Back in July, I wondered what it would take before the country started realizing what they had in Bush, before it was publicly acceptable to call him out for what he is. I guess the time is finally arriving. Bush’s popularity continues to plummet (36% at press time), 57% of the country think he misled us into war, 80% think the Plame affair is serious, etc. His once monolithic empire is crumbling around him. It was bound to happen, I am only sad that it didn’t happen a year ago. Still 3 years left of this corrupt idiocy.
Those numbers are atrocious, and just getting worse. Compare them with the numbers I went through in my 2004 election analysis (written just over 6 months ago). There are a whole slew of lies this administration fed the populace, amplified by a docile media, that the country believed. (Why shouldn’t they, who would expect their president would be a bald-faced liar?) The lies are coming out. Some are out already, some are in process of being undiscovered, and some are obvious but will never be precisely pinned down.
I wonder about those people who voted for Bush and have turned against him. Somewhere between 15 and 25% of the country voted for him and now have turmed against him. I’d be very curious to hear from those people. What was it that changed their mind? What made them finally wake up and realize what they had voted for?
I think there were two turning points.
1) Katrina. Like a mantra, Bush always invoked 9/11. He used it to get us into Iraq, to cut taxes, to impugn anyone who stood in his way, he could always rely on good old 9/11. He was the one who was keeping us safe from the terrorists. Only Katrina showed he wasn’t. Katrina showed that there were no plans, no defense, no strategy, no nothing. And this wasn’t in response to an incredibly tricky unforseen diabolic strategy. This was against wind. This was against wind that had been predicted multiple times by multiple agencies in multiple years. Any citizen could see for themself how ill-prepared we were. Anyone could see that instead of trying to protect us, Bush had served up political hack after political hack, leaving New Orleans in the hands of a man who spent the critical day trading e-mails with his secretary about how good he looked.
2) Media. The media has always been complicit. Always needing to find two sides, always needing to protect sources, always needing to lick the hand that feeds them, always needing access, always needing money — Bush learned he could say anything and get away with it. He could debate Gore, lie through his teeth, state obvious fallacies, and still get the media to talk about Gore’s sighing. It just got worse. Well, somewhere along the line the media started to wake up. They are still a long long way away from where they should be, but they’re getting there. Was it time, was it McClellan’s obvious lying, who knows.
It’s hard to write this. I want to yell, “I told you so! I told you so! I was right, I was right!” to the world, but that doesn’t matter much. Our presidency, our government, our country, and our world are worse for these last years. I only hope we can regain what we lost.
Great post, Muttrox. Obviously I’ve been netier reading or writing much the past few weeks, but its great to come back to the blog and see stuff like this. I plan on merging once mor ein the near future.
Jabs
When I first saw Bush’s numbers take a nose dive, I didn’t think that swing voters were necessarily moving toward the democrats, just moving away from the republicans. However, the two gubernatorial races last week are an encouraging sign, and the strategy of sitting back and letting the republicans sink themselves seems to finally be working. But if democrats wnat to take back the White House in ’08, they better come with some good ideas of thier own. Democrats will never win the presidency just by not being republican, this country is way too conservative for that. But the combination of an unpopular president and a democrat who comes accross as tough and with good ideas (Joe Biden??) could spell victory in 2008. Also, it might help if the democratic nominee “forgets” to tell Bob Shrum when the strategy meetings are taking place.
Local news: those of us still proudly standing in Kerry’s corner were glad to see him finally get some good press this week. He is calling for 20,000 troops to be brought home by December, and his supporters are paying for billboards advertising this in republican districts. (JohnKerry.com)
Also, our shining-prince Governor Mitt the Twit Romney is expected to inform us of his plans for the future sometime next month. Looks like he’s ready to bail on us and run for President in 2008, and he would probably have a serious chance of winning if he weren’t such a goddamn Morman.