Who are the one in four that like this clown?

[RBS]

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Bush_s_..._06212007.html

[rollhead]

Well, we have quite a few right here on this site. Coda, Willy, Gordon B., Monte -- to name just four.

The fact that George W. Bush still does better in the polls than Richard Nixon is astonishing to me.

Nixon looks like Abraham Lincoln next to George W. Bush.

[patricia]

There are still those, I'm assuming, who admire Bush's "Ah shucks" persona and think that he was somehow macho in taking the country into two wars.
After all, shootin', dyin' and wholesale blowin' up of entire countries makes better TV than does a slew of foreign and domestic guys in suits sitting around talking.
Scenes of negotiation don't call for flightsuits and other custom-made military regalia for one's photo-ops.
Sometimes a picture is considered to be much more valuable than merely a thousand words.
This would be even more applicable if one's entire vocabulary is perhaps a thousand words total.
So, the obvious choice for a George W Bush would be the military one, with the cool planes, guns, bombs and opportunity to sacrifice other people's family members' lives.

[Gentle Giant]

14 in 48 hours.

Lame duck, my ass.

[Noj]

People who support George W. Bush care more about preserving the American way of life than preserving life in general. If innocents on the other side of the globe die so that we can maintain the status quo at home, many say, "so be it." Therefore every complaint about how fucked up things are over there or how poorly the war is being handled is dismissed as liberal posturing. The hold-outs who support George W. Bush do not feel guilty about innocent dead people, they believe wholeheartedly that war for oil is necessary. Our economy requires that we control the world's oil supply in order to function. Establishing a base of operations in Iraq is crucial to achieving this goal. Am I wrong, Monte, Gordon, Willy, Coda?

[guy]

Originally Posted by Noj

People who support George W. Bush care more about preserving the American way of life

I can't speak for his supporters, but as far as people actually involved in this administration -- if this say this is their goal, they are incompetent fools and/or completely mendacious.

Guy

[Noj]

Well, I'm trying to speak for them, since they never actually defend themselves. The arguments against said position are very well established.

[Al in NYC]

Originally Posted by Noj

People who support George W. Bush care more about preserving the American way of life than preserving life in general.

More like THEIR American way of life. The rest of us can go to hell as far as they're concerned.

Including the credulous religious goofballs who make up some that 26% in the belief that god is speaking directly to GWB and that satan is in charge of the opposition. But they're getting screwed over just as sure as the rest of us non-wealthy folks.

[Gary Sisco]

Thing is, it matters not what anyone not Palestinian who lives there thinks about it. They are the only ones in the world who could make Hamas politically irrelevant, if they wanted to. No one else. Hamas spent many years doing the grunt work at the grassroots to get the support it has. No one can cancel that out, regardless of what they think or don't.

[Hot Ptah]

The one in four are all around me in the Kansas City area. They tend to be partisan Republicans who are not real big on detailed analysis. They tend to say, in all seriousness, things like, "if we don't fight 'em in Iraq, we will have to fight them here." Nothing will ever change these people.

[Sandi22]

I keep telling it, but a fellow we know says about that region and it's people, "Bomb them. Kill em all. We need the oil". He's not trying to be funny, he's not being facetious, he is dead serious.

Too many people think this way.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Sandi22

I keep telling it, but a fellow we know says about that region and it's people, "Bomb them. Kill em all. We need the oil". He's not trying to be funny, he's not being facetious, he is dead serious.

Too many people think this way.

And yet those same people are shocked and dismayed when they read about some American kid being killed for his expensive sneakers.

[Sandi22]

He's also the person who had such harsh words about the victims of Katrina, saying they should all have been left to drown, that it would just be one less of them, to not phrase it as cruely as he did, as bigoted as his words were. That they weren't deserving of the governments help.

Rich told him, there were little children and babies dying, what do you think they will do if the butte we're nestled up next to, just at it's base, were to erupt? Did he think this adminstration would rush to he and his grandsons aid if and when such an event were to happen? Wouldn't you want and expect to be helped he asked him? Then he told him he wouldn't hold his breath if it were to ever happen. He had no response.

[Ron Thorne]

At least one in four Americans probably aren't smart enough to name all 50 states.

A ridiculous number of Americans wonder about the currency we use in Alaska. Some of those same folks don't realize that we're on the same continent as those in the "Lower 48." What did you expect, RBS?

Sadly, the answer to your thread question is: "They're all around us every day."

[Gordon B]

Jimmy Carter had a 34% approval rating at the end of his term so there were a lot of clowns even in 1980.

[Ron Thorne]

Originally Posted by Gordon B

Jimmy Carter had a 34% approval rating at the end of his term so there were a lot of clowns even in 1980.

Those are relatively high numbers, Gordo . . . ones I'm sure that Dubya would love to have right about now.

[Sandi22]

GW Bush having the low numbers he has, while all the while he's had the GOP propping him up?

Where would Carter have been? At 50 or 60 percent if they had done the same for him? Or what if they had even just left him alone?

[stonemonkts]

Gordon,

Compare the economic stats for Carter vs. Bush.

Carter's low approval had more do with inflation and shitty equity markets than his actual job performance (although I suppose people held him responsible for mismanaging the Iran hostage crisis).

[Ron Thorne]

Gordon, to compare Jimmy Carter with George W. Bush is preposterous on every level I can imagine.

[Uli]

Originally Posted by Gordon B

Jimmy Carter had a 34% approval rating at the end of his term so there were a lot of clowns even in 1980.

hehe. Gordon is *still* a Bush appologist. How much more partisan can it gets?

