Someone refresh my memory...what were Bush Sr's approval ratings in early '92? Weren't they still pretty high?
Weren't Bill Clinton's in early '96 fairly low, nearly as low as Dubya's?
All of these huge stories are breaking at the start of the year. Before the election. They won't have an effect on Bush by the time of the GE. He will be able to frame a debate which is based on (his spin of) a growing economy, opposition to same-sex marriage, and support of routing terrorists. He will be able to unleash his many media attack dogs to devote 24/7 bashing to the Democrat candidate. The media will then kiss his ass and talk about his coming back from low times to surge and slaughter nearly a year later.
I remember during Clinton's first term, all the talk that he would never get reelected. Then he managed to pin all the blame for America's problems on the hostile GOP Congress, and put forth popular sound bite legislation like welfare reform and DOMA. He very comfortably won a second term.
More and more I'm starting to think the same thing will happen with Bush. I know the followup to this will be "yes, if Kerry is the nominee, because Kerry is Bob Dole", but I think it's likely with pretty much any Dem nominee.
Iraq and the economy are getting so bad that they almost HAVE to have improved by the summer. Meanwhile, Congress will be more docile by then and support Bush's measures. He will demonize gays and lesbians to dredge up millions of new voters. And he will massacre his opponent through all kinds of low-level gutter tactics while never uttering a harsh or unkind word himself.
I really do worry that this is the only likely outcome, with his smarmy kiss-ass appearance on Meet the Press the start of the momentum.
What do you think?