America Less Hopeful Than 4 Years Ago

[Bronco_Beerslug]

I guess that's expected with our economy, record double deficits, health care becoming a luxury and our mess in Iraq.

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Optimism has fallen, divisions increased
By Susan Page, USA TODAY

President Bush (news - web sites) takes the oath of office for a second time on Thursday with ambitious plans to foster democracy in Iraq (news - web sites) and to overhaul Social Security (news - web sites), rewrite the tax code and limit medical-malpractice lawsuits at home.

But he will be leading a nation that is less optimistic about the future than it was when he was inaugurated for his first term. Then, 56% of those surveyed by USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup were generally satisfied with the way things were going in the USA; now 46% are. He'll face a public that is deeply divided over his leadership.

That divide has solidified over the past four years, costing him the honeymoon that presidents - even second-term presidents - typically enjoy at inauguration. He takes office with a job-approval rating of 51%, the consistently lowest of any re-elected president in modern times. Partisan divisions eased when Presidents Clinton, Reagan and Eisenhower were sworn in a second time. They haven't for Bush.

What's more, he'll be pursuing an agenda that differs from the challenges most Americans identify as top priorities. Their most urgent concerns: education and health care costs.

The findings of a series of USA TODAY polls in December and January raise questions about the president's claim of a mandate for his second-term agenda. His plan to add individual investment accounts to Social Security is supported by 48% and opposed by 48%, for instance. By 52%-47%, Americans call his decision to invade Iraq a mistake.

"These guys have a hell of a plateful," says Ronald Zibelli, 70, a retired lawyer in Boca Raton, Fla., who voted for Bush and was among those polled. "The economy is coming back, (but) Iraq is kind of a mess. This whole business with Social Security is a big can of worms. Medicare is overextended."

Zibelli's top priority: reducing the deficit.

High marks on anti-terrorism

Bush gets credit on some fronts for progress made during his first term. His approval ratings for dealing with terrorism have been consistently strong since the Sept. 11 attacks eight months into his term. Americans are more satisfied than they were four years ago with the amount they pay in taxes, efforts to control crime and race relations.

But they are more uneasy about some fundamentals: The state of the economy and the role the United States plays in world affairs, the influence of big corporations and organized religion, and the opportunity a person has in this country to get ahead by working hard.

And they are less confident than they were in 2001 that Bush's administration will be able to deal with the problems that are making them anxious about what's ahead.

Four years ago, 50% of Americans predicted he would succeed in ensuring the long-term solvency of Social Security; now 40% do. The percentages confident that he will be able to improve education, increase respect for the United States abroad and heal political divisions at home have dropped.
(continued)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/usatoday/20050119/pl_usatoday/optimismhasfallendivisionsincreased&e=4

[Hercules Rockefeller]

and the Democratic Party couldn't field a candidate to beat him.

[Bronco_Beerslug]

and the Democratic Party couldn't field a candidate to beat him.
Partly correct. The rest points to an uneducated and ignorant America who are finally starting to see where we're heading.

[RaiderH8r]

Partly correct. The rest points to an uneducated and ignorant America who are finally starting to see where we're heading.
Ah yes, insults. The best way to win friends and influence voters. Maybe the problem lies with the party. Just a suggestion.

[Bronco_Beerslug]

Ah yes, insults. The best way to win friends and influence voters. Maybe the problem lies with the party. Just a suggestion.
How do you describe then when a country elects a leader and 2 months later the majority don't have confidence in his leadership?

[Hercules Rockefeller]

How do you describe then when a country elects a leader and 2 months later the majority don't have confidence in his leadership?

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Presidential_04/bush_ja.html

Kind of looks like his job approval is back up to his election day numbers.

[Hercules Rockefeller]

If I was a Dem, the last thing I'd be pointing out is Bush's numbers two months after an election. His numbers haven't been great for a couple years, but somehow your party managed to field a candidate who couldn't beat an incredibly vulnerable President.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

and the Democratic Party couldn't field a candidate to beat him.

"The Democratic Party didn't have an answer for GOP election fraud" would be more accurate.

http://www.bartcop.com/fullmoon2.gif

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

That divide has solidified over the past four years, costing him the honeymoon that presidents - even second-term presidents - typically enjoy at inauguration. He takes office with a job-approval rating of 51%, the consistently lowest of any re-elected president in modern times. Partisan divisions eased when Presidents Clinton, Reagan and Eisenhower were sworn in a second time. They haven't for Bush.

What's more, he'll be pursuing an agenda that differs from the challenges most Americans identify as top priorities. Their most urgent concerns: education and health care costs.

