Poll: 71% Disapprove of President Bush

May 1, 2008 · Comments (3)

President Bush set an all-time disapproval rating record in the CNN/Gallup polling by breaking the 70 percent mark to become the most unpopular president in modern American history.

“No president has ever had a higher disapproval rating in any CNN or Gallup poll; in fact, this is the first time that any president’s disapproval rating has cracked the 70 percent mark,” said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

“Bush’s approval rating, which stands at 28 percent in our new poll, remains better than the all-time lows set by Harry Truman and Richard Nixon (22 percent and 24 percent, respectively) but even those two presidents never got a disapproval rating in the 70s,” Holland added. “The previous all-time record in CNN or Gallup polling was set by Truman, 67 percent disapproval in January 1952.” [original emphasis]

Posted by Matt Ortega

Gen (D): Democrats on the Rise in Youth Party ID

April 29, 2008 · Comments (1)

Marc Ambinder posted a graphic that shows a steady decline of Republican youth support in the last three presidential cycles, and a steady increase in Democratic affiliation, according to surveys conducted by Pew Research Center. These numbers show Democrats leading Republicans in party identification of 18 to 29 year olds by a staggering 25 point margin. Republicans dropped seven points in four years.

GOP's generational time bomb

Notes Ambinder:

Consider: Voters under 30 in the Midwest are twice as likely to call themselves Democrats as they are to identify as Republicans. 63% of women under age 30 identify as Democrats versus just 28% who call themselves Republicans. Democrats even have the affiliation of a majority of young men.

And the widely held belief that the young are more liberal and grow more conservative with age is just unfounded.

A potential objection: that old canard, that young people are liberal and become more conservative? The historical data doesn’t support it. When Bill Clinton was elected, a plurality of people under 30 identified themselves as Republicans. Same thing when Ronald Reagan was elected. Politically, today’s cohort of 18-to-29 year olds came of age during the Bush presidency. It has turned them into Democrats.

The future does not look bright for Republicans if this trend continues. George W. Bush may have delivered a generation of voters to the Democrats, and sewed the seeds of destruction for the Republican Party.

Read the full report from Pew Research Center for People and the Press.

Posted by Matt Ortega

Gonzales Unable to Find Job

April 13, 2008 · Comments (0)

In the New York Times on Sunday, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is unable to find a job after he was forced to resign from his post last year.

He has, through friends, put out inquiries, they said, and has not found any takers. What makes Mr. Gonzales’s case extraordinary is that former attorneys general, the government’s chief lawyer, are typically highly sought.

The Times report states that Gonzales has not held a full-time job since he left the Bush administration in utter disgrace over the politicized firings of U.S. attorneys, warrantless domestic surveillance, and institutionalized torture. Instead, Gonzales is living off paid speeches and the lecture circuit — speaking engagements that often draw protests.

Posted by Matt Ortega

You Say “Tibet,” Stephen Hadley Says “Nepal”

April 13, 2008 · Comments (1)

National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley appeared on This Week with George Stephanopoulos on ABC this morning and repeatedly confused Nepal for Tibet. (Eight times in total.) Strangely, Stephanopoulos did not call him out on this blatant and constant mistake.

Transcript:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Does that mean he’ll attend the opening ceremonies, or not?

HADLEY: What the president said is that he will go to the Olympics. He wants to support our Olympic athletes, the wonderful men and women who are going to participate.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So that means he’ll go to see events, but he won’t go to the opening ceremony?

HADLEY: The president has said he’s going to the Olympics.

I think this whole issue…

STEPHANOPOULOS: How come he — how come you don’t want to answer the question?

HADLEY: The whole issue of opening ceremonies is a non-issue. I think it is a way of dodging what really needs to happen if you’re concerned about the Nepal...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Does that mean the president will be going to them?

HADLEY: The president is going to the Olympics. The president is going to — to think that the way to deal with the issue of Nepal is not by some — a statement that you’re not going to the opening ceremonies and say, therefore, I checked the Nepal box…

STEPHANOPOULOS: But he may not go to the opening ceremonies. You just don’t want to say it.

HADLEY: No. The president is going to the Olympics. What he’s doing on Nepal is what we think the international community ought to be doing, which is approaching the Chinese privately through diplomatic channels and sending a very firm message of concern for human rights, a concern for what’s happening in Nepal, urging the Chinese government to understand that it is in their interest to reach out to representatives of the Dalai Lama, and to show, while the whole world is watching China, that they are determined to treat their citizens with dignity and respect.

There is an opportunity here. And if countries are really concerned about Nepal, we shouldn’t have this sort of non-issue of opening ceremonies or not. They should do the hard work of quiet diplomacy to urge the Chinese government — in their interest — to take advantage of this opportunity to do something about…

STEPHANOPOULOS: But…

HADLEY: … meeting the concerns about people in Nepal.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But you call it a non-issue, yet you won’t say clearly that the president is attending the opening ceremonies. And I’m just trying to figure out why.

HADLEY: The president, at this point, is going to the Olympics. We haven’t worked out the details of his schedule at this point in time.

But from his vantage point, if you listen to what he has said, he has no reason not to go. Because what he has said is, we need to be using diplomacy to try and deal with the issue of Nepal.

In a previously recorded appearance on FOX News Sunday, did not confuse the two. Think Progress Editor Faiz Shakir surmises that Hadley was confused with former President Jimmy Carter’s appearance on This Week, where he was in Nepal monitoring the recent elections there.

Posted by Matt Ortega

Admin. Principals Approved Interrogation Tactics

April 9, 2008 · Comments (0)

ABC News dropped a bombshell of a news story on the principal members of the Bush administration approving specific interrogation tactics to be used by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). To lift a line from the legendary Desi Arnaz as “Ricky Ricardo” in I Love Lucy — the Bush administration has some ’splainin’ to do.

In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News. [...]

Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects — whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding.

The high-level discussions about these “enhanced interrogation techniques” were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed — down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

The principals included: