They’ve Hit the Iceberg

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Marcus Mabry writes at Newsweek.com:

It’s hard to say which is worse news for Republicans: that George W. Bush now has the worst approval rating of an American president in a generation, or that he seems to be dragging every ’08 Republican presidential candidate down with him. But According to the new NEWSWEEK Poll, the public’s approval of Bush has sunk to 28 percent, an all-time low for this president in our poll, and a point lower than Gallup recorded for his father at Bush Sr.’s nadir. The last president to be this unpopular was Jimmy Carter who also scored a 28 percent approval in 1979. This remarkably low rating seems to be casting a dark shadow over the GOP’s chances for victory in ’08. The NEWSWEEK Poll finds each of the leading Democratic contenders beating the Republican frontrunners in head-to-head matchups.

Mabry says that at last week’s Republican candidate debate, President Bush was mentioned only once, but Ronald Reagan’s name came up 19 times. And how pathetic is it that they can’t get past Ronald Reagan?

9 thoughts on “They’ve Hit the Iceberg”

  1. although I do not hold Reagan in awe as a figure to be worshipped , I don’t think he was as bad a president as most lefties assert he was. (Certainly he was a better president than Junior, although that’s a low bar.)

    Perhaps someone should point out to the right that one reason that Reagan was more successful than Bush,Jr is that he admitted when he was wrong.

    After the military barracks was bombed in Beirut, he withdrew US troops from Lebanon– and I don’t recall anyone calling it “cut and run.”

    And, after calling the Soviet Union the “evil empire” early in his tenure, he demonstrated a willingness to talk to Gorbachev, and did so without insisting that Gorbachev basically prostrate himself before he’d deign to meet with him, as Junior is prone to.

    If you really want to piss off the right, point out to them that Reagan’s “legacy” was that he was an ideologue who recognized when it was time to stop beating one’s chest and being an ideologue, and start co-operating with political adversaries.

  3. Keep an eye out for Franklin Graham or Henry Kissinger to show up at the White House.

  4. I’m sorry for what I’m about to say and I apologize in advance.
    But, the truth is this: Ronnie forgot more in his life than W. ever learned.

    I couldn’t stand Ronnie, but at least he wasn’t a child born into privilege. I loved the (I think it was Ivans’) line about how W. was born on third base thinking that he’d hit a triple.
    Ronnie did have confidence in America and was optimistic. W. is a cynical psychopath.

    It’s sad for this country that a party has to go back 20+ years to find a President that they can like. The truth is that they need to go back almost 50 years to find one that was competent.

    We Democrat’s can at least look back on our record of success: FDR, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson (pre-Vietnam), Carter (for Israel/Egypt), and Clinton (pre-Monica) for inspiration.

    They have a remarkable string of crooks and schnooks in their history: Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Nixon, Reagan, Bush the Elder, and Bush the Lesser (can I trademark that one?).
    Ike is the only one who was above average. Nixon could have been good, but he chose the Dark Side. Sadly, they all seem to.

    It’s also a sad statement that (but it’s true) in the past 40 years, Richard M. Nixon was our last “liberal” President.
    Think about it. China, The EPA, OSHA, etc…

    OUCH…

  5. c u n d gulag — Except for Reagan, when Republicans talk about the great presidents of the 20th century they usually bring up two Democrats, Kennedy and Truman. Their favorite Republican after Reagan is Teddy Roosevelt, but of course they ignore the fact that Roosevelt’s domestic policies were nearly as progressive as Cousin Franklin’s. I say again that TR was the father of modern American liberalism.

    They’ve long badmouthed Wilson, although some of them have realized that Dubya’s foreign policy has a strong Wilsonian streak. I mean to write about that later today.

    It’s odd to me that Republicans today don’t talk much about Eisenhower, who was probably the least pernicious Republican president of the 20th century after TR. Maybe they haven’t forgotten that it was Ike who ordered troops to Little Rock to enforce segregation of schools. Also, Eisenhower was heartily disliked by the pseudo conservatives of his day because he didn’t start nuclear war with China, and because Eisenhower really hated Joe McCarthy and didn’t care who knew about it. I guess it isn’t so odd that they don’t talk about him.

  6. Maha,
    I never thought of the racism angle. Or the ‘I hatre hatred’ view on Failgunner Joe.
    I guess you could add that putting Earl Warren on the Supreme Court was another huge negative. And ending the Koriean War. And especially his line about the militarty industrial complex.
    Plus, he was a real, true war hero.
    I guess with all of that, they think he was a Democrat.
    Either that, or they confuse Ike with de Gaulle…

  7. c u n d gulag: The saying is that Bush was born on third base and thinks he hit a home run. I am not sure if Ivins said this or if it was Ann Richardson (Ivins may have repeated this from Richardson or someone else).

    Perceptive comments contrasting Ronnie and W. It is sad how Republicans pine for Reagan, and don’t really know what to do with what has become so obvious to everyone, the spoiled rich kid in the White House.

  8. moonbat,
    I’m not sure where that Bush quote came from. But, Ann Richardson had the great line about Bush the Elder – “He was born with a silver SPOON in his mouth…”
    We need to keep positioning Bush the Lesser as “Richie Rich.” My least favorite cartoon of all time.
    What a disaster….

    If there’s a God, may he/she/it help us.
    We’ll need all of the help that we can get.

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