Dead Presidents Speak Out on Bush Administration
"In this job... you don't have much time to sit around and wander, lonely, in the Oval Office, kind of asking different portraits, how do you think my standing will be?"
- President G W Bush, 43rd President of the United States.
While President Bush refuses to discuss issues of national importance with deceased predecessors, a survey of dead presidents revealed that the majority were anxious to engage the 43rd president on issues of national importance, including social policy, defense, international relations, and the economy. Furthermore, Bush's approval rating among dead presidents is at an all-time low, mirroring opinions of living American voters.
While polling dead people requires use of paranormal intermediaries and therefore cannot be deemed "scientific", such surveys are considered accurate within the same range - (-+50%) as elections tabulated on Diebold voting machines without a voter-verifiable paper ballot. In this survey of dead presidents, only non-partisan paranormals with the Psychic Friends Hotline, presided over by Dionne Warwick, were used.
The President's Approval Rating among the 38 ghost presidents was 44%, the same as the general living population of the USA and the lowest of any re-elected incumbent in recent memory. Broken down by issue, George W. Bush received approval ratings as follows:
The Economy: 41% Approve, 59 % Disapprove.
The War in Iraq: 38% Approve, 62 % Disapprove.
Domestic Policy: 39% Approve, 61 % Disapprove.
The War On Terror: 23% Approve, 77% Disapprove.
While attitudes were mixed on the President's performance, there was unanimity among dead presidents over the issue of access. Nancy Reagan frequently consulted psychics, President Nixon was known to have spoken directly to paintings of dead Presidents during Watergate proceedings. Noting that former male prostitute/reporter Jeff Gannon was allowed to communicate directly to George W. Bush, nearly all respondents were angry that George W. Bush refused to engage with his dead predecessors.
Party lines had a strong influence on opinions voiced. There were notable exceptions, however. Teddy Roosevelt (26) and Abraham Lincoln (16), both Republicans, were very critical of President Bush.
Teddy Roosevelt speaking via Morse Code tapping on West Wing heating pipes, deemed President Bush's stewardship of the National parks a travesty. "We are prone to speak of the resources of this country as inexhaustible; this is not so... There can be no greater issue than that of conservation in this country." Teddy Roosevelt also disagreed with Bush's opposition to a raise in the minimum wage:"We demand that big business give the people a square deal"
Nevertheless, the 26th President appreciated Bush's "big stick" personality and geo-political swagger. "I have a perfect horror of words that are not backed up by deeds." But Roosevelt was more guarded on the possible outcome of the Iraq war. "Optimism is a good characteristic, but if carried to an excess, it becomes foolishness."
Lincoln, on the other hand, while appreciating Bush's religious conviction, was pained by the current president's inability to articulate himself. When Teddy Roosevelt suggested that Bush should make better use of the bully pulpit, a marble bust of Lincoln became animated and said the following:" Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." During an awkward moment at a town hall meeting when President Bush had difficulty explaining how private accounts would strengthen the Social Security system, Lincoln materialized in the oval office and was heard to mutter:
"He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met."
The Economy was also a polarizing issue. Calvin Coolidge,(30) when queried via Ouiji Board on the subject of Halliburton, spelled out "The business of America is business." Herbert Hoover (31) is also very supportive of Bush's laissez-faire economic policy: "Economic depression cannot be cured by legislative action or executive pronouncement. Economic wounds must be healed by the action of the cells of the economic body - the producers and consumers themselves." But Hoover admitted he winced when Bush made the remark:"The fundamentals of our economy are sound.". Hoover pointed out that history has branded him as a fool for stating, in 1929: "The economy is fundamentally sound." For the president who presided over the stock market crash, it was a moment of deja-vu.
As it might be expected, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (32) was Bush's most vocal critic, though his current means of protest is limited to slamming the door of the Blue Room at midnight and hiding the president's favorite bolo tie clip. Psychics explained that FDR is particularly angry at plans to privatize social security, as well as the tax breaks given to the richest Americans. Written in steam on a shower-stall mirror in the west wing were the words: "Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle."
And when a Bush used the word "freedom" 21 times in his February 2005 State of the Union speech, FDR possessed the bodies of 7 National Spelling Bee finalists visiting the White House on a tour. In unison, and speaking with FDR's distinct lock-jaw accent - the children levitated in the air and declaimed: "True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made." (The Senate Chaplain was rushed to the scene and the children were promptly exorcised).
The President did have a number of staunch supporters, John Adams, (2) James Madison (4) and Andrew Jackson (7) among them. They supported the president's invasion of Iraq:
"No one need think that the world can be ruled without blood. The civil sword shall and must be red and bloody " Stated Andrew Jackson via his spokespsychic, Rainbeau Starhawk.
The controversy surrounding voter irregularities in Florida and Ohio were scoffed at by these three ex-presidents, who were contacted via a 3-way psychic conference call, and whom generally expressed contempt for participatory democracy. John Adams suggested that .." The proposition that the people are the best keepers of their own liberties is not true. They are the worst conceivable, they are no keepers at all; they can neither judge, act, think, or will, as a political body."
This was seconded by James Madison's spokespsychic, Lawanda Jones: "Democracy is the most vile form of government... democracies...have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property."
Adams was particularly pleased with Bush's ascendance following the reign of self-described "good ole boy" William Jefferson Clinton (42). Adam asserted that the job of president was best suited for "...the rich, the well-born and the able".
America's first President George Washington, (1) was characteristically taciturn on the subject of the current president, and refused to allow his actual voice to be channeled by any of the mediums engaged for this poll. On the night of the initial bombardment of Iraq, however, a copy of Washington's collected letters fell from the shelf of the presidential library, open to the page where the following was highlighted:
"Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all...The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connexion as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. "
Millard Fillmore was less circumspect. Via Ouiji Board, he quickly spelled out: "May God save the country, for it is evident that the people will not."
Petruk
(Daniel McGuire ©2005 )
