The president's low public standing has paralleled the disenchantment with the Iraq war, but some analysts said it goes beyond that, reflecting a broader unease with Bush's policies in a variety of areas. "It isn't just the Iraq war," said Shirley Anne Warshaw, a presidential scholar at Gettysburg College. "It's everything."

...

[katmondoo]

1. How can vetoing spending bills help when billions are going to Iraq?

[Amonester]

3. shhhh... The M$M right-wing shills R not supposed to point that out...

Don't give 'em any "temptation" to tell the truth.

Although, maybe 60%+ already know that and despair in the void...

[BurtWorm]

4. Help what? The budget? It can't.

But they're not trying to help the budget. They're just trying to fool enough basers to stop the slide.

[BurtWorm]

2. Congressional Dems have resolved not to impeach Bush for utterly idiotic reasons

See bolded text below:



....

And the president's team takes solace in the fact that the public holds Congress in low esteem, too. More than half disapproved of Congress generally, and Democrats in particular, in the latest Post-ABC survey, though their ratings were still better than Bush's.

The deep antipathy to Bush has fueled grass-roots support for impeachment. Democrats have resolved not to do that, remembering the division when a Republican Congress impeached Bill Clinton in 1998 for perjury and obstruction of justice to cover up his affair with Monica S. Lewinsky. His public support, though, never fell as far as Bush's. Clinton's worst disapproval rating, 51 percent, came during his first term, and he soared to his highest approval rating days after the Lewinsky scandal broke.

As much as Bush advisers dismiss polls, their predecessors in the White House said public rejection invariably drags down the whole institution. "It colors everything you can do," Donatelli said. "Psychologically, it wears on you."

Caddell describes a White House down in the polls in one word: "Awful." "People start going through the motions," he added. "The energy is gone."

[DCKit]

5. So Bush just needs to meet some willing, young slut....

Who wouldn't be totally grossed out by his snickering or Rove and Cheney hanging over his shoulder making sure he didn't screw up getting a BJ?