Another Poll Another Low

Bush's approval ratings slide to new low

In the telephone poll of 1,012 adult Americans carried out Friday through Sunday by Opinion Research Corporation for CNN, 32 percent of respondents said they approve of Bush's performance, 60 percent said they disapprove and 8 percent said they do not know.

The Republicans are in deep shit come November and they know it. So what do they do? Demonize gays of course.
A Religious Push Against Gay Unions

About 50 prominent religious leaders, including seven Roman Catholic cardinals and about a half-dozen archbishops, have signed a petition in support of a constitutional amendment blocking same-sex marriage.

Organizers of the petition said it was in part an effort to revive the groundswell of opposition to same-sex marriage that helped bring many conservative voters to the polls in some pivotal states in 2004. The signers include many influential evangelical Protestants, a few rabbis and an official of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

[.....]

The petition drive was organized in part by Prof. Robert P. George of Princeton, a Catholic scholar with close ties to evangelical Protestant groups. Aides to three Republican senators — Bill Frist of Tennessee, the Republican leader; Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania; and Sam Brownback of Kansas — were also involved, organizers said.

Sorry, with gas prices nearing 3 bucks a gallon that ain't gonna save your sorry asses.

And The New York Times reports that the Bush crime family fixer, James A. Baker III, is going to try to fix Iraq for junior. Now in most crime families anyone who had screwed things up as bad as Dubya would have simply been offed by now.

And over at The Wall Street Journal we have what may be the most idiotic commentary I have read in a long time.
Dissident President
George W. Bush has the courage to speak out for freedom
Now we all know that George W. Bush considers Democracy, Freedom and the Constitution to be obstacles that it's necessary to work around. His talk of freedom amounts to nothing but PR sound bites and you can tell he is biting his talk when he talks about them. But Natan Sharnsky doesn't see it that way.

There are two distinct marks of a dissident. First, dissidents are fired by ideas and stay true to them no matter the consequences. Second, they generally believe that betraying those ideas would constitute the greatest of moral failures. Give up, they say to themselves, and evil will triumph. Stand firm, and they can give hope to others and help change the world.

Political leaders make the rarest of dissidents. In a democracy, a leader's lifeline is the electorate's pulse. Failure to be in tune with public sentiment can cripple any administration and undermine any political agenda. Moreover, democratic leaders, for whom compromise is critical to effective governance, hardly ever see any issue in Manichaean terms. In their world, nearly everything is colored in shades of gray.

That is why President George W. Bush is such an exception. He is a man fired by a deep belief in the universal appeal of freedom, its transformative power, and its critical connection to international peace and stability. Even the fiercest critics of these ideas would surely admit that Mr. Bush has championed them both before and after his re-election, both when he was riding high in the polls and now that his popularity has plummeted, when criticism has come from longstanding opponents and from erstwhile supporters.

Mr Shransky then is somewhat critical of Bush and in that criticism explains why he was so wrong in the beginning.

myself have not been uncritical of Mr. Bush. Like my teacher, Andrei Sakharov, I agree with the president that promoting democracy is critical for international security. But I believe that too much focus has been placed on holding quick elections, while too little attention has been paid to help build free societies by protecting those freedoms--of conscience, speech, press, religion, