Friday,
March 18 2005
DUELING JOB APPROVALS: ARG
just released a poll showing President Bush's job approval
rating at 47%. If you plug this in with the other four polls taken
over the last 11 days, Bush's
average job approval rating stands at 49.4%, with 47.8% disapproving.
These numbers represent an ever-so-slight downtick from the last
round of polls in February. However, given the difficulty the
President has faced selling the public on Social Security reform
and the beating he's taken from the Democrats and the press recently,
you might have expected his overall job approval rating would
have declined further than it has.
Congress'
job approval rating, on the other hand, declined quite noticeably
over this last round of polls. The latest Gallup poll shows public
approval of Congress is at a 5 -year low:
The
decline in Congress' approval from last month was about the
same among Democrats and Republicans, whose party controls both
the Senate and House of Representatives. That may be because
Congress faces several controversial issues and not because
of a specific one, analyst David Moore wrote on the Gallup Organization
Web site.
"Democrats
are even unhappier with the Republican Congress than before,"
Brookings Institution political analyst Thomas Mann said. "And
many Republicans don't like what they are hearing about Social
Security and the budget."
The decline
could be due to a lot of things, including bickering over Social
Security and ethics issues, etc. One thing that is almost certainly
in the mix is the stand off over the confirmation of judges in
the Senate, and it is probably a safe bet that escalating the
issue by threatening
to shut down the Senate is not going to be received kindly
by many in the public.
UP
FROM THE MEMORY HOLE: I've been remiss in not pointing
out that Orlando
Mayor Buddy Dyer was indicted on Friday for violating Florida
absentee ballot law along with his campaign manager Patti Sharp,
political consultant Ezzie Thomas, and Orange Circuit Judge Alan
Apte.
For those
who don't remember, this is a case I
covered in some detail after Bob Herbert wrote two shameless
columns in the New York Times last August claiming the investigation
was a fraud ginned up by Jeb Bush and the GOP to suppress the
black vote in Florida. Herbert omitted key details and distorted
others to present a sinister picture of voter intimidation that
simply did not exist.
FRIDAY
HUMOR: In the Omaha World-Herald today Harold
Andersen recounts some of the best lines delivered at this
year's Gridiron Club dinner:
- Chuck
Hagel joked to the crowd there is a new Hagel doll on the market:
"You put it in front of a TV, and it won't stop talking."
- Bill
Richardson said President Bush's foreign policy bears a striking
resemblance to the NCAA's "March Madness" basketball
tournament: "You take 64 allies and whittle them down to
one."
- Someone
quipped that freshman Senator Barack Obama had been overwhelmingly
elected by Illinois voters last year, "including 125 percent
of the vote in Chicago."
- President
Bush said he has a new puppy that won't obey and roll over for
him on command so he "changed his name to John McCain."
My personal
favorite is the following ditty (set to the tune of "Thank
Heaven for Little Girls") performed by a Gridiron Club member
playing Teresa Heinz Kerry singing about her husband's 2004 Presidential
bid:
Thank
heaven, he lost the race;
I'd have to move into a smaller place.
Thank heaven, no Air Force One;
My plane is faster and it has more space.
And I can shoot my mouth off when it suits me,
And stop pretending that I love my spousal duty.
See you next
week. - T. Bevan 3:32 pm Link
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Tuesday,
March 15 2005
BULENT ECEVIT'S EASON JORDAN MOMENT: I hope you're
sitting down. According to this
account in the Turkish Daily News, former Turkish Prime Minister
Bülent
Ecevit alleged in a recent interview that the Bush Administration
conspired to plot a coup against him in 2002 and hinted that it
may have included an attempt on his life:
The
plot to topple him, according to Ecevit, was put on the active
agenda after he openly denied the United States any help from
Turkey in the invasion of Iraq. He has also openly denounced
the invasion.
He
identifies Kemal Dervis as the person who sort of managed the
campaign against him, and he and his wife imply that the United
States may have plotted to kill Bülent Ecevit.
As
reported by Kiliç, U.S. President George W. Bush had
tried many times to get Turkey's help in the Iraq war, but soon
it became clear that Ecevit, the prime minister of Turkey of
the time, was openly against the invasion.
Then
the United States started to find ways, without running a new
election, to topple Ecevit and those who agreed with him with
on the 'Iraq problem.'
Kiliç
reports that according to sources in Ankara, Dervis, a close
friend of Paul Wolfowitz, had suddenly become 'very active'
after Ecevit's stubborn stand had become clear. During this
period Dervis, the then minister for economy, disappeared for
12 days without first obtaining permission from his prime minister
and so far, according to Kiliç, nobody knows where he
was.
