Yellow Dog

"Four months into his second term, President Bush is increasingly viewed as being out of touch with the American people, according to a CBS News poll."

This isn't exactly breaking news, especially for those of us who were paying attention during the election. Looks to me like some of the misguided Bush voters are having a little "voter's remorse."

"Six in ten Americans say the president does not share their priorities, while just 34 percent say he does – the lowest numbers for Mr. Bush since the eve of his first inauguration. While Mr. Bush continues to push hard for his Social Security plan, and has recently spoken out on issues like stem cell research and the fight over judicial nominees, the public is far more concerned with the war in Iraq and the economy."

At least the American people are more in touch with Bush's failed policies, even it it's six months too late....
CBS News | CBS Poll: Bush Out Of Touch | May 25, 2005 21:00:10

Check out this slip from Fox News Anchorman David Asman, who was asking Trent Lott why Republican senators had compromised on the filibuster:

"So, Senator, if we should have done it and if we had the votes to do it in the Senate -- if you guys in the Republican Party did -- then why did you need a compromise?"

Oops. What's this "we" stuff? Fair and balanced...yeah, right.


Fox Freudian slip: Asman asked Lott why a compr ... [Media Matters for America]

Today press secretary Scott McClellen clarified the President's stem cell policy: "The President's policy is that we should not be using public dollars for the destruction of life."

Hmmm. So those who (misguidedly) equate frozen embryos with living children should not have their tax dollars used for stem cell research? In that case, I want my tax dollars diverted from a war in Iraq that I never supported and believe is morally and ethically wrong and that has claimed thousands of innocent lives, including the innocent lives of numerous actual living, breathing, flesh-and-blood children.

According to this story below, we are now spending over 300 billion in Iraq: that's a lot of public money being used for the destruction of human life.

House panel backs $45 bln for Iraq - Yahoo! News

"Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites... This people honoureth me with their lips but their heart is far from me." (Mark 7:6)

In a recent news conference, Bush stated, "I'm confident we're making great progress in Iraq."

I guess it depends on how you define "progress." Here are a few headlines from today and yesterday:

14 U.S. Soldiers Killed in 3 Days in Iraq - Yahoo! News

CBS News | Blasts Claim 7 GIs, 6 Iraqis | May 24, 2005 09:34:43

Deadly Car Bomb Explodes Near Iraq School

Iraqi Rebels Kill Security Chief

Baghdad car bomb blast kills 3 US soldiers

This is a time where it would really come in handy if Bush would read a newspaper from time to time.

There has been a lot of hoopla over Newsweek's sloppy reporting, even though General Richard Myers and Afghan president Hamid Karzai claim no link between violence and the Newsweek story (and subsequently, the Red Cross and others have documented accounts of desecration of the Koran, with one soldier being arrested on these charges).

But what about "errors" and the sloppy use of evidence that have actually led to bloodshed and loss of life? This journalist gives Bush some suggestions for how he might set the record straight, even though he has yet to acknowledge that "mistakes were made." Here are some examples:

(1) "In 2002 and 2003, my administration made the case for invading Iraq by claiming that nation had weapons of mass destruction. It did not. We regret the error." Or:

(2) "In 2002 and 2003, my administration encouraged Americans to believe Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It was not. We regret the error." Or:

(3) "In 2003, my administration said Iraq's oil wealth was such that the invasion would pay for itself. It has not. We regret that error too."

See how it works, Mr. President? It's not that bad, once you get the hang of it. OK, granted, it will never be fun. But in my business, we believe owning up to error ultimately makes you better.

You should try it sometime."


Chicago Tribune | Setting the record straight is good policy, even for the president

In a new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, Bush and the GOP Congress receive poor marks:

Bush's job approval rating: 46%

Approval of Bush's work on the economy: 40%

Approval of Bush's plans for Social Security changes: 30%

Approval of Bush's handling of the Iraq War: 40%

Based on the filibuster fight and the crybaby Republicans trying to change the rules of the Senate, Congressional ratings were also low:

"58 percent of respondents in the split part of the poll said Republican leaders were behaving like "spoiled children" on the matter."

This Pew Research Center poll shows an even worse overall approval rating (37%), with a majority of respondents noting that the US is moving in the wrong direction on the economy and foreign policy. Check it out:



Pew Research Center Poll

Hopefully, yellow dogs will continue to go after this lame duck president and his reckless policies.

CNN.com - Poll: Bush approval mark nears low - May 23, 2005

This writer, who is building a case for why Bush is the worst president ever, has a pretty easy assignment. The only hard part might be deciding from among the wealth of facts to support this thesis. Here are his main points:

1) America the Disgraced:
"President Bush's actions and policies have destroyed America's image as a nation that adheres to a set of core values, such as the rule of law, humane treatment of prisoners, presumed innocence, trial by jury and respect for international laws."

2) Bush's own Vietnam
"Thanks to George W. Bush and the handful of Neocon nuts . . . we are stuck in another Vietnam-type war thousands of miles from home. All the Vietnam trappings are here for anyone who cares to notice -- indigenous insurgents, driven by a fanatical ideology, supported and supplied by "spoiler" nation-states with their own anti-U.S. agendas, thousands of dead civilians, American soldiers dying by the gross week in and week out, with no end in sight.

3) Sovietization of America
"The Patriot Act -- the law that among other things allows federal agents to demand your local library tell them what books you are reading -- is about to be expanded.

