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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