During
this period Ecevit got very sick. He was known for a long time
to have been facing health problems, but he was suddenly hospitalized
one day. Papers reported rumors that his problem could not be
diagnosed and that he could even die.
During
the interview Kiliç asks Ecevit:
-
"Did they attempt to kill you?"
Ecevit
answers:
-
"Everybody saw what happened. Judge for yourself."
His
wife, Rahsan Ecevit, interrupted at that point.
She
whispers:
-
"My husband does not want me to talk."
She
adds:
-
"We will leave a written statement somewhere."
According
to Kiliç, Bülent Ecevit openly stated that the United
States devised a plot against him, during their meeting last
Thursday, March 10.
Was
there also an attempt on his life?
Again,
according to Kiliç, he seemed unwilling to cause the
start of any polemics and was very careful, diplomatic, so he
said:
-
"I don't have any clues about the allegation."
Then
he added:
-
"You can decide for yourself by looking at what was experienced
then."
But
according to the interviewer he openly stated that on the way
to the split of his party there was a plot and that behind it
was the United States.
A
'close friend' of his is working on the possibility that his
life may have been also targeted at that time, and he reports
that a chemical was injected into his body through meals and
that this chemical abruptly altered his body equilibrium and
that it has become possible to diagnose his illness. They have
come very close to understanding the clues.
Once upon
a time this was a pretty serious charge that required at least
a shred of proof. These days, if you fall ill or have a hand-picked
minister who happens to be friends with Paul Wolfowitz and you
lose an election, it's enough cause to blame it on a Bush administration
conspiracy to overthrow and assassinate you. Strange times, indeed.
And another example of the unfortunate anti-Americanism
that seems to have a hold on Turkey. - T. Bevan 9:32 am
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Monday,
March 14 2005
BEWARE THE MESSENGER: Via Powerline
I noticed this
story in the tech section of today's New York Times featuring
liberal bloggers' attempts to promote their stories to the mainstream
media through weekly conference calls. The public relations effort
is being organized by a guy named Bob Fertik:
"We
hope to build a bridge," Mr. Fertik said, adding that different
bloggers would be invited to share their reporting on each call.
"We hope that good credible stories that are broken on
the Internet find their way into coverage in the mainstream
media."
So who is
Bob Fertik? He's a self-described
"life-long progressive and Democratic Party activist"
and co-founder of the web site Democrats.com.
The only reason I recognized Fertik's name is because he was a
behind-the-scenes player in reviving the Bush Texas Air National
Guard story in early 2004 - which I wrote about here.
At that time,
which was obviously prior to the current design of Fertik's web
site, Democrats.com contained such interesting and useful pages
as "Bush-Nazi
Links", "Bush
Hatred" and this
page calling for the impeachment of George Bush, Dick Cheney
and five members of the U.S. Supreme Court which states that "George
W. Bush and Dick Cheney have illegally occupied the White House
since January 20, 2001."
In other
words, Fertik is a long-time dweller in the furthest nether regions
of the lefty fever swamp. And far from wanting to promote "good
credible stories" to the mainstream, Fertik revealed his
intentions by telling The Times:
"The
way we perceive it," he said, "is that right-wing
bloggers are able to invent stories, get them out on
Drudge, get them on Rush Limbaugh, get them on Fox, and pretty
soon that spills over into the mainstream media. We, the progressives,
we don't have that kind of network to work with."
The problem
with this, of course, is that conservative bloggers haven't "invented"
anything, any more so than Josh Marshall & Co. "invented"
a story about Trent Lott.
Still, from
Fertik's far-left perspective he sees a conservative pipeline
that pumps bogus stories from the blogosphere into the public
consciousness through Rush Limbaugh and Fox. Fertik wants his
own pipeline to push bogus stories, and he's hoping the members
of the mainstream media will oblige. Here's hoping they won't.
DEAR
JOHN: John Brummett to John Kerry: "It's
not your party." In other words, you can go away now.
THE
KURDISH CONUNDRUM: This morning Edward
Wong examines the complexities of establishing a Kurd-Shia
alliance in Iraq.
Meanwhile,
an anxious Turkey watches and waits. For more on how the deal
is shaping up in the eyes of the Turks, see Yusuf
Kanli in the Turkish Daily News and Murat
Somer in the Daily Star.
PRAISE
FOR TED: I rip on Ted Kennedy from time to time, mostly
because I think he's well deserving. So it's only fair to give
him credit when he
does something right. - T. Bevan 9:32 am Link
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