Via Daily Kos, I was drawn to a brief commentary by Rich Lowry on the Corner on National Review Online.
The president’s job approval ratings aren’t looking so great lately: 36%, ARG; 40% Harris; 45% Rasmussen. I’m prepared to believe that all these polls are flawed for some reason or other, but it’s clear that he’s sagging.
Yeah… and I’m prepared to believe that the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe.
Man… I hope all Republicans are in such a stunning state of denial, that they can’t see the forest for the colon polyps inches away from their eyeballs. If R’s are blaming their “sagging” poll numbers on the pollsters (all the pollsters) rather than their own disastrous policies, their dismal performance in office is destined to be duplicated at next year’s mid-term elections.
Lowry suggests much of Bush’s problems stem from the deteriorating war in Iraq (duh-uh), and on that front the polls are only getting worse. A new AP-Ipsos poll released today shows approval of Bush’s handling of the war at 37% (down from 41% in June,) while 58% disapprove. And these are no wishy-washy, blowing-in-the-wind type numbers. Only 20% of respondents “strongly approve” (plummeting from 26% in June), while a steady 45% “strongly disapprove.” Perhaps even more telling… 87% approve of public dissent against the war. (You know… like what that traitor Cindy Sheehan is doing down in Crawford, TX.)
Bush’s approval ratings are “sagging” lower than his mamma’s eighty-year-old tits, and Lowry’s solution? Come out in favor of something popular… like cracking down on immigration. Yup… what better way to drum up support for our war against brown people overseas, than to rile up fear and distrust of brown people back at home?
To Lowry, “this seems an obvious play”, but he doesn’t think Bush will do it, because Bush is a leader, and “leadership is about ignoring polls, doing hard things, etc.”
You have to give Bush credit–he’s the absolute opposite of Clinton. Clinton was in favor of small, popular things. Bush apparently likes to be in favor of big, unpopular things.
Um… and that’s a good thing?
As Armando astutely observes on Daily Kos:
“For the life of me, why these Republicans would want to compare Bush to Clinton escapes me. But they do.”
They certainly do.
UPDATE:
Whoops… looks like the Gallup Poll is flawed too: 40% job approval. This is Bush’s lowest rating ever, and the worst of any of the last seven presidents at this point in the second term, with the exception of Nixon during Watergate. Most troubling for Republicans, only one-third of independents approve of Bush’s performance. There goes the swing vote.
And before anybody mocks outrage at me pulling Barbara Bush into this, let’s just deal with it up front: old women’s breasts sag. Get over it.
Also, I’ve read in more than one place that She and GW are peas in a pod. He’s more like her than anyone else in the family.
While Nobel Prize winner worst president of the 20th century and later Bubba ignored the brewing threat and left a mess for the adults to handle, history will recognize President Bush as a visionary leader who had the moral clarity, intelligence, and courage to confront evil and defeat it.
Wow…
His disapproval rating is almost as bad as Gregoires.
Barb has this eye condition. I forget what it’s called – bugeye or something. The condition has improved lately, but back when Poppy was the big cheese commander thief jerk liar, I figured maybe it was a sign that she was scared shitless about what Poppy and his henchmen were plotting. Poppy was all for dropping H-bombs on Hanoi as a congresstwit in the sixties, ya know. Damned darkies! Perhaps, she was only bugeye’d about getting caught. Now that she’s no longer in the spotlight, she can relax and let twit boy plot nucular holocaust so Jesus will come back and wave his magic Jesus wand and fix everything happy happy.
Blaming the unpopularity of their policies on pollsters is consistent with their philosophy of personal responsibility — they won’t accept any.
Cracking down on illegal immigrants won’t happen because it’s inconsistent with their economy policy — exporting jobs and importing cheap labor.
I nominate post #3 for the August Horses Ass Fiction Prize.
Comment on 5
I can’t wait for the Rapture to get here — we’ll be rid of 144,00 of these clowns — but I sure hope it doesn’t arrive on a mushroom cloud.
Hey, I have an idea, let’s ask the Giant Green Rabbit to schedule the Rapture’s arrival in Ohio the day before Election Day 2008. Getting rid of 144,000 Ohio Republicans should turn the trick.
It really is all about fantasy for Republicans… for years they were sold on a set of ideology and myths that if only we did X then everything would be great.
Take Iraq… Bush and the neo-cons had this dream that if only the US had enough ‘resolve’ to invade and occupy Iraq, everything would take care of itself. There would be an end to terrorism, a wave of corporate friendly democracy would sweep through the middle east, the war would pay for itself and little tiny robots would spring up to wash our dishes after dinner. Sadly, it didn’t happen.
But this can’t be THEIR fault? Oh no, must be someone else’s! Yeah, that is it! Republicans control every lever of power in this country but it is not their fault.
It is a failed ideology that met a cold hard reality. We don’t go and invade every country that we don’t like because it doesn’t work well and the costs rarely come anywhere near the benefits.
Most Republicans will keep their fantasies though… hard to break a habit.
prr @ 4
Bush wishes he had a 51% approval rating like Gregoire!
Or better yet we could waste all days posting idiotic ramblings, confident in our unshakeable intellect, on minutae, with all the importance of toe clippings…thanks Goldy and Roger for showing the way….boring..next….
torridjoe…
Why does Bush care about an approval rating?
He does not have to worry about a re-election. Now he can just do his job without listen to theliberals bitch.
It seems the only people bleeting about approval ratings are you liberal sheep.
12
So why are YOU here? What deviant gratification do you get from wasting YOUR time on this blog?
Torridjoe@11
Why should bush care about an approval rating? He does not have to worry about a re-election and aparently, not about liberal viewpoints.
Good for him
Prr@14
well there is that whole “Bringing the party down in flames with me” thing…
But being Bush, he might indeed not care.
I’m excited to see what Big Lies they come up with in 2006 to overcome the unpopularity of this bully president and botched war. I bet it’ll make SC 2000 plus “Swiftboat veterans” look like silly games.
I’m just waiting for them to burn down the Reich- I mean the Capitol building.
he has to worry about a legacy, the fulfillment of his policy ideas on the Hill, and the success of the party he leads in the next 2 elections. Congress doesn’t do what a weak President wants, and people don’t vote for the party of a crappy President.
me..I live “here”, as a voter is it not my duty to read and research and be informed, to listen to all sides of each issue and decide what has value and merit…or lack of merit
Mark the Yellow Neck @ 3
Why don’t you jump in your big SUV, drive down to your local Army or Marine recruiter’s office and sign up?
You’ll have a better perspective on Bush’s vision and we’ll take you more seriously.
For the benefit of ye olde Puddy Freep, the commenter who can’t stop devising new tactics and strategies to hate Bill Clinton even more:
Clinton, on the other hand, believed in war as a last resort, working with allies, no American casualties, building alliances and global goodwill towards America, fighting terrorism as our number 1 national security priority, tax cuts for the poor and tax fairness for the rich, balanced budgets, saving social security first, cops on the streets, etc. Yeah, “small” popular ideas like that. You know, the peace and prosperity thing.
Windie @ 15…
Bring down the party, give me a break.
If that’s the case why are Bill and Hillary following around his family like adopted kids?
come on…you surely took some psych classes….you know about propaganda, you know about polling, push and otherwise, you surely know about the MSM, and the polling companies…you think this president, with all you have seen him do, in the “summer” of his last term is concerned with what Corp. “poll” says…
Torridjoe@16
Give me a friggin break.
He is doing his job as you friggin pantywaste’s are bitching over evry friggin move.
His legacy is going to be Conservative run supreme court and a Democratic minority in Congress.
Plus Saddam in a body bag, put there by his own people.
@20
If Bush is so popular, why does he need 1/2 mile of security between him and the American public?
Heck I question whether you or I should be concerned with what some poll says. Isn’t possible that maybe the pollsters are fishing for something to sell, and maybe isn’t possible that the MSM are dying to find something ( a war protesting mom), anything ( falling /plummeting/sinking) poll numbers to sell…sell….sell….
21
He’d rather be “right”* than popular. Just what you’d expect from Corporate America’s hired lackey.
* As in Far, Far Right.
Bush is making the Birchers look like moderates.
Don’t give yourself a hernia from straining to come up with rationalizations for Shrub’s lousy poll numbers, Thomas.
Worst.President.Ever
Destined to be most unpopular president, too.
thomas:
Gimme a break. This is classic rightie “All the media are against us!” rhetoric, and its silly.
Whether he “Does” care, he “Should” care if he gives a damn about what happens to the republicans after he leaves office. He might not, but thats a different issue I think. Presuming that the ballot boxes really aren’t fixed, they’re looking at serious trouble.
Seems to me you left wing assholes said the same thing abot Reagan.
What’s the press on him lately?
last I heard they were going to make him a Saint.
Grow the fuck up.
prr:
1) Reagen has nothing on the sheer outlawry that Bush represents.
2) They’re always really nice to people for a while after they die… Just look at Nixon
3) The MSM is easily led by the huge volume and slick PR the right wing lie factories spew. Having good lawyers behind you isn’t equal to being a good prez.
@30
now THAT was a freudian slip!
“Good lawyers” = “Good Liars”
No offence to our local lawyers :)
@31….
Are you kidding me?
How could you possibly offend a lawyer?
@33
hehe way to dodge my actual points!
