I Cogitate
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It's the incompetency, stupid
Folks, THE word has finally appeared in one of our national newspapers regarding President Bush.
No, it's not impeachment (but keep lighting those candles!)
It's competence, or rather, the incompetence of President Bush.
Pardon me, but has this topic been broached so directly in one of the national creme de la creme media outlets? If not, the Washington Post deserves full credit for finally deflowering Bush of his virginity on this subject matter.
Note in the following article how some White House genius thought the way out of Bush's predicament on the Dubai/American ports fiasco was to offer that Bush had no knowledge of such an agreement taking place! Yep, George is on top of things, keeping us safe...about as well as he did shooting down them high-flying Viet Cong over Texas during the Vietnam War.
Let's see, WMD, Katrina, MediCare reform, the outing of a CIA agent, creating an Iraqi civil war, such a litany of accomplishments. Jeez, where's Donald Trump's bellowing of "you're fired' when we so desperately need it?
Maybe the late Johnny Cash was right when he (almost) sang:
"I hear that train a-comin'I have an brainstorm. Maybe this goes against all the laws of physics but let's put Bush solely and directly in charge of of rebuilding Iraq. Station him there. Take the absolute mess that he's created, let him work his usual 'magic' and could a horrendous negative met head on by a second abominable conflagration somehow produce a positive? Or has, a la "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers," has Bush-dumb overtaken my body and brain?
It's rolling 'round the bend
And I ain't seen any competency
since I don't know when..."
I almost missed it but somehow/someway/somewhere came across a link back to this March 5, Alan Abramowitz-written, Washington Post editorial page submission:
What's Behind Those Bad Poll NumbersFor the rest, go here.
By Alan Abramowitz
Washington Post
Sunday, March 5, 2006; B03
Judging by the numbers, it wasn't a good week for George Bush. Of course, news that the administration had approved a deal to turn over the operation of six U.S. ports to a company owned by the United Arab Emirates did nothing to buoy his sagging approval ratings. But the truly damaging revelation, from a public relations perspective, was the admission by White House press secretary Scott McClellan that the president didn't even know about the deal until after it had appeared on the front pages of newspapers around the country. That shocked even many Republican loyalists.
The problem for President Bush is a growing perception that he simply isn't competent. That's the story behind the polling numbers that have declined -- bad week by bad week -- since February 2005 when the president's approval rating stood at a respectable 52 percent.
The predecessor whom Bush has begun to resemble isn't, as many liberal Democrats seem to believe, Richard Nixon. It's Jimmy Carter. Carter's political demise began when the American people, including many Democrats, started to perceive him as in over his head in the Oval Office. That's what may be happening now to Bush.
Competence is not a partisan issue. Last week's polls found that somewhere between 34 and 40 percent of Americans approved of Bush's job performance. That is discouraging enough. But for Bush and his political advisers what may be more disturbing is the fact that his approval rating among Republicans had fallen to 72 percent, 10 to 15 percentage points lower than the president's previous level of support from his party's voters. It's a sign that even supporters are beginning to question Bush's effectiveness...
...Even more significantly, the way the port takeover was handled reinforced a growing impression among the public that nobody is really in charge in the Bush White House. How could the president not even have been consulted on an issue directly involving national security, Bush's strong suit in the minds of most Americans and especially most Republicans? The night after the story broke, comedian Jay Leno joked, "Do you know who's in charge of U.S. ports? Neither does President Bush."
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