I would imagine many presidents have relied on their staffs to keep them abreast of what’s happening in the world; after all, they have among the largest and best equipped groups of people for information-gathering and distilling extant, so why not? Bush made it pretty clear that he wasn’t one to delve into details - he wants a broad understanding and that’s that. So I’m guessing that his knowledge of current events is pretty much restricted to what his staff decides to tell him.
This may be an incorrect premise, which is reason 1 why I’m putting this in Great Debates. Maybe he starts out every evening at home with the MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour and ends up with the The Daily Show. But somehow I doubt it.
So, do you think his staff tells him how badly he’s apparently thought of by the people, that his approval ratings are in the twenties? On the one hand, he’s not doing McCain any favors when he campaigns on his behalf. On the other hand, why hurt his feelings with the truth? It’s not like there’s any love lost between him and McCain anyway. Tell him that people are upset about the economy or the war, sure. But that he personally is unpopular? I’m guessing not.
What do you think?
Moderators, if you believe this belongs in IMHO, that’s fine. I just wasn’t sure.
Yeah, he knows quite well that he is unpopular. He doesn’t care. He has never cared (well, not since he got elected)…it’s one of the things that makes the man so scary. He thinks he right and he’s going to bull ahead regardless of what you and I and everyone else thinks.
Almost makes you long for the days of fair weather Clinton, ehe?
Yes, he knows. If you look back over the last two years or so, you notice that he’s making more references to how history will view his Presidency - which is a roundabout way of saying history will absolve him and he’s doing the right thing even though most of the people don’t get it. I believe he’s overtly referred at least once to Harry Truman, who had very low approval ratings when he left office but is now regarded as a good President. So he knows.
It’s not really a Bush thing, incidentally, at least in my opinion. It’s how people think. If you’re doing what you want to do and people like it, you think “People like what I’m doing, which proves I’m right.” If they don’t like it, you think “I’m doing the right thing no matter what anybody thinks! The fickle hordes will realize the error of their ways!” As an explanation for their situation, most people will not consider “I suck.”
I think it is a combination of two things. First, he is totally convinced he is doing the right thing, and he genuinely believes that to change would be irresponsible. He sees himself, I think, as the anti-Clinton, believing Bill was obsessed with public opinion. He thinks he will be vindicated by history.
Second, I think he also mistrusts polls. He has a LOT of incredibly deep support, amongst those he thinks of as the “true” Americans. I would imagine it is a badge of honor for him to be disliked by northeastern liberals, drug smoking Californians, the communist media etc. I believe he thinks middle America is underrepresented in the polls (and he may well be right) and that the bedrock of the country is behind him. Hell, I even saw a bumper sticker in the Harris Teeter parking lot yesterday saying “I’m proud G.W.Bush is our President.”
True but Bush takes this to a level I’ve never seen. I am guilty of what you describe at times but then when everyone I know around me (besides people who have to suck up to me because I sign their paycheck) says I suck I start to wonder if maybe there is something to it.
The level for Bush on this is waaay beyond anything I have experienced. He is roundly despised across the whole world. Barring the suck-ups, cronies and a handful of others no one likes the man. I would bet he is not even respected by his suck-ups and cronies either but they just don’t mention it out of self interest.
Yet the man toddles along completely unaffected by this. He lost the popular vote in 2000 and barely won the popular vote in 2004 and has always behaved as if he had a mandate from the masses as if won a landslide. He seems to never pay attention to any commentary or counsel aside from his puppet masters.
Short of some revelation that he actually did save the US from nuclear annihilation he will be no Truman and will rightfully go down in history as one of the worst presidents ever…perhaps THE worst.
As noted above though he won’t give two shits about it. He will not lose a wink of sleep. I do not think he possesses a conscience at all so he can never be troubled by it. He’s failed at everything he has touched so far and that never clued him in. Why start now?
That’s a meaningless statistic and I wish people would stop throwing it out. You can’t compare a group of over 500 people to one person. Besides, while people hate Congress in general, they love their local reps and Senators. They reelect incumbents well over 90% of the time.
It’s meaningless when compared to presidential approval ratings perhaps, but not meaningless when taken as an indicator of how people think Congress is doing. And those numbers rise and fall, just like the president’s approval numbers.
The fact that they are at a particularly low ebb for Congress right now isn’t insignificant.
A lot of the antiptahy towards the Dems in Congress is a direct result of their lackadaisical efforts to combat Bush, though. They were elected to end the war and the abuses of the executive branch. They’ve been completely wimpy on both counts.
So your answer to the question “Does Bush have any idea how unpopular he is” is “Well what about Congress”?
My theory is that Bush has some nebulous understanding of his approval rating, but I think he’s purposefully insulated himself from it. Remember, this is the guy who was actually proud of not reading newspapers.
“Do you think it is good for the country or bad for the country that the Democratic Party is in control of Congress?”
Good - 53%
Bad - 37%
Not sure this tells us anything.
Personally I wish the public would learn to toss incumbents when numbers are low like this. Keep the percentages of conservative/democratic the same for all I care…my point is more for Congress to learn when they suck, whoever “they” are, they lose their jobs and we keep putting someone in till something improves.
What politician boasts about not reading newspapers? I’ll give Bush this much; he broke the mold in a lot of ways.
I do think a lot of the discontent with congress has been because they have been unable to override Bush or come up with the now required 60 vote majority for anything serious to pass in the Senate (cloture). But the Dems have to own up to their own lack of aggressiveness, for example, in not declaring inherent contempt and hauling Karl Rove’s ass into jail, or not granting telecoms immunity (and yes, Senator Obama, I am talking to you!).
Thank you all for your responses. I didn’t realize or had forgotten he had made comments on his lack of popularity before.
I don’t know. But looking at the newspapers and their collapsing ad and circulation numbers, you certainly can’t say Bush is alone in this, can you?
We only get daily delivery of our paper because it is free for Sunday subscribers, which is what we signed up for. Most days I never open the thing. I get nearly all of my news from the Internet and from longer treatments in some magazines I subscribe to.
So while I can’t defend Bush for his choice, frankly it’s one most of us are making these days.