(Oh and I Know its “Reagan” stupid typos)
Didn’t you guys learn anything from President Reagan? Fercrissakes, it happened right in front of your eyes. The way you deal with evil is to confront it. After too many years of “All we are saying…”, RR took on the evil empire and defeated it. And the cold war was over. Dun.
mtr @ 34
Actually, the way to deal with it is to expose it. I surely don’t recall Reagan invading Russia, or any other major Soviet satellite. What I DO remember is that we fomented resistance/unity movements such as Solidarity, ratcheted down tensions by limiting nuclear weapons, and instigated a massive public information outreach program using Charles Wick and the USAID. The Soviet Union fell because first the satellites, and then the USSR proper, could not be protected from Western goods, culture and WORDS.
Bush is doing practically the opposite in all cases. And he wonders why he’s failing. Hell, even Nixon went to China.
Mark the Yellow Neck:
Do your homework before you espouse Regan defeated communism. The reality many factors came into play in the 80’s that caused the demise of the Soviet Union. Pope John Paul II being one of the driving factors. Another was the USSR’s misadventure into Afghanistan and the fact that the financial institution of communism never works.
Regan, overspending our military wasn’t the reason the USSR collapsed. To believe that is prove that you have an extremely limited knowledge of world politics.
GBS – Yes, there were a number of factors. But by far the biggest was confronting them on military buildup and breaking their economic backs. Although you lefties like to deride it, SDI was the final straw. Once we demonstrated that it would work, they quit.
MTR@37
The military/confrontation was started by Truman, dummy. Every president of either party followed that path.
And waitaminnit… SDI??!
SDI STILL DOESN”T WORK, MORON!
oh God, I can’t believe MTR… He thinks the USSR collapsed because we showed them that SDI worked, and they couldn’t nuke us. Thats priceless. Totally divorced from reality, but priceless.
@34
It never ceases to amaze me how the Wingys give Reagan all the credit for USSR’s demise without considering the role of the presidents who preceded, Pope John Paul, or (most important) Gorbachev. It was really the latter’s inspired leadership, not Reagan’s bluster, that brought Russia out of the Soviet era. It couldn’t have happened without Gorbachev, but it would have happened anyway without Reagan.
Years after the USSR collapsed the U.S. still doesn’t have a working defense against North Korean missiles.
“Horses Ass” is a good name for this blog because all the horses’ asses of the Far Right come here to deposit their horseshit.
And Reagan worship is a prime example of “horse shit.”
Some thoughts about Reagan:
1) Armed Iran (traded guns for hostages)
2) Armed Latin American death squads
3) Armed Saddam
4) Armed Osama bin Laden
5) Committed impeachable offenses (Iran-Contra)
6) Famous for “voodoo economics”
6) Created deficits so huge, he and Bush 1 had to raise taxes 5 times
8) Tripled national debt
9) Mediocre jobs record (worse than any 20th century Democrat)
And you call this guy a “Saint”?? WTF?? He should have been run out of town pn a rail! They should print his face on toilet paper, not the coinage.
Check those polling trends!
http://www.gallup.com/poll/con.....&pg=2
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Bush probably thanks God every night for 9/11, it was the only thing that saved his embarassingly pathetic career in politics.
Also, were those 90% approval ratings in Sept ’01 prejudiced too? What was his real rate… 215%?
Hey Rabbit
If i had a shit eating dog they would have to send your shoes home. get a life
The “final straw” for the USSR was the collapse in oil prices arguably engineered by the Reaganites with the Saudis. Wiped out the oil industry in the U.S. and the S&L’s but took out the USSR.
MTYN @ 37
“These are not the droids you are looking for. Now move along.”
“The Force” is Intelligent Design, yes?
All righty, then, Obi Wan Ben Knobe, I guess you have the Death Sar to destroy over their on the eastside, huh? Looks like you have a busy weekend of light sabres and stromtroopers ahead of you.
Run along now, the adults are talking.
Mark@37 –
We did not demonstrate that SDI would work, but you are close. We bankrupted the Soviet military by faking the demonstration of interceptors in 1984. See CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/co.....rwars.html
Reagan made it up in a Hollywood basement. You believed, but more importantly, the Soviets believed it and overcommitted to countermeasures. So, Reagan’s lie “worked.”
The problem is, the lies don’t always work.
@ 42
Pencil Dick
Go back & read 34.
Your answer is nonsense
@ 46
Pencil Dick. It’s nice to see where you are in your grasp of reality.
A poll released by Gallup on February 18, 2005 shows that Ronald Reagan is the most popular president in history.
Rabbit and Donna…
You need to get a life. You both must be without a job and have nothing else to do.
Your maundering turistas reveal you as the sycophants you obviously are…
Roger Rabbit @ 8 and 9:
You make the great mistake of assuming that Republican’s would be deserving of being drawn up in the raputre. Lets face it, most Republicans “Christians” are like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim an Tammy Fay Baker (sheesh, seems to be a pattern here), and are hardly living lives of virtue. Heck, 4 will get you 10 that the Virtue Czar Bill Bennet might have a problem or two. Heck, if Kirk Cameron can’t make it, what are the chances of your average Republican. And, let’s not forget, it is easier for camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter heaven.
Heath @ 51 – Don’t be a fucking idiot. The AOA program done right here in Seattle was one of the demos we did that proved it could work. Look it up. Go down to BoeingField and see the airplane. Right here under your nose but you go to CNN to get “news”.
Some more thoughts about Reagan at 46
Cured the “malaise” from Nobel Prize winning worst president of 20th century.
Ended the Cold War, thereby liberating a few hundred million people from the jack boot repression they were under.
Got interest rates down from 21%.
Got unemployment down from 11%.
Started largest and longest peacetime economic expansion in history.
Nearly doubled federal tax revenues by cutting tax RATES.
prr:
Let’s put that poll in context:
“In this new poll on greatest president, Reagan drew 20% support, followed by Clinton with 15%, Lincoln with 14%, and Franklin D. Roosevelt and JFK with 12% each. ”
So, you agree that Clinton is the second best president ever?
Let’s face it, thats a farce, and the only reason Reagan was there was because he had just died. Clinton only made it because he was the last good president. In reallity, I think both of us can agree that both Clinton and Reagan deserve to be somewhere in the teens. Any poll that doesn’t start out Lincoln, Washington, FDR isn’t really in touch with reality.
And, while we are looking back over the problems with Reagan, lets not forget allowing 241 Marines and other members of the military to be killed in Lebanon, and then retreating, which is often cited as the reason that Osama bin Laden thought he could get away with the World Trade Center.
Mark the Yellow Back:
Exactly how many missles have been shot down under real-life circumstances by Star Wars?
And I’ll gladly attend your swearing in when you put your money where your mouth is and sign up with the Maines.
@ 57
Who exactly are the Maines?
Is that like a national guard unit from Maine?
Or is a liberal, dope smoking, wife swapping club that tries to identify whose children belong to which parents, so they can collect the welfare check?
JDB @ 57
If Mark The Yellow Back joined the Marines we’d have to call him Mark The Yellow Pants!
ShitForBrains @ 57 – Military 101… Weapons do not have to be EMployed to be useful, the only need to be DEployed. Even better are those weapons whose mere threat of deployment is enough to deter an enemy. SDI was brilliant in that the mere threat of its deployment defeated the enemy without a shot being fired. Reagan was a fucking genius.
It’s a good thing the reThugs here are rich (or think they are)…nobody else could be that STUPID (oooooh, oooooh, ronnie ray-gun! ronnie ray-gun! Mt. Rushmore! Streets! Villages! Schools! WTF…Whole Countries! The second URINAL fron the right!) and SURVIVE!!
Good thing God doesn’t like gay folk or St. Ronnie would have harpies clawing at his dessicated flesh for callously ignoring the beginnings of the AIDS epidemic…oh wait, he’s probably in hell for all the people in Central America he killed or disappeared. OK, OK, assholes…HE…didn’t do it HIMSELF…but his little henchmen did, and ST. Ronnie should have been impeached for THAT. AND keeping Americans hostage until AFTER he was elected with his little deal with the mullahs. Now THAT’S a REAL patriot for ya’. AAAANND starting the social division of this country which continues to bear fruit for the party today….aaannd planting the seed of the “selfishness society” that we see everyday on this and another UN-named(sound) blog(politics).
Liaring, Cheating, Undermining democratic values, Promoting wars of imperialism for economic gain, Dividing the electorate to conquer instead of unite. Republican Presidents since 1972 have courageously upheld these “traditional” values in the face of constant temptation and pressure to represent ALL the citizens of these United States and do what is best for the Country rather than their wealthy contributors, the Military-Industrial complex, or their rabid theocratic base.
The Republican Party…you’re not in hell yet, but you’ll think you are.
48
Hey ProudAss, bunnies don’t wear shoes!! (You picked a good faux screen name for yourself — ding dong! ding dong! Can hear you coming … like a tin can behind a car … )
Rujax @ 61 – You forgot that we polluted the entire earth and fucked up the environment too.
pISSON rOGER rABBIT @ 52
Who said I was offended? You can’t offend me. I’m just a cute, fluffy 7-lb. bunny. I’m inoffensive.
54
Hey, I don’t care whether the Rapture transports them up or down, if 144,000 of them disappear!
60
Speaking of shit for brains, do you know what’s gonna happen to somebody fool enough to point an unloaded gun at the Crips?
Same thing that will happen to the president (and country) that bluffs a dictator armed with nuclear weapons with an intercepter system that doesn’t work.