Little by little this administration has chipped away at state powers by transferring them to Washington. And nowhere has this process been more pronounced than in the area of law enforcement and the courts. The FBI, which once had to defer to local and state law enforcers when on their turf, can now barge right in and take charge. All they have to do is an investigation a "national security" or "homeland security" matter.

Federal courts, which have acted as a brake on law enforcement abuses, are being systemically stacked with rightwing judges less likely to side with victims of overzealous cops or invasions of personal privacy."

4)Peasantization of Workers
"Over the past five years we have seen the biggest transfer of wealth in the history of money. The already wealthy have become mind-numbingly rich under George Bush. Where did the money come from? It came right out of the pockets of working Americans and the poor."

5) Deficits
"The government as well went on a borrowing binge running up a national credit card debt of just over $7 trillion.

All that damage in just five years! It's almost unimaginable, but true. And the negative long-term implications stagger those who understand that there really is no such thing as a free lunch, that deficits do matter, be they government deficits or consumer's."

Here's a list added in the comments by a self-professed former Republican, James PB:

Here's some more reasons:
55 million Americans with no health insurance.
18,000 deaths a year due to Americans with no health insurance.
9 million unemployed.
11 million long term unemployed.
1.6 million personal bankruptcies every year.
1500 Americans killed in Iraq; 12,000 wounded, many disabled for life.
Veterans Administration budget chopped and slashed year after year.
Massive military base closings in the USA as we build massive bases in Iraq.
100,000 Iraqis killed in Iraq.
$500 billion annual deficit and growing.
3 million American jobs outsourced to China, India, Central American, etc.
$1500 monthly health care premiums for those over 50 years old.
$25,000 a year for an out of state college education.
$2.25 for a gallon of gas.
154 Federal Programs and projects slashed.
A $350 billion tax giveback that that didn’t create a single job.
$300 billion spent on Iraq and Afghanistan.
$1.2 billion a week spent every week in sunny, beautiful Iraq.
3 million illegal immigrants sneaking over our borders with Bush’s blessing.
An $8 trillion national debt.
Social Security reform that will cost $2 trillion to fix (who the hell broke it).
No energy policy; not environmental policy; and a world that hates us.
A $220 billion drug industry that spends most of its profits on TV commercials.
A Government that can send a man to the Moon by won’t fund a cure for cancer.
Most of the 50 states are each running huge billion dollar budget deficits.
A Homeland Security Department that has become a huge money-sucking machine.

From A Former Republican.

AlterNet: Bush: Worst President Ever?

As this article and many others makes clear, recruitment is way down, and the Army is getting desperate. My solution is two-fold:

1) Draft young Republicans!

2) Draft the children of those in Congress who supported the war (which, unfortunately, included many Democrats).

Oh, I almost forgot:

3) Draft the Bush Twins. (or they might be lucky enough to use their connections to stay out of the war, just as Bush did in Vietnam; if not, they can always follow in his AWOL footsteps)

Tallahassee Democrat | 05/20/2005 | The military's desperation is showing

This Michael Kinsley article in the Washington Post makes me think that yellow dogs need to try to pass a "No Scientist Left Behind" Act. It's pretty pathetic when U.S. scientists are falling behind those in South Korea, as Kinsley (who has Parkinson's disease) explains:

"Imagine what it's like to open the newspaper (as I did Friday morning) and read that scientists in faraway South Korea have made a huge breakthrough toward curing a disease that is slowly wrecking your life. But closer to home, your own government is trying to prevent that cure.

Other nations are racing for the leadership role in stem cell research that the United States has abandoned. And individual states are defying the federal near-ban. So it seems unlikely that U.S. government policy will actually prevent a cure for Parkinson's and other diseases. And it's not too likely that a cure will come in time for most current sufferers in any event. But it might, it might. So if my government merely manages to slow the process down -- as it already has done for years -- that is disheartening."

Kinsley raises an issue that always irks me in this debate--the fact that many embryos produced as a result of in vitro fertilization go unused and are disposed of, but has anyone called for an end to this breakthrough in medical technology that allows women to conceive who can't otherwise? He also raises the "slippery slope" argument of Bushistas that stem cell research on human embryos might lead to cloning. But that would require that Republicans recognize "slippery slope" as a logical fallacy, which would require knowing what a logical argument is. So for now, good riddance to scientific breakthroughs, at least in the good ole USA.

. . . And Fear of the Unknown

From the Washington Post, yet another story about how intelligence was manipulated to justify going to war with Iraq.

"It has been clear since the September report of the Iraq Survey Group -- a CIA-sponsored weapons search in Iraq -- that the United States would not find the weapons of mass destruction cited by Bush as the rationale for going to war against Iraq. But it appears that even before the war many senior intelligence officials in the government had doubts about the case being trumpeted in public by the president and his senior advisers."

Senior intelligence officials had doubts about the Iraq War? Oops. I'm sure the families of the 1633 soldiers killed will understand how the Bush administration brazenly pushed forward with a war that was not justified and in a country that posed no immediate threat to the U.S.

Read the whole article about how intelligence officials expressed doubts all along but were pressured by the White House to manufacture "evidence," and then rack your brain to figure out how a former president could be impeached for a lie about an extramarital affair while this president lies about WMD to launch a war that kills thousands and wins a second term.

Prewar Findings Worried Analysts