The findings of a series of USA TODAY polls in December and January raise questions about the president's claim of a mandate for his second-term agenda. His plan to add individual investment accounts to Social Security is supported by 48% and opposed by 48%, for instance. By 52%-47%, Americans call his decision to invade Iraq a mistake.


So much for a "mandate," eh?

http://www.bartcop.com/wmd-never.gif

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

What's more, he'll be pursuing an agenda that differs from the challenges most Americans identify as top priorities. Their most urgent concerns: education and health care costs.

So much for that Fox/CNN/MSGOP propaganda about "moral values," eh?

[errand]

Partly correct. The rest points to an uneducated and ignorant America who are finally starting to see where we're heading.

Nothing but doom and gloom...and insults from you.

Yeah, you guys are definitely out for at least another generation..............

It must suck to be you guys, waking up with no hope or belief whatsoever that life in this great nation is worth living.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

It must suck to be you guys, waking up with no hope or belief whatsoever that life in this great nation is worth living.

It must suck to be you guys, cheerleading a smirking sociopath who is running this great nation straight toward the rocks at full speed and not even realizing it.

[Bronco_Beerslug]

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Presidential_04/bush_ja.html

Kind of looks like his job approval is back up to his election day numbers.

Doesn't look that way to me. I, for one, can't think of anything he's accomplished yet since 2000.

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Wednesday January 19, 2005--Forty-six percent (46%) of American adults approve of the way George W. Bush is performing his role as President. Fifty-two percent (52%) disapprove.

Eighty-four percent (84%) of Republicans give him their Approval along with just 15% of Democrats and 36% of unaffiliated voters.

During 2004, reports on the President Job Approval were based upon surveys of Likely Voters. Typically, a survey of Likely Voters would report a Job Approval rating 2-3 points higher than a survey of all adults.

On Election Day, the President's Job Approval was at 52%. During all of 2004, the President's Job Approval ranged from a high of 57% in early January to a low of 48% on May 17.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/Bush_Job_Approval.htm

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[errand]

It must suck to be you guys, cheerleading a smirking sociopath who is running this great nation straight toward the rocks at full speed and not even realizing it.

Yes, the typical LABF response of how Bush is bad.

BTW...it's not cheerleading...it's the will of the people. Or have you forgotten who won the last presidential race by a popular vote of over 3.5 million votes?

We now return you liberals to your hand-wringing and whining.....

[TheDave]

If those poll #'s are right, that's just pathetic, the guy got 3.5 million more votes than his closest competitor, if that many people really are worried about Americas future where the hell were they on election day?

[errand]

Doesn't look that way to me. I, for one, can't think of anything he's accomplished yet since 2000.

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Wednesday January 19, 2005--Forty-six percent (46%) of American adults approve of the way George W. Bush is performing his role as President. Fifty-two percent (52%) disapprove.

Eighty-four percent (84%) of Republicans give him their Approval along with just 15% of Democrats and 36% of unaffiliated voters.

During 2004, reports on the President Job Approval were based upon surveys of Likely Voters. Typically, a survey of Likely Voters would report a Job Approval rating 2-3 points higher than a survey of all adults.

On Election Day, the President's Job Approval was at 52%. During all of 2004, the President's Job Approval ranged from a high of 57% in early January to a low of 48% on May 17.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/Bush_Job_Approval.htm

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Well, that's all well and good...but the bottom line is the bottom line...3.5 million more people said he should be president

[errand]

If those poll #'s are right, that's just pathetic, the guy got 3.5 million more votes than his closest competitor, if that many people really are worried about Americas future where the hell were they on election day?

Exactly Dave.....how can his approval numbers be so bad, and yet have so many more people vote for him. Perhaps these polls are a tad bit skewed towards those who lean left?

[Eye Patch]

Well since I have been gone… beerslug is right where he was when I left him.

Scouring the net looking for any opinion pieces he can find to perpetuate his gloom and doom.

Seems he is quite unhappy as he blames others for his unhappiness. Which is a characteristic to be a democrat. I’m a victim.

Since this election had the highest turnout in decades… it seems the folks have spoken.

When you consider how beerslug and LABF represent the nucleus of the democratic party with their whining and crying one can expect another defeat for the elephant haters in 06 and beyond.

[Bronco_Beerslug]

Well since I have been gone… beerslug is right where he was when I left him.

Scouring the net looking for any opinion pieces he can find to perpetuate his gloom and doom.

Seems he is quite unhappy as he blames others for his unhappiness. Which is a characteristic to be a democrat. I’m a victim.