Sorry, MTR I was getting to that. Fuckhead. carter was (and IS) fifty times the American that phony bastard was.
So MTR, I reiterate…FUCK YOU.
Rujax, you also forgot to mention the astrological charts …
Ya know, some of these wingnut shitheads actually get mad if you suggest that Ronnie doesn’t belong on Mt. Rushmore …
@53
“A poll released by Gallup on February 18, 2005 shows that Ronald Reagan is the most popular president in history.”
So what? If Gallup had been around in 1860-65 Lincoln probably would have polled as the most unpopular president in history. It doesn’t automatically follow, though, that being unpopular means you’re right. It’s absurd to mention Dubya. And Lincoln. In the same sentence.
Mark @55 –
Sorry, you’re the tool, Redneck.
By Boeing’s Seattle-based AOA, I assume you mean the Airborne Optical Adjunct? If I’ve got that right, let me just say: hahahahahah.
I’ve also seen the ABL parked out by phantomworks from time-to-time, and if I were you, I would have picked that as a more-relevant platform w.r.t. TBMD or GBMD. The AOA is a tracking system with an IR imager for the sake of GBMD.
That’s impressive, but you need to do more than track the incoming missles.
What Reagan had faked up, and I remember wathing it on the CBS Evening News was a kinetic missile intercept. Supposedly, our interceptor unfurled a big, metal ‘net’ that destroy the enemy missile. Hahhahahah
It was a good lie. But the truth was that, although subsystems like targetting worked, the overall SDI program was impossible.
The stupid interceptors that US BMDO has stationed in Alaska and Washington are modern technology, and the truth is they won’t work, either. With modern phased-array radars, the X-band barge near Bremerton is probably our best bet for local TBMD (and who knows, maybe it is W-band like the AN-SPY1F…). Weapons like PLD, Aegis Burnthrough, and HAARP are rational attempts to to create something that can shoot down missiles.
Interceptor missiles with unfurling metal nets were the product of a Hollywood basement, but that did the trick in 1984. The year, not the novel.
68-
I know, I know…I ALWAYS forget SOMETHING.
BTW…I looved your new book:
Rabbit…re: Ducks.
Pencildick @ 70.
So your point is that the polls are utterly useless?
So Goldies topic point on this is a useless bunch of crap?
Wow we agree on something
Comment on 75
“The jawbone of an ass is just as dangerous a weapon today as in Sampson’s time.” — Richard Nixon
I’m NOT referring to Goldy …
re Heath @ 71 to MTR @ 55&56
…ouch. Always fun when someone with expert knowledge takes down a troll.
and uh, about that “longest peacetime expansion in history”…
Reagan’s was November 1982 to July 1990, which is 7 years, 8 months.
Clinton’s was March 1991 to March 2001, of course 10 years.
Torrid@78 – Not sure where you’re getting your data, and what the 8 month thing between 7/90 and 3/91 is about, but regardless even if there was an 8 month minor dip, it’s really one long expansion of nearly 18 years. WJC inherited a good economy from GOP and rode it. I’m sure you disagree, so can you name one action that WJC did that came out of his brilliant fertile mind to cause good economic times? Answer: None. Almost all the structural reforms that lead to good economy were results of Newt’s CWA.
Rujass @ 63 – AIDS was Reagan’s fault? I always love that one. Sam Kinison discovered the cure for AIDS as soon as it happened, but the buttfuckers preferred to ignore him. Watch the old tapes.
48
Hey ProudAss, bunnies don’t wear shoes!! (You picked a good faux screen name for yourself – ding dong! ding dong! Can hear you coming … like a tin can behind a car … ) -Comment by Roger Rabbit— 8/26/05 @ 1:38 pm
Whoa dude – miss your afternoon Thorazine, did you?
Wasn’t me sweetie – counting this, I’ve posted EXACTLY 3 times since early August…. nice to know you missed me – now go grab that anti psychotropic you missed…better yet, go for the gusto… have 2.
@71 Heath,
Could you use any more fucking acronyms in your last post?
It was interesting but come on now.
___________________
Bush is the worst president of all time.
GW has almost made me nostalgic for Reagan. At least Reagan had the ability to act. He was able to make light of himself, too. GW has no talents at all, unless the ability to kiss the asses of those who pull his strings is considered a talent. I hope you rightwingers out there persist in your delusions that GW’s doing a good job, and, the polls be damned, that he’s popular. Your delusions will help you sleep at night, and maybe getting a good night’s sleep drain you of some of your vitriol.
MTR @ 78
You can review the data at NBER.org, which creates the definitive definitions of expansions and contractions. The eight month thing between 7/90 and 3/91 we call a RECESSION–so your blithe glossing over that is a little ridiculous. An “expansion” means the economy is expanding.
I’ll give you a few major actions from Clinton, first and foremost of which was hiring Bob Rubin.
