Is Bush being prompted while answering the press's questions?

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Wednesday February 14, 2007 · 9:48 AM PST

2007/02/14 · 09:48

Being snowed in and not having cable, I just watched our Commander in Chief give a pretty poor presidential news briefing today. After his pathetic speech, he took on some questions from the so-called liberal media. During these questions, Bush looked down at the screen on his podium quite often, just as he did when he was making his speech. Heck, he even looked like he was pausing to read things on the screen, and appeared to craft answers around what he was reading at the time. This begs the question, were people in Bush's administration prompting him and helping him to answer the press's questions?

It truly appeared, to me at least, that Bush couldn't handle the press's questions on his own, without getting help from that monitor screen. More below the flip.

Poll

233 votes Show Results

Did Bush have backstage help during his Q and A?

233 votes Vote Now!

Did Bush have backstage help during his Q and A?

No, he answered the questions all on his own.

3 votes

Yes, people behind the scenes gave him pointers to help answer the questions

7 votes

Yes, he always gets help, and I think he even had help during the debates

223 votes

Bush Approval - All-time Largest Swing?

jeffwass

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Monday January 22, 2007 · 10:46 PM PST

2007/01/22 · 22:46

We all know Bush had unprecedented approval ratings shortly after 9-11, and we all know that Bush has absolutely abysmal approval ratings right now. The statistic I'm interested in here, regarding Bush, is whether any other president in US history had such a large downturn of public opinion? Has Bush made it into the recordbooks for going from nearly unprecedented support to nearly unprecedented disapproval? Or, in other words, has any other POTUS lost the American public more than Bush, numerically speaking?

Poll

75 votes Show Results

George Bush's primary legacy bulletpoint

75 votes Vote Now!

George Bush's primary legacy bulletpoint

9-11

5 votes

Iraq

35 votes

Economy

1 vote

Complete loss of American support

29 votes

pretzels and internets

5 votes

Anti-Israel sentiment turns deadly

jeffwass

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Friday July 28, 2006 · 10:24 PM PDT

2006/07/28 · 22:24

Recently I've posted several comments about Israel here on dKos, almost all of these are in response to what IMHO is an increasingly hostile anti-israel sentiment on this blog.

But lately I've been feeling increasingly scared with this heightened hostility here on dKos. Anti-Israel posts have gone way beyond criticism of Israel but have resorted to vitriolic hateful rhetoric aimed at enraging people's emotions to get the better of their rational thoughts. If a supposedly smart blog can become rife with one-sided hatred, what could happen to the general populace?

Today in Seattle a women was killed and 6 others shot at a Jewish center (Haaretz Story, BBC Story). The gunman allegedly yelled about his gripes with Israel before firing off shots. I fear this story is only the beginning of a larger wave of deadly anti-Israeli sentiment.

And finding seeds of that hatred here on dKos not only saddens me but scares the hell out of me. Read More

SOTU - Addiction to Oil is the American Way of Life, according to Bush

jeffwass

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Tuesday January 31, 2006 · 5:00 PM PST

2006/01/31 · 17:00

Bush will finally admit in tonight's SOTU that America is addicted to oil. It's important that as Republicans try to launch efforts to appear progressive on this issue, we must steadfastly remind the public of White House obstructionism regarding attempts at progress in this regard.

According to CNN Bush will say "America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world. ... The best way to break this addiction is through technology."

Ah, so Bush claims he's a visionary, and has the magical foresight to see the problems that our oil dependence will have down the road. Well, in reality, lets fire up the way-back machine and see what the White House said regarding oil conservation, and American addiction to it, a few years back. Read More

NSA spied on my friend!

jeffwass

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Friday January 13, 2006 · 12:14 PM PST

2006/01/13 · 12:14

There is a disturbing article in the Baltimore Sun today which talks about how the NSA used governmental police, including Baltimore city police, to spy on a peace group's protests. Specifically they monitored a peace group with a known history of nonviolent civil disobedience.

My friend, her name is Marilyn, was arrested at one of these recent protests at the NSA, and she is mentioned at the end of the article. Who is she? She's a grandmother, belongs to a Unitarian church, is very involved with community service. She sounds just like the type of patriotic American the Bush administration likes to claim they're protecting. However, Marilyn is also a liberal, which apparently is a Bad Thing. She recycles quite stringently, she composts organic waste, she belongs to an organic farm co-op, and she's actively against the War in Iraq. In fact, she's against any kind of violence, so much so that she's willing to demonstrate against it and get herself arrested.

More below the flip. Read More

Obligatory Diebold Poll

jeffwass

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Thursday December 22, 2005 · 8:03 PM PST

2005/12/22 · 20:03

Just a recap of previous Diebold elections, and a taste of what's to come if we don't change things. Read More

FISA : Bush vs. Clinton and Carter

jeffwass

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Tuesday December 20, 2005 · 8:34 PM PST

2005/12/20 · 20:34

Drudge's latest attempt to defend Bush's illegal spying operations is to claim that both Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter both signed executive orders allowing searches without warrants. [Don't give Drudge the advertisement funding by visiting his site directly, follow instead the links here.] He links to the following two executive orders :

E.O. 12949 by Bill Clinton in 1995
E.O. 12139 by Jimmy Carter in 1979.

I'm a physicist, I'm not versed in any way in legal analysis (other than perhaps the laws of physics). Can someone with such skills, or perhaps better skills then me, relate the major differences between these two executive orders and what powers Bush granted?

Some basic attempts at analysis below the fold. Read More

Bush in Baltimore - Fuzzy Math

jeffwass

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Wednesday November 30, 2005 · 3:03 PM PST

2005/11/30 · 15:03

As reported today in the Baltimore Sun, George Bush spoke in Baltimore briefly today, at M&T Stadium, where tickets for the hot dogs and pizza lunch were either $125 or $500. Event coordinators claimed 800 tickets were sold, yet claimed that they made $500,000 in ticket sales before expnditures.

If all 800 tickets were sold at the $500 price (which includes VIP section seating), that would be only $400,000. So either an extra 200 people showed up, but in such as case Steele's people would have rounded the number to 1000 for maximum spin. Or an extra $100,000 of unaccounted money has turned up. Or 200 people paid, but didn't want to waste their time seeing the President.

"May God bless the Christians of China."

jeffwass

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Saturday November 19, 2005 · 7:01 PM PST

2005/11/19 · 19:01

Bush attended church today in China in an effort to promote religious tolerance and freedom. In the church's guestbook the President wrote the above title phrase - "May God bless the Christians of China."

So apparently, in his quest to introduce religious freedom, Bush prefers the Christians of China to be blessed, while the Chinese of other faiths aren't worthy of such a blessing. Is it me, or does his quote seem not very diplomatic for a head of state to write, especially in an effort for religious freedom. I might even guess he wrote that himself without one of his advisor's writing or checking it for him. His wife's briefer message was far more diplomatic and warming (well, as warm as something from Laura can be) when she wrote "And with love and respect, Laura Bush."

Or do you think my interpretation is just overly analytical? I would have thought a message like "May God bless China" or something along those lines would be more apropos, that way no other faith would be excluded from the President's blessing.

Thoughts?

Bush's popularity in Maryland at all-time low, even amongst Republicans

jeffwass

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Monday November 07, 2005 · 12:48 PM PST

2005/11/07 · 12:48

The Baltimore Sun has an article today describing how Bush's popularity in the state of Maryland is at an all-time low. 33% approval rating now, versus 83% approval in January 2002. Although this is hardly a surprise considering national trends and that Maryland is fairly blue.

The interesting thing is that most Maryland Republicans now oppose his Iraq policies amongst other things.

More numbers and comments on the flip... Read More

Bias in Public Broadcasting (with poll)

jeffwass

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Friday November 04, 2005 · 2:18 PM PST

2005/11/04 · 14:18

Is it possible for government funding to be responsibly given to the media? And by responsible I refer not only to the reporting, but to a prevention of accusation of bias if the reporting does reveal a problem or scandal with a politician?

As was reported yesterday, the former chair of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Kenneth Tomlinson, quit after an investigation was launched into his alleged attempts to manipulate political bias in public broadcasting. Tomlinson, a Republican, has been accused of hiring researchers to scan CPB broadcasts for evidence of liberal leanings.

Here's an article about the affair in the Boston Globe. Read More

Cindy, the Media, and the Noble Cause

jeffwass

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Monday August 22, 2005 · 10:08 PM PDT

2005/08/22 · 22:08

Cindy Sheehan cited several reasons for camping outside George Bush's ranch in Crawford, TX. One of these reasons she stated "I want to put the war back on the front page where it belongs." More than two weeks have passed since she embarked on this quest. Has she been successful in this regard?

Starting from Day 3 (August 8th) of Camp Casey, I visited google.com almost daily to record the number of webpage hits for "Cindy Sheehan". I count the number of webpages linked within Google's entire realm (excluding 'similar pages'). Additionally, to see how well the media is noticing the story I've also recorded the number of Google News links for "Cindy Sheehan". Read on to see the effect she's had on the media.

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