Since this election had the highest turnout in decades… it seems the folks have spoken.

When you consider how beerslug and LABF represent the nucleus of the democratic party with their whining and crying one can expect another defeat for the elephant haters in 06 and beyond.

Back right where you left off, I see. A shinning beacon of ignorance defending
Bush policies no matter how bad they are for us and the rest of the world.
The news is the news whether you like it or not. I like how Bushies label anyone who disagrees with his administration as liberals. Typical stereotyping BS they label the rest of the world with that don't agree with their agenda.

Go ahead and list Bush's accomplishments for us since he's been elected king if you disagree with half the country's view that they don't have confidence in him.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

...it's not cheerleading...it's the will of the people.


Really?

Then how do you explain the following?


Wednesday January 19, 2005--Forty-six percent (46%) of American adults approve of the way George W. Bush is performing his role as President. Fifty-two percent (52%) disapprove.

As always, errant is living in a world that doesn't match his perceptions or his claims.

http://www.bartcop.com/inaug-ownership.gif

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Wednesday January 19, 2005--Forty-six percent (46%) of American adults approve of the way George W. Bush is performing his role as President. Fifty-two percent (52%) disapprove.

This doesn't quite jibe with the ditto monkey myth that a majority of Americans voted for a second term for the disaster monkey, does it?

[Exile_In_SJ]

Geez you whiners Hate Bush and yet you couldn't beat him. The Majority of Americans preferred him over anyone the Dummycrats could field. Pretty sad for the woeful ignorant Democrats

Quit your whining and grow the f*ck up.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Geez you whiners Hate Bush and yet you couldn't beat him.

Only delusional Diebold monkeys like you actually believe Smirk "won" the election.

For the rest of us, there's honesty.

The Majority of Americans preferred him over anyone the Dummycrats could field.

Then how do you explain this?

Wednesday January 19, 2005--Forty-six percent (46%) of American adults approve of the way George W. Bush is performing his role as President. Fifty-two percent (52%) disapprove.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/Bush_Job_Approval.htm

Doesn't quite square with your bullsh*t, does it?

Quit your whining and grow the f*ck up.

You forgot to tell Dino Rossi in Washington State.

There's that ditto monkey double standard at work again.

[Hercules Rockefeller]

Only delusional Diebold monkeys like you actually believe Smirk "won" the election.

You forgot to tell Dino Rossi in Washington State.

There's that ditto monkey double standard at work again.

and the fact that you're attempting to tie job approval numbers over 2 months after the election shows how desperate and illogical your arguments have become. Either the entire Democratic Party establishment are really Republicans, or they understand that John Kerry didn't win. I'm guessing the latter, but you'll respond with something that almost makes me think you think they're the former.

a double standard? You're about the last person who can attempt to say that anyone has a double standard on this board when it comes to party politics. Let's see Bush won Ohio, the Dems "stolen state" in '04, by about 120k votes. Dino Rossi lost the Washington Governor's race by 137 and King County still has not explained how there are 1200 more votes then people who voted in their final tally. For someone who pissed and moaned about an Ohio county that had the same thing happen but who had the error immediately corrected and not included in the final tally, it would be safe to assume that you should claim election fraud in Washington as well. Let's also not talk about Wisconsin where Milwaukee had over 10k same day sign up and votes who can gave nonexistant addresses. But I guess expecting you to have a consistent argument regardless of party invovled is asking too much.

[errand]

This doesn't quite jibe with the ditto monkey myth that a majority of Americans voted for a second term for the disaster monkey, does it?

...and there ladies and gentlemen is the hidden agenda...this report was publish to fuel those liberal nutcases who still despite all the investigations and searches, believe Bush stole the election.

Look, you got 52% of the people specifically asked a few questions giving their opinions...Bush has 52% of the American people who actually voted....and that's 3.5 million more people who voted, that says he did a good job the first 4 years....and decided to give him another 4 years.

[errand]

You forgot to tell Dino Rossi in Washington State.

There's that ditto monkey double standard at work again.

Yeah, Dino is bitching about losing by a couple of votes...while you cry about 3.5 million vote difference. get real, clown.............

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Yeah, Dino is bitching about losing by a couple of votes...while you cry about 3.5 million vote difference. get real, clown.............

As usual, the point sailed right over your head, Chuckles.

When a Democrat challenges the results of a questionable election, the repugs cry "sore loser," "get over it," "quit whining," "let's move on," etc.

By contrast, after three recounts - the last of which was a hand count - Rossi wants to do the whole election over again because he doesn't like the results.

Moral of the story: Repugs are all about the double standard (and major-league whiners to boot!)

BTW, with regard to the presidential election, your "3.5 million vote difference" argument doesn't wash; it's the electoral vote count that matters - remember? (Just in case you forgot, your side has been reminding us ad infinitum since coup 2000.)

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Bush's inaugural obscenity

It goes without saying that the Internet will quickly be filled with incisive, appropriately critical assessments of George Bush's Inaugural sham.

How could it be otherwise?

Sure, there are gullible simps and brain-laundered propaganda patsies among us, but we're not a nation of fools.

Too many Americans have been shafted, in one painful way or another, by Dubya's corporate/financial, elitist masters. Despite constant neo-con efforts to smokescreen that exploitative abuse, each day brings greater popular clarity about where our common citizenry's steadily worsening status originates.



Seniors understand that Big Pharma's vile greed intolerably bilks them with outrageously overpriced prescription drugs.

Parents from coast to coast angrily appreciate that a private-profit medical/insurance hierarchy prices them out of affording adequate healthcare for their dangerously jeopardized children.

Workers see wages stagnate, benefits disappear, and safe and clean shop floor conditions vanish as union-busting policies that comprise the ruthless heart of rightwing Republicanism run rampant under Bush administration aegis.

Women watch with growing alarm as their basic reproductive rights are threatened with disastrous extinction. They understand, too, that any redress of longstanding unfairness between the sexes -- particularly in the realm of equal pay for equal toil -- becomes a virtual impossibility while reactionary, patriarchal "values" promulgated by the Bush White House prevail.

Gays, racial minorities, believers in faiths other than fundamentalist Christianity, the foreign born, principled dissidents, etc., all have warranted basis for fearing witch-hunting pogroms that shape the secret, sinister dreams of ultraconservatives looking for any excuse -- real or completely fabricated -- to get tough with their "enemies".

In Everytown, USA, grievously sad funerals are held for young soldiers returned in aluminum caskets from Iraq. Even as their heartbroken family members accept folded flags and pious "gratitude" for their sacrifice, a potentially revolutionary consciousness asserts that their deaths were entirely without valid justification.

No weapons of mass destruction were ever found. Bush lied; they died. For oil, and for global Wall Street hegemony.

Bush's Inaugural address reputedly went through fourteen editings, and yet it emerged as a completely insipid mishmash of contrivance and cliches.

Its poisonous centerpiece was an Orwellian deceit involving repeatedly substituting the word "freedom" for U.S. imperialism's profiteering desire to force its self-serving will on peoples abroad preemptively characterized as terrorists or tyrants for the resistance their sovereign self-determination will necessarily compel them to mount.

Bush's duplicitous words uttered while shamefully evoking both God and goodness were a complete mockery of right and wrong. As if moved by the darkest black magic, righteousness and evil totally traded places before a grandiose lectern in Washington, D.C. on January 20, 2005.

Think about this:

American "liberators" get blown to bits in unarmored Humvees scurrying about Iraqi roadways. Meanwhile, the man responsible for that debacle parades down Constitution Avenue in a limousine bearing enough bulletproof glass and metal to qualify as a wheeled battleship.

Nothing more graphically symbolizes the travesty of the poor having to fight and die in rich men's dirty wars while the latter suffer no untoward consequence.

At least until the entire house of bloody cards collapses, ala Vietnam, and as Iraq will likewise inevitably do.

George Bush presides over a nation where nothing is as claimed.

And where very nearly everything is soul-devouringly wrong.

Steadily worsening social and economic injustice permeates our land, bringing a world record gap between haves and have-nots. The rural heartland is utterly devoid of opportunity for graduating high school classes. In urban cores, countless kids don't graduate at all.

The American Dream is fast becoming the Nightmare on Main Street.

Rust weakens the rivets and bolts of our former greatness.

Against this backdrop of decay, no remedial attempt that serves public welfare and the common good is even perfunctorily made.

America under George Bush is analogous to the Titanic steaming headlong toward an iceberg.

Every aspect of the political Right's agenda is geared for saving the upper crust luxuriating in first-class privilege, while we the masses in steerage are to be set cruelly adrift, buffeted by cold, stormy inequity.

A myopic helmsman who also will not listen commands our ship of state.

Who can rationally argue that a mutiny -- a re-assertion of government of, by and for the people -- is not called for at this perilous moment?

Who dares claim it wouldn't be the greatest, most imperative patriotism imaginable?

- Dennis Rahkonen