Stupid...stupid

[CM]

Quote:

Poll: Indictment damages White House A poll released Sunday night indicated Bush's approval rating has not been affected by the indictment, but the number of people believing he cannot manage the federal government effectively has increased. The number of people with an unfavorable opinion of Cheney rose to 51 percent, up from 47 percent two weeks ago, the CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll said. A majority -- 55 percent -- said they believe Cheney was aware of Libby's actions. The indictment said Libby -- before discussing Wilson and Plame with reporters -- talked about the couple with several people in the White House, including Cheney. The poll, however, indicated the public's views of Libby -- who until recently had kept a low profile -- were not well-formed.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/10/...obe/index.html

This is pathetic. The approval ratings for the president remain unchanged? Come on, even if the raitings are low there should should be a change. You blow the cover of one of your agents because you want to get back at her husband. I mean how does this not affect your opinion of a president?

[Luis Antonio]

Maybe, as it happens nere often, it is not interesting to the midia or to the government that a change on the "reputation" of the president happens.

[Phreddie]

Maybe the poll was fixed, we may have a new conspiracy!

[Xandax]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CM http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/10/...obe/index.html This is pathetic. The approval ratings for the president remain unchanged? Come on, even if the raitings are low there should should be a change. You blow the cover of one of your agents because you want to get back at her husband. I mean how does this not affect your opinion of a president?

Do you know that the president was the one blowing the cover, cause if so - I'm sure there are some investigaters that wish to talk to you ?

[Phreddie]

He was speaking more towards his administrations failure, not just that of the big man.

[Lestat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CM You blow the cover of one of your agents because you want to get back at her husband. I mean how does this not affect your opinion of a president?

Again, blowing causes trouble for a president in his second term.

But seriously, since the rumourmill was already working and the involvement of Libby (and possibly Rove) widely discussed, the official indictment did not really come as a surprise or shock and thus might have only marginally affected the opinion of the president. Moreover, Libby is Cheney's man rather than Bush's man. If Rove, allegedly the president's "brain", woud be indicted it might have bigger effect.

[CM]

Xandax the president is representative of his administration thus as he is the man incharge he should be the one to be affected. Consider it like the military command structure you are familar with. The man in charge (the president) is responsible for those under his care (libby, rove et al).

Secondly its more of an issue of that people do not contect Bush to Cheney. I am not one to believe that Bush did not know this was going on. Now the question is if rove was indicted could they move for impeachment? God knows there have been stupider issues under which this has come up.

[Xandax]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CM Xandax the president is representative of his administration thus as he is the man incharge he should be the one to be affected. Consider it like the military command structure you are familar with. The man in charge (the president) is responsible for those under his care (libby, rove et al). Secondly its more of an issue of that people do not contect Bush to Cheney. I am not one to believe that Bush did not know this was going on. Now the question is if rove was indicted could they move for impeachment? God knows there have been stupider issues under which this has come up.

Yes, I know he is ultimately in charge and it is his responsibility that people stay in line, however your opening post portraied the incident as if the President was the one blowing the cover, which I've not seen any proof for. (Now I know this was likely not intentional, thus the ) after my post )

However, in any organisation, as well political, buisness or even military people often do things outside the knowlegde or support of their "chief", and it is far from always that such incidents gets reprecussions for the "chief".
Especially depending on severity, so I'll wait with my jugdement of the Presidents role in this and what consequences it should have - if any- for when the matter is more clear.

[Cuchulain82]

I think that the effects of this are manifesting not just in low domwestic ratings but also in the Int'l. arena. The US is having much more trouble convincing other nations to listen. For example, last month the US got a slap on the wrist at a UN gathering on digital technology; another example is the US' inability to get a resolution through the IAEA that would have referred Iran to the UN security council. It has even gotten to the point that when John Snow (Fed. Treasury Sec.) and Alan Greenspan (Fed Chairman) went to China to talk about exchange rates, they got an earful about US citizen's horrible savings habits and the widening trade defecit.

Bad news...

[VonDondu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CM I mean how does this not affect your opinion of a president?