*bailing out the Mexicans, preventing some serious default pain for US banks. Note that the Republicans were dead set against this.
*making deficit reduction priority #1, using as tools modest restoration of tax fairness, and deep cuts in the spending rates of annual budgets.
*keeping a strong dollar and maintaining global fiscal stability through masterful use of the IMF and World Bank
*promoting free global trade to maximize market opportunities for US-based business
*paying down US debt being carried as the result of dipping into funds allocated and intended for Social Security, a practice begun by…Ronald Reagan.
Anything you try to intimate that the Republicans held down spending in Congress is crap. For one thing, look at today’s Republicans! For another, I refer you to the BEA of 1990, which established PAYGO rules. They were extended by the Democrats in 1993, and again in bipartisan fashionn (80-18 Senate, 346-85 House) in 1997.
mtr@ 80
AIDS wasn’t Reagan’s fault, but ignoring it until thousands had died and tens of thousands had unwittingly become infected–that’s all on Ronny.
herbalizer@82 –
Using all those acronyms was part of my point. Mark The Redneck injects “AOA” as though “Airborne Optical Adjunct” is on the tip of everyone’s tongue. I made sure to use maximal acronyms to keep him busy for a little while.
Sorry it got in your way, but I am still smiling.
ProudAss …
… your post reminds me of an experience from my youth. One of my litter brethren committed, um, an offense so Father Rabbit whacked poor innocent little ME on the cottontail; and when I pointed out my innocence replied,
“Okay, then that’s for when I didn’t catch you!”
Torrid stop… geez…
Tax fairness? WTF is that? Screwing the rich? That’s stupid. Proven stupid.
The spending cuts were in the military which is the LAST place a president should cut unless he has his head up his ass or up some skank’s skirt.
Deficit reduction was Newt, CWA and GOP Congress. 100%. We had to drag Bubba into it.
You’re FOS on exchange rates, IM,F and World Bank. Low US rates have more to do with current weak dollar than anything else.
Promoting free trade meant embracing WTO, and the hollowing of Murkin industries. Everybody (on both sides) PO’d about that. Don’t let your unionbuddies hear you say this; they’ll have your aks for even thinking something like that.
I agree today’s GOP and GWB aren’t nearly conservative enough with expansion of gummint. GWB is GOP, but he’s nowhere near a real conservative.
Did anyone read Mark The Redneck’s post at 62??
He starts off with “ShitForBrains @ 57 – Military 101”
You’ll never guess who posted at 57. Yep, Mark The Red Neck. A.K.A. the self described ShitForBrains, Mark The Yellow Neck, Mark The Yellow Back, and just dumb shit in general. Oh, yeah, back in his college days he worked with Mayor Jim West sucking on his jock strap and whacking off to pictures of Ronald Regan posted on a Star Wars poster.
Weird dude, huh?
I hope all Republicans are in such a stunning state of denial, that they can’t see the forest for the colon polyps inches away from their eyeballs. If R’s are blaming their “sagging” poll numbers on the pollsters (all the pollsters) rather than their own disastrous policies, their dismal performance in office is destined to be duplicated at next year’s mid-term elections.
Well, hopefully this will ring true. But the real question is: will Republican partisans overcome their partisanship and not vote for Republicans they don’t approve of?
Somehow, especially after being exposed to rabid morns like Cynical, I think they’ll still stick with the R next to a person’s name above all else.
ProudAss …
… your post reminds me of an experience from my youth. One of my litter brethren committed, um, an offense so Father Rabbit whacked poor innocent little ME on the cottontail; and when I pointed out my innocence replied,
“Okay, then that’s for when I didn’t catch you!”
Comment by Roger Rabbit— 8/26/05 @ 3:11 pm
Pappa Bunny was clearly a liberal then!
In this conservative household, when an “offense” went unclaimed, all were held accountable until the offender felt guilty enough about the consequences the undeserving had to endure that they confessed.
Don’t you love all my PC buzzwords???
…offense
…held accountable
…consequences
I used ’em just for you! (Although, I do realize that last one (confessed) may have pumped up the BP a tad bit, so go ahead and grab yourself another Thorazine – a medicated bunny butt is easier to deal with.
mtr @ 88
tax fairness is what it sounds like–restoring fairness to the tax code by having those who benefit the most from this country, pay their fair share. I guess it’s been proven so stupid by the major expansions brought on by tax increases by Reagan in the 80s, and Clinton in the 90s? Heck, we can even give credit to Bush I for giving Bill a boost in that area–but of course the Republicans crucified him for flaunting your orthodoxy.
You’re wrong about the spending cuts, both in form and in advisability. Clinton CUT non-defense spending, from 17% of GDP to 15.5%. Under Bush II it’s gone back up to 16.5% (although homeland security is responsible for about 1/4 of it). Why it’s a bad idea to stop spending money on massive nuclear warheads and recognize the peace dividend we all enjoyed, I have no idea.
Deficit reduction was Rubin, sorry. It was his #1 priority when Clinton put him on the NEC, and then once he went to Treasury. Get over yourself–the Republicans didn’t give a rat’s ass about the deficit; they simply wanted more cuts and less spending.
I’m not impressed by the heavily substantive argument that I’m “full of shit” on global monetary policy. Somehow Wall Street didn’t get that impression as the Dow shot upward (and that’s BEFORE the dot.com boom).
BTW, I don’t have “union buddies.” I’m nobody’s sycophant when it comes to labor. You’ll have to find another boogeyman.
Proud @ 91
did you and your siblings hold down the guilty party in bed, while everyone pounded on him with bars of soap wrapped in washcloths?
That’ll teach your sister not to have a jelly donut in her room!
MTR @ 89
So you’re on record now in favor of unfair taxes?
Mark is a piece of work. His posts are a sight to behold. Did everyone see his analysis of vaginas and economics? It was great to see more of what he thinks! He’s a great representative of the Father-Knows-Best Right.
I’m on record of getting greedy fucking government off my ass and out of my pocket. Lower half needs to start pulling their own goddam weight.
Heath, where you live…. where the men can’t afford hot women, the women probably do know something about economics. Unattractive women need to know about such things because they have to pay their own bills.
Next time you’re in a nice part of town visiting, ask a “10” about fed monetary policy.
Mark –
It sounds like you were born ‘unfortunate’ and have to compensate by living in a weird world where your family is based on prostitution.
Maybe I’m reading you wrong. Are you trying to say that you are attractive to women only because you are a source of money?
18
me..I live “here”, as a voter is it not my duty to read and research and be informed, to listen to all sides of each issue and decide what has value and merit…or lack of merit
I hope this means you don’t vote for any of Timmy’s lame initiatives. And I take it you’re voting no on I-912 as well??
Here is a good summary of Bush’s polls from the start of his failed administration. Note: The only two major upturns in his poll numbers were after 9/11 and after he started a war.
Any wonder why they are talking up military intervention in Iran now?
http://www.pollkatz.homestead......age001.gif
Mark the Yellow Back is just proving he doesn’t have money or hot women. He’s just mimicking what he’s heard on the Tom Lekis show on FM 100.7 The BUZZ.
C’mon dumb ass be more original than that.
Its Flash Friday, Yellow Back, maybe some hot chick will feel sorry for your pitiful ass and show you her breast.
So, Mark, let’s hear all about the Fed’s monetary policy. What did they report today, hmmmm. About the economy.
GBS – I read the entire transcript of Greenspan’s speech. Did you?
prr @ 23:
He is doing his job as you friggin pantywaste’s are bitching over evry friggin move.
His legacy is going to be Conservative run supreme court and a Democratic minority in Congress.
Plus Saddam in a body bag, put there by his own people.
You think “Saddam’s people” wanna stick him in a body bag, eh? Maybe some do…but quite a few seem to want him back.
Heath, where you live…. where the men can’t afford hot women, the women probably do know something about economics. Unattractive women need to know about such things because they have to pay their own bills.
Next time you’re in a nice part of town visiting, ask a “10″ about fed monetary policy.
Would you like the long or short version of Greenspan’s comments about the long term effects of Bush and the GOP’s ill advised financial strategy? Or are you merely farting into the wind?
Any guy that has to write about asking a “10” anything…clearly doesn’t have his arm around one.
MTR, GBS is asking that you demonstrate an ability to comprehend what Greenspan said. For example, to whom did Greenspan give credit for the “heavy lifting” with respect to resolving stagflation? (Bonus question, which president appointed that particular Fed chairman?)
TorridJoe, you missed pointing out a significant difference between the Reagan-era expansion and the Clinton-era expansion. The former was accompanied by, at the time, record deficit spending. The latter, however, was accomplished with an attendant reduction in government deficits.
Torrid and Schnot – Try an experiment. Read entire chapter and verse of what Greenspan said. It has some big grown-up words in it that you might have to look up or ask me about.
Then, over the weekend, read the newspaper articles about it. Compare what he said to the liberal spin that’s put on it. Some of it will go beyond spin to outright lies. Be sure to pickup the most extreme hate_rags like NYT to get the full effect.
I’ve done this quite a few times, and it always amazes me how they distort what he says to fit their kooky agenda. Once you know the truth, you’ll learn that the LMSM can’t be trusted.
“Bush’s approval ratings are “sagging” lower than his mamma’s eighty-year-old tits”…
That was a cruel visual, Goldy…
Mark the Yellow Back:
Strange, you haven’t answered the question yet. What did Greenspan say? Here is your chance to give your spin before the “liberal” press.
