TVD's Newswalk™: Polls Schmolls

A guided tour of those who make the news and those who re-make it:

BAGHDAD (AP)---Gathering a crowd by hawking flour at half-price from a pickup, a suicide attacker set off bombs hidden beneath the flour sacks at a market in Tal Afar on Tuesday, killing at least 17 people and wounding 35 in a city cited by President Bush as a success story in battling insurgents.

Now, certainly technically accurate. And I suppose a moron might miss the intended snarkiness there toward the president.

Someone might remind the Associated Press (the original is not bylined) that terrorism can happen everywhere, even in areas under firm coalition control.

Like London.

That's why it's terrorism, stupid. The flour sacks were being sold at half market value, and so attracted quite a crowd. I could take out three-quarters of San Francisco if I passed out "Impeach Bush" buttons first.

Poll Gives Bush His Worst Marks Yet

So sayeth the NYT headline. OK, though a bit ho-hum. Another day, another drop in the polls. Down to 31%. Buried in the last paragraph, I mean the last, folks, are some other interesting approval ratings: Al Gore, 28%. And in the next-to-last, John Kerry, 26.

28, 26. Y tu mamá también. Thank God Dubya stole those elections.


Over in the UK, where he just won another term while promising to quit before it's over (how perverse!), Tony Blair is at 26%, too. And I can't even imagine how low the heinous, corrupt Chirac regime has slipped, especially among those who got their Citroens all burned up in the recent, um, civil unrest.

The Battleaxis of Evil (HT: Jay Homnick), Hillary Clinton, who says little and does nothing of value, only has an approval rating of 34%, and all-around good guy centrist John McCain is at 35. There's a pattern here.

In this day and age of 24/7 bad news here in the western world, all things considered like the (un)popularity of his previous crap opponents, his political ally in another country, and senators who have no real responsibility, Dubya is lookin' pretty danged good.

May 8 (KGO)---Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright says the war in Iraq may turn out to be the worst foreign policy mistake in American history.

Maybe, but we've made some other doozies. Let's take a

{{[~~Wayne's World Flashback to 1996~~]}}

Lesley Stahl: We have heard that half a million children have died (in Iraq). I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And you know, is the price worth it?

Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price---we think the price is worth it.

You made no hard choice, Madame. You chose the easy way out. It was not worth it. You "contained" Saddam for a handful of years, changed nothing, and only the innocent died. And I'd like to know who "we" are.

There are some things in today's world worse than war, and you proved it. I'll take this war, which has Saddam in a prison, his lovely sons Uday and Attila dead instead of throwing their countrymen into meatgrinders, and the Iraqi people with at least a puncher's chance to win their liberty. I understand that many seem to disagree, but me, yeah, I think it was worth it, especially in comparision with your "choice."

Go home, ma'am, and be quiet. Some people have no shame. If anyone on this earth has no moral or political standing to judge the decision to topple Saddam, it's Madeleine Albright.


Or, all things considered, mebbe not:

(AP)---Ramsey Clark, a former U.S. attorney general now defending Saddam Hussein, said the former Iraqi president's trial is a sham staged and paid for by the United States. "This court is nothing more than a continuation of the war---shock and awe--- and the occupation to destroy and demonize the former leadership, make them seem barbarian," Clark said.

Make them seem barbarian? Should it take any effort at all?

If Saddam had had Clark instead of Baghdad Bob, I have no doubt that he'd have won the war and his approval rating would now be in the high 70s. At least in San Francisco, where now he's only hovering in the low 50s.

May 11 (NYPost)---WASHINGTON - President Bush yesterday said his younger brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, would make "a great president" as Bush III.
"I would like to see Jeb run at some point in time, but I have no idea if that's his intention or not."

And the irony is that Bush III, who as governor of bellwether Florida enjoys a 55% approval rating, won't be our slam dunk next president only because of his brother. On the other hand, Clinton II, who would hold no political office above dogcatcher without her husband, might make it because of him. Guilt, or merit, by association.

If Iraq and Dubya will keep Jeb out of '08, then Madeleine Albright (and whoever "we" is/am/are) should send Hillary to political oblivion.


The polls indicate that everybody everywhere is pretty friggin' miserable, is what I get. Sorry, nobody's perfect, and politics cannot solve the problem of the human condition. Democracies don't do that philosopher-king thing, at least since FDR. Except for what he did and didn't do with Iraq, I thought Bill Clinton was pretty much an OK president. I think Dubya handled Iraq better and it's best he doesn't listen to the polls, all things considered, though most criticisms of him are valid, too.

In the music business, what I'm doing here is called "turd-polishing." You work with what you're given, and that's what the bridge to the 21st century dumped on Bush. It was a crap situation, with nothing but crap alternatives. I think he did the best any of us could, at least if our names are Al Gore, John Kerry, or Madeleine Albright.

(My apologies for the fecal imagery at the close. Just couldn't find anything better or apt. "Sucks" just didn't swing it but it's one or the other here in the 21st until we learn to chin up and chill out a little...)