[Gary Sisco]

One thing it plainly shows is that repubs are abandoning ship. The rest of the answer is obvious at this point. Only the ideology-bound could still be supporting this Gang That Can't Shoot Straight except at their friends while hunting.

I love Cheney's latest bit of nonsense, the the vp isn't part of the executive branch. Oh, really. Says who. Says him. That's all he needs to know.

My Alabama Christian mom, Navy officer, Korea vet, calls them war criminals. I never thought I'd see the day but I have.

[Gordon B]

Originally Posted by stonemonkts

Gordon,

Compare the economic stats for Carter vs. Bush.

Carter's low approval had more do with inflation and shitty equity markets than his actual job performance (although I suppose people held him responsible for mismanaging the Iran hostage crisis).

Pat,

Carter was a very bad President, IMO. So is Bush. I hesitate to rate Presidents based on "economic stats" because most of it is outside their control but the economy has been much healthier from 2001-2007 then is was from 1977-1980.

Clinton was unquestionably a much better President than either of them.

I can't imagine anybody whose opinions are not dominated by his political biases saying that Bush is a better President than Clinton or that Carter was a good President. That's probably 50% of all politically interested people, witness the 25% popularity floor for any President. I think Gary agrees with the previous sentence.

Uli, did you mis-characterize my views or do you use a novel definition of "partisan."

[Gordon B]

Originally Posted by Ron Thorne

Those are relatively high numbers, Gordo . . . ones I'm sure that Dubya would love to have right about now.

If Carter had been reelected, he might have hit 25. If Kerry hadn't said "I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it," we never would have seen Bush hit 25.

[Gary Sisco]

"If, if, if. If the ocean boiled, there'd be lots of cooked fish."

Gordon, Did you intend your remark about Carter to be as strange as it is? You mean, if Carter had suddenly gotten popular enough to have been reelected, his numbers would then have plummeted to Bush levels after?

I didn't vote for him, by the way. Or Ford. I do kind of remember the Ford years with, well, not fondness, but ... I prefer presidents who are boring and do next to nothing. That's about the best we can hope for.

[stonemonkts]

Gordon,

My point was that the low ratings for Carter were driven by the general population's economic woes, while Bush has his low rating for mostly other reasons. In actuality, I agree with you, presidents have very little influence on macroeconomics. But people like to assign those things to presidents, and lately to oil company conspiracies, both naive and absurd notions IMO.

[Gary Sisco]

Well, if presidents didn't like to take credit for the good economic times, maybe the people wouldn't blame them for the bad!

I agree that presidents have very little effect in normal circumstances. In any case, Carter inherited the inevitable because the time came for Vietnam's cost to be felt in the economy and also OPEC decided to exert itself. Double whammy. I more recall people just thinking of Carter as something of a bumbling incompetent who just wasn't up for the job, but for most of his term I was a traveling barroom musician so I wasn't exactly asking poll questions of anyone at the time. What really hurt him badly, also, and he brought it on himself in large measure by giving the Shah haven, was the "hostage crisis," which itself overwhelmed all else, the economy included.

In the circumstance we're in now, the pres has a very large effect, however, and the congress even more. The fiscal policies of the Bush years have been absolutely insane and there is already long term damage. According to the Economist, if standard bookkeeping practices were to be used in DC (they aren't; what they do is called cooking the books if private citizens do it), last year's deficit is more than a trillion dollars. They (pres and congress) just agreed not to count this and not to count that as being "in the budget" though they were still borrowing and spending the money. Absolutely insane.

They did the same to a much lesser degree in the 90s, which is how they produced their famous "surpluses" which in reality never existed. They created them by counting Soc Sec/Medicare taxes as general revenue without counting Soc Sec/Medicare outlay present and future as costs.

Hell, anyone can produce a surplus if you play games like that.

It won't make the surplus real, however. And it won't make the deficits any less than they actually are, now, either.

Bullshit all around but most of the people don't want to think about such things too much, so they get away with it.

Nevertheless, the bills will have to be paid and when they are, huge amounts of money will be taken out of the economy and hence not available for productive activities.

[RBS]

Originally Posted by Ron Thorne

At least one in four Americans probably aren't smart enough to name all 50 states.

A ridiculous number of Americans wonder about the currency we use in Alaska. Some of those same folks don't realize that we're on the same continent as those in the "Lower 48." What did you expect, RBS?

Sadly, the answer to your thread question is: "They're all around us every day."

Do you use regular American money, Ron? I thought you guys traded fish or something.

But what the hell does Jimmy Carter have to do with Bush anyway? Seriously.

[shrugs]

Nothing.

Carter can at least say he merited a submarine named after him due to his service as an officer in submarines.

What will Bush get?

[Ron Thorne]

Originally Posted by RBS

Do you use regular American money, Ron? I thought you guys traded fish or something.

But what the hell does Jimmy Carter have to do with Bush anyway? Seriously.

Yeah, Randy, we have a number of strange currencies that are only usable in Alaska.

Jimmy Carter should have nothing to do with this conversation. I must be one of the few dozen Americans who still dig and respect Jimmy Carter.

[Borat Pri Hagafen]

Originally Posted by Ron Thorne

Yeah, Randy, we have a number of strange currencies that are only usable in Alaska.

Jimmy Carter should have nothing to do with this conversation. I must be one of the few dozen Americans who still dig and respect Jimmy Carter.

You're American?!? I thought you were from Alaska.