The Secrets of September 11
I remember the summer of 2001 very well.
That's when the Presidunce's approval ratings dipped below 50%, and he went on ANOTHER month-long vacation while the FBI and CIA were trying to get him involved in the fight against terrorism, but he was too busy talking to the cows in Crawford, remember?
He said he liked talking to the cows
"because they were good listeners."
You have to agree pdiddie; that conversing with your "peers" is a time honoured tradition for "grate" ones to re"ground" themselves!
Well, he did carry the bovine vote
cows tend to vote with piles on the grass!
Do cows have hanginng chads?
I remember after the Gulf War, Poppy Bush had popularity ratings in the stratosphere. While there's always a predictable 'war bounce,' Junior's seems to be not as big as Poppy's, nor able to sustain itself as long. Americans are starting to have doubts,
and the numbers are dropping already:
I guess not even a custom photo-op with hundreds of live props and an action film entrance can keep those numbers up. Perle and Wolfowitz better invent a new enemy, pronto.
PDiddie -- Opine, if you would, on what the fact that the online poll readers could take at your Newsweek link is quite the reverse of the Princeton poll they quote. I don't think it's just that there are more liberals online. I don't rule out huge anomalies in either method of polling. But I'd just be curious to have other opinions and creative interpretations on this...
Here is a great article in today's Boston Globe Magazine by Ann Kornblut. She really has him as the rigid, stubborn, and mean persona that he shows to the world. Check out the sketch!
http://www.boston.com/globe/magazine/2003/0504/coverstory_entire.htm
By the way, Tartarin, she explains that he was "born again" when he was 40 yrs old...since he was born/hatched originally in 1946, why that would make it 1986! Not too long ago.
VNN -- That's one of the best articles on Bush that I've ever seen. She's got him, cold. The born-again thing was a substitute for AA, in my view, and he was being considered that early on as a puppet-candidate. There must have also been alternatives, in case he screwed up and didn't make it -- I wonder which they were??
Oh, I meant to add -- that explosiveness is not just in Bush but in his followers, including in chat groups. It's an adopted "style." It justifies narrow-mindedness (illiberality) as a form of macho success, sees the world as a battleground. I know I go on and on about this, but the American character in its many faces intrigues me.
I know you have read Norman Mailer's essay on the reason for Dubya's little "war"...for the American macho white male. Geez, you could do a lot of psycho-analyzing on Bush and his family dynamics, particularly with his mommy, Barbara. I am with Mamajuana on this whole neo-con, Rummy, Cheney group, his puppeteers so to speak. They are Byzantine dinosaurs that oozed out after the US became the only super power, but they are also little boys that never grew up. Just like horrid little Dubya. Doesn't make it any less scary to think of them as little boys, though, does it?
According to what I have read, and I maybe wrong, he never did go to AA. Billy Graham helped him to stop drinking and he just stopped.
VNN -- I just posted on another thread something I heard on conspiracy radio last night about Cheney and Rumsfeld which really made sense to me, conspiracy-itis or not! Chilling new hypothesis about the origins of 9/11...
Unfortunately addictive personalities usually need to find a new "fixation".
Tartarin wrote:PDiddie -- Opine, if you would, on what the fact that the online poll readers could take at your Newsweek link is quite the reverse of the Princeton poll they quote. I don't think it's just that there are more liberals online. I don't rule out huge anomalies in either method of polling. But I'd just be curious to have other opinions and creative interpretations on this...
If I am understanding you, then I believe you are refering to this:
...as compared to this:
Quote:Do you have confidence in President Bush's strategy for reviving the U.S. economy?
* 5461 responses
Yes. I think he's on the right track
30%
No. What strategy?
65%
I don't know
5%
I believe the difference is the result of a scientific poll (the Princeton poll for Newsweek) and an unscientific one (the MSNBC online poll).
I have weighed in on the value of polls before (that it is equivalent to toilet paper; its utility is momentarily very high, then decreases rapidly to zero almost immediately) but I would have to add that I consider online polls to be the equivalent of one's daily horoscope printed on toilet paper.
Well, yes, PDiddie, I generally agree with that. But I'm still puzzled by this: Do you think ("scientific") polls follow or lead a trend? I'm more and more convinced it's the latter.
They are not supposed to do either, Tart.
If a truly independent poll is to sample or survey the mood of the public or the electorate on a certain matter, then it should ideally have all the influence on the subject's temperature that an oral thermometer has, no?
But with the advent of professional political pollsters operating on both sides of the aisle, "push"polls, and all the rest, they (polls) can do whatever the persons paying for them want them to do.
Exactly. But not just push polls. And not even polls with slightly pushy questions. What I mean is that we have a country full of people who like to either be part of the majority or appear to be part of the majority when asked about something in public. There are a lot of factors contributing to that, but among them are the media and the desire of people to seem "informed" -- i.e., in line with what their news providers tell them, which is very limited stuff and often tends to be more opinion than fact. News consumers even adopt the same language as CNN and Fox and all those guys. And then the pollsters use the same vocabulary as the media. As voters (and as consumers, god knows) we like to think we are free to choose, but a multiple choice question doesn't give you freedom, it just gives you options. Big difference. In my view, polling may seriously corrupt the process.
I thought it was impossible to fall off these things:
Bush falls off Segway
Dubya and Poppy out for a ride:
Look, Ma! One hand!
