Well, then you must consider the presidential approval rating is at least inaccurate. Bush would still win nearly half of the electorate if he ran again, not the much lower number of the rating.
As for his low approval, in general opposing segments of the political spectrum disapprove of him for opposite reasons.
So if people keep mentioning the low approval rating of Bush, mentioning that of Congress is just as valid or invalid.
And your experience is limited, isn’t it?
He’s the president of the USA, not the world, so their opinions are of lesser importance. And not quite the whole world, either. As Betty Dawisha, a participant in the first free Iraq elections since Saddam, said, “Anybody who doesn’t appreciate what America has done, and President Bush, let them go to hell!”
Cite?
The fact that historians are mostly Democrats (academia is overwhelmingly so) will influence that.
Almost complete bullshit. Apparently the 1993 bombing was also thought to be a fluke.[sup]*[/sup] And look how that turned out. Clinton by his own admission could have killed or captured ObL on more than one occasion, probably preventing 9/11. Why in the 6+ years since the 1993 bombing didn’t he act on what his own defense team was saying? And you blame Bush for not doing something about it in less than 1 year since his election?
except for some expert on the news I remember saying “They were trying to topple the towers. They’ll be back to finish the job.” This was also the conclusion of Rick Rescorla, the VP of Security for Morgan-Stanley/Dean-Witter, who died in the collapsing towers. He and a friend also agreed the attack would come from the air.
Unpopular presidents don’t get reelected - look at Bush Sr. and Carter. Unpopular Congesses get reelected at a 95% clip.
The fact that Congress is seem very poorly is a legitimate statistic. What makes it meaningless is that it in no way has it any effect on voting results.
No. People don’t vote for Congress, they vote for particular representatives. While approval of Congress is low (though approval of Democrats is about twice that of Congress as a whole)
here are some numbers on approval of the responders representative.
From here You need to scroll down quite a bit to hit this poll.
“Do you approve or disapprove of the way your own representative to the U.S. House of Representatives in Congress is handling his or her job?”
which is why the situations are different. The Democratic leadership, in fact, gets low numbers - but do you think Nancy Pelosi’s district is going to vote her out?
The latest Field poll in California shows Bush’s disapproval number matches that of Nixon just before he resigned. I’m old enough to have experienced Tricky Dicky, a lot of Dopers aren’t. Nixon’s low numbers were a result of Watergate, not from incompetence. Bush managed to get these low numbers purely through screwing up.
You might want to look at the title of that August security briefing again, and remind us how Bush dropped everything to make sure the government responded. Oh yeah, they got around to having a meeting about it Sept. 10, IIRC.
This is one of the elements that separates modern conservatives from traditionalists. Modern conservatives don’t believe in expertise, while traditionalists have a healthy respect for professionalism. Methinks a little peer review might have curbed some of the naive neoconservative fantasies that precipitated the invasion of Iraq.
I seem to recall from Stratfor that Al Q was known for taking the long view: the attack on the Cole came about 7 years after the 1993 bombing. On that timeline, Bush deserves might deserve some credit for blocking attacks in 2008, but methinks the real challenges are ahead.
Personally, I’ve been disappointed that there hasn’t been a big push to give Pell grants to those studying Arabic, Persian and certain Asian languages. There are other substantive ways that we’ve also dragged our feet, alas. Loose nukes in Russia are but one example.
You’re deluded if you believe otherwise. Note, I did not say “win the election”. How many solid Republicans would switch to Obama (or, for that matter, Hillary or Edwards or even Gore) because Bush isn’t enough of a Republican? How many solid Democrats would switch to Bush because none of the Democratic candidates is enough of a Democrat? You’re left with the independents, and I’m unaware of any information that says conclusively there’d be a big switch.
Even so, “unpopular” does not equate to a specific percent of people not voting for him.
Congress as a whole does not get elected. So if Congress’s low approval rating is meaningless, the re-election rate is also meaningless.
And the percentage each individual rep gets of his/her electorate is influenced by redistricting.
(This is one of the elements that separates modern conservatives from traditionalists. Modern conservatives don’t believe in expertise, while traditionalists have a healthy respect for professionalism.)
It’s a characterization. I can substantiate it. You provided us with an example: you dismiss expertise on the basis of bias.
Liberals, in contrast, dismiss those who fabricate evidence and screw up the facts. Modern conservatives criticize those who hurt their feelings: that’s the essence of the “Bias” critique. For evidence, contrast Media Matters for America (liberal) with Accuracy in Media (conservative). The latter is obsessed with bias.
Tough minded people can filter out the spin: they just want the goddamn facts. In this regard, I’d characterize Nixon as an example of a traditional conservative (though he influenced modern conservatives in other ways).
Here’s another way of thinking about it. In the runup to the Iraq war, BushCo refused to engage in post-invasion planning because that would involve meeting with experts, those for whom ideology isn’t the be-all and end-all. Sure, liberals and traditional conservatives recognize that bias and ideology can matter. But for the modern conservative, it’s all that matters.
Bush Republicans despise the “Reality Based Community” for a reason. They flinch at the idea of weighing evidence and bringing expertise to bear on a problem. Here’s an article if you’re interested. A review of the works by Barrett, Clarke et al and the comments by B. Wilkerson offers more evidence. This isn’t exactly new material.