Here is an answer, which is not easy to explain, which hopefully doesn't beg the question:

Approximately 25%-30% of the U.S. population will stand behind President Bush no matter what. Even if they found out that Bush is an evil alien cyborg who wants to kill us all, they would still regard him as the savior of all that is holy in America. The reason is because they live in fear that if Republicans lose even one little bit of their political power, the country will slip into the hands of godless, terrorist-loving, gay-marriage-supporting Democrats, and the very thought of that makes them foam at the mouth. Any Democrat who seeks political power is a threat to their way of life, which is why they villify, smear, and demonize people like Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry, who are mostly harmless. But any Republican who promotes the ultra-conservative fundamentalist Christian agenda (for example, the notion that women are the property of their husbands or parents) can do no wrong. President Bush could use the "F-word" in his next State of the Union address, and the members of his conservative base would spout some reason why it wasn't his fault and that such a thing is no reason to condemn a man unless he's a "damn Democrat".

Since President Bush's approval rating is about 38-39%, that leaves about 8-14% of the public outside of his rabid ultraconservative base who still support him. I estimate that 3/4 of them are misinformed (they received an email chain letter from a different universe than the one we live in, or they listen to Rush Limbaugh on a regular basis, etc.), and the remaining 1/4 are completely ignorant or totally crazy.

The remaining 61-62% of the public realizes that the Bush administration is doing a lousy job of governing or else is despicable for any number of reasons.

I hope this helps you put things in perspective.

[Phreddie]

You also have to factor in that bush won the presidency by winning the votes of about 1/4 of our electorate, only about 50% of the electorate voted in 04, of that only slightly more than that voted for bush, add the people who are citizens but not included in the elctorate (people who are eligible to vote) and you find bush has about 23-25% support at the time of 2004 elections, less than that during the 2000 elections, those 23-25% are basically his base of self righteuos right wing ignorant (of the other half of the argument, not talking about dumb ppl) conservatives.... so you see, most of his numbers came form ppl who said they supported him cuz they werent against him, but now that he does thing they didnt agree with, OH! hes back down to his small base of conservatives mentioned in the above poll.

[Xandax]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phreddie You also have to factor in that bush won the presidency by winning the votes of about 1/4 of our electorate, only about 50% of the electorate voted in 04, of that only slightly more than that voted for bush, add the people who are citizens but not included in the elctorate (people who are eligible to vote) and you find bush has about 23-25% support at the time of 2004 elections, less than that during the 2000 elections, those 23-25% are basically his base of self righteuos right wing ignorant (of the other half of the argument, not talking about dumb ppl) conservatives.... so you see, most of his numbers came form ppl who said they supported him cuz they werent against him, but now that he does thing they didnt agree with, OH! hes back down to his small base of conservatives mentioned in the above poll.

Okay, now I don't claim to know much of the way voting is done in the US, but how does this concur with the fact that there is 538 electorates and Bush got 286 and Kerry 252 giving ... 538? Numbers given by CNN

And as for the popular vote these are the numbers given by CNN : 62,040,606 for Bush and 59,028,109 for Kerry.

Now again - I don't claim to know the inner workings of the US election process, but this mathematically seems to contradict what you say.

[Fiona]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xandax Okay, now I don't claim to know much of the way voting is done in the US, but how does this concur with the fact that there is 538 electorates and Bush got 286 and Kerry 252 giving ... 538? Numbers given by CNN And as for the popular vote these are the numbers given by CNN : 62,040,606 for Bush and 59,028,109 for Kerry. Now again - I don't claim to know the inner workings of the US election process, but this mathematically seems to contradict what you say.

I don't know much about the US system either. I think the confusion lies in the words used, rather than the system. Your first link showed how many States the respective candidates took. This is not affected by the numbers who did not vote. This is the same in the UK, with a "first past the post system". It is possible to win an election with very small support in terms of those eligible to vote.

Your second link shows the same thing. Compare this:
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html

Maybe you and Phreddie were at cross purposes ?

[stramoski]

Just to clarify, when people say that Bush only got about 25% of the electorate, they're including the half of our population which doesn't even bother to vote...

So Bush got 1/4, Kerry got a little less, and apathy won, with almost 50% on it's side.

Remember, we've got about a quarter of a billion people over here, and the CNN numbers account for about 122 million.

[Ode to a Grasshopper]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CM Secondly its more of an issue of that people do not contect Bush to Cheney. I am not one to believe that Bush did not know this was going on. Now the question is if rove was indicted could they move for impeachment? God knows there have been stupider issues under which this has come up.

Hiya hug monkey.
I don't think the (figure)head of the nation has quite so much sway in this administration as you suggest, if you look at his chiefs of staff (pardon me if I use the wrong term) and they're mostly his father's friends, poor guy. It's his party in the Oval Office and most of the invites go to Dad's mates. Quite beyond the fact that Bush has had a fair amount of trouble of his own to deal with lately, I wouldn't be surprised if most of the decisions get made by the less visible members of Team W.