LiberalDave @90
Somehow, especially after being exposed to rabid morns like Cynical, I think they’ll still stick with the R next to a person’s name above all else.
And you dolts on the left won’t vote for a “D” without finding out where the realism is? SNIFF DONE…
Mark@107:
Let’s get back to AOA. Why did the name change to AST?
Let’s talk about the phased array near Bremerton. How many Megawatts per how many beams?
Heath
It would behoove Democrats to stress that people who voted for Bush were not the idiots they are but, rather, the victims of Republican lies. See, we have learned how to “motivate” the base!
re 3: Someone’s got to be paying you to write this swill. Lowering taxes on the rich, obscene price-gouging by the oil industry, Hundreds of thousands of people dying in a war that has no reason for it except the war profiteering of the neo-con “ADministration……. The list of the moral failings of the Reps is endless. It is their own evil that they fail to see or confront.
marks,
And you dolts on the left won’t vote for a “D” without finding out where the realism is?
Nope, we won’t vote for Democrats we don’t approve of.
lucy,
people who voted for Bush were not the idiots they are but, rather, the victims of Republican lies
The first time around, maybe. But they had their chance to learn and still voted Republican. They’re idiots.
@96
“Lower half needs to start pulling their own goddam weight.”
Interesting comment … coming from a bloodsucking commodity trader who lives by skimming from the top of everything we buy, need, and eat.
@98
Mark seems to have some major-league psychological compensations going on. I wonder if his mother was a dyke.
@101
Today must be payday, and Mark’s night out.
@104
“You think ‘Saddam’s people’ wanna stick him in a body bag, eh? Maybe some do…but quite a few seem to want him back.”
Yeah, at least they had food and drinking water when he was in power. And they were safe in their homes as long as they paid protection money.
Kill him anyway.
@108
Kind of like an old dog dragging her tits on the pavement.
Maybe if their lights and toilet worked, we wouldn’t have to spend so much to keep the pipelines running with oil.
@120
What pipelines? What oil? There isn’t enough oil coming out of Iraq to lubricate an octogenarian couple trying to have sex.
“Most troubling for Republicans, only one-third of independents approve of Bush’s performance. There goes the swing vote.”
The trouble is, Goldy, discontent with Bush’s leadership and GOP policies hasn’t translated into votes for Democrats. This may be the season of discontent for swing voters, but they still vote for those corrupt lying assholes. All I can say to them is, you get what you wish for.
MTR @ 197
I have no interest in seeing whether or not the MSM spins Greenspan’s remarks clockwise or counter-clockwise. I’m only interested in seeing whether or not you can actually discuss the subject with even a modicum of knowledge and insight. I don’t exactly expect an intelligent discussion of more recent developments in the IS-LM model and the introduction of rational expectations into the mix, but you ought to do better than inuendo and insinuations. Try being something other than a blowhard for a change.
GBS – I read the entire transcript of Greenspan’s speech. Did you?
This reminds me of this exchange in “A Fish Called Wanda”
Wanda: To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people. I’ve known sheep who could outwit you. I’ve worn dresses with higher IQs, but you think you’re an intellectual, don’t you, ape?
Otto: Apes don’t read philosophy.
Wanda: Yes they do, Otto, they just don’t understand it.
Rick @ 106
I did point out that Clinton was directed by Rubin’s almost ruthless deficit reduction plan, and it was the catalyst for the strong 2nd term growth. Doesn’t it seem strange that interest rates were higher but growth was more vigorous during Clinton, and rates are still rock bottom now and only the housing market is feeding at that trough like it used to? It’s such a moronically simple concept to make into genius, but he did: when the government (and consequently the public) isn’t paying so much freaking interest on everything, more of the money gets put to concrete use.
RR @ 122
It sure translated into about 18 points worth of votes in heavily GOP Ohio last month.
TorridJoe,
Yes, you did point out Rubin’s work. It was the contrast that is worth pointing out.
As for interest rates, long term interest rates remain rather low, but short term interest rates are on the high side. The Fed has some impact on the short term, but the long term interest rates are determined by factors that the Fed’s instruments don’t affect. This was one of the points Greenspan made, and there’s reason for concern.
However, he really only touched on half the problem. Long term interest rates do remain low, but lenders are also financing riskier loans. First-time home buyers, for example, are now financing as much as 90% of the purchase price of their homes. With financial markets being highly competitive, lenders need to take on greater risks with smaller margins.
The result is a high asset-to-income ratio, which, in turn, means the effect of a down-turn in capitol asset prices on consumer spending would be more pronounced than it has been in the past. More importantly, this limits the economy’s ability to react to various shocks through changes in financial markets. When those shock-absorbers aren’t enough, then the effects of any shock get felt in reduced ouput, income and employment.