For those of you who work for a living and can't read NRO's Corner blog all day here are the choice posts from today's Crisis 'O Confidence in Dear Leader and the Rove White House. Obviously these people are getting strong push-back from people like Dan Bartlett etc. So you have to admire, just a wee bit, their willingness to lay into the situation--it's more honesty than you get from LGF or Instahack, or anywhere in the conservative blogosphere. I wish Richard Brookhiser would come in and really tell the truth...
SAD BUT TRUE [John Podhoretz]
The president's speech on Thursday evidently did him no political good or worse. Every poll now has him hovering around 40 percent, and two -- Gallup and Rasmussen -- show a significant drop in Republican support after the speech. Granted, these are not polls of voters or of likely voters, but still, he didn't turn things around.
Posted at 01:22 PM
ON THE PRECIPICE [Rich Lowry ]
Following up on JPod's post on Bush's polls, the danger to the White House is that there is now massive pressure to "move to the center" in various ways (say, the next Supreme Court appointment) and, in his reduced state, these pressures will be more difficult to resist. If he gives in to them on something important, he loses his base, and then it's Bush I all over again. You already see some of this erosion happening with regard to the Katrina spending. One last point: in the initial days after Katrina various folks in here--I think JPod in particular--wrote that we were watching some of the political lifeblood getting drained from the Bush presidency. Unfortunately, they were exactly right. It is going to take months and months of spadework to try make up for the missed opportunities of those first 24 or 48 hours.
Posted at 02:01 PM
THE OSTRICH EFFECT [John Podhoretz]
For the crime of noting that the president's speech didn't help his poll numbers, I'm getting battered by e-mailers who suggest, among other things, that I am somehow unmanly because I'm not "supporting" the president enough. I never thought a day would come when I -- the author of a book entitled Bush Country: How Dubya Became the First Great Leader of the 21st Century While Driving Liberals Insane -- would be accused of being a fair-weather supporter of GWB. Let me just try to explain something to my e-mailers. The president gave his speech Thursday night in an effort to reverse the decline in his political fortunes. That's why presidents give speeches in prime time -- both to inform the nation and to try to seize the upper hand in the political struggle. It appears his effort was unsuccessful, in part (I think) because he sounded like a Big Spender and alienated more Republicans without winning over more Democrats.
It may be that the best thing for him to do is just ignore these poll numbers. But they're there, and they're going to have an impact -- and the danger is that the impact they're going to have will be on public support for the mission in Iraq, where we cannot afford to fail. Bush supporters don't help him or themselves any by pretending his troubles are all due to the MSM. He has, for the moment, lost the country's confidence.
Posted at 02:17 PM
RE: THE OSTRICH EFFECT [Rod Dreher]
I don't at all get this attitude among many on the right that our sworn duty is to back anything President Bush and the GOP choose to do. We are conservatives before we are Republicans, are we not? Facts are better than dreams, and the fact is, the president is acting like the second coming of Lyndon B. Johnson with his spending proposals on Katrina thing, and it is past time for the grassroots to have hit the wall on the spendthrift Republican president and the spendthrift Republican Congress. What is the point of electing Republicans if they're going to spend worse than Democrats? Moreover, I'm absolutely with Michelle Malkin on this outrageous Bush cronyism regarding the new Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief over at the Department of Homeland Security. I find it impossible to believe that this administration or their GOP Congressional enablers care about enforcing the immigration laws of this country. And I find it impossible to believe that this doesn't matter. A lot.
At some point, we conservatives have got to ask ourselves if we stand for principles, or merely maintaining power. We have got to ask ourselves just which conservative goals are being served by the Republican governing status quo. We have got to ask ourselves if our conservatism stands for much more than The Democrats Must Lose. I was having a beer with a fellow religious and social conservative that first Friday after Katrina, and we were both just livid about the administration's response. We both agreed that we'd vote in a heartbeat in 2008 for a social liberal like Rudy Giuliani, who inspires confidence in his competence and judgment, over the present crowd that we both helped vote into power. I hope next year brings forth a raft of primary challengers to GOP Congressional incumbents. If we go on like this for much longer, it will be a long time before the American people trust the government to our side again. The Democrats aren't going to remain more hapless than the Republicans forever, and the denial in which too many Republicans wish to live in right now does the cause of conservatism no good.
Posted at 02:59 PM
MORE BUSH NUMBERS [Byron York]
In addition to the president's falling job approval rating -- 40 percent -- the new Gallup poll has several other measures of bad news for the president. First, Gallup asked whether respondents approved or disapproved of Bush's handling of particular policy areas -- Iraq, the economy, etc. Bush's handling of Hurricane Katrina was his highest rating -- 41 percent. His handling of foreign affairs got a 38 percent approval rating, the economy 35 percent, and the situation in Iraq 32 percent.
Also, the number of people who say that Bush is honest and trustworthy has fallen to 47 percent -- the first time ever below 50 percent. The number who say he is a strong and decisive leader is 49 percent -- again, the first time below 50 percent. Both areas have been traditional strong points for the president.
And just to show what a foul mood the public appears to be in, Gallup asked respondents, "Just your best guess, do you think George W. Bush has taken steps to help victims of Hurricane Katrina -- mostly because he sincerely cares about the victims, or mostly for political reasons?" Fifty-six percent said Bush acted mostly for political reasons, while 42 percent said he sincerely cares about the victims. That's pretty grim.
MORE BUSH NUMBERS (CONT'D) [Byron York]
On the other hand, I recently asked Gallup to send me a chart of every presidential job approval it had ever taken -- they go back to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. What it shows is that every president in the last 40 years has had a low point in which his job approval ratings went into the 40s or 30s, and sometimes lower.
Bill Clinton hit 39 percent job approval in August and September 1994. George H.W. Bush hit 29 percent in July 1992, and 33 percent in October of that year. Ronald Reagan hit 35 percent in January 1983. Jimmy Carter hit 28 percent in June 1979. Gerald Ford hit 37 percent in March 1975. Richard Nixon spent most of 1974 in the 20s, hitting 24 percent just before his resignation. And Lyndon Johnson hit 35 percent in August 1968.
Posted at 03:13 PM
NOT ROD'S OSTRICH [John Podhoretz]
No question that conservatives shouldn't offer blind support to Republican politicians, but I have to dissent strongly from my dear friend Rod Dreher's post, which is hysterical and unjust, and does the president a profound disservice.
Posted at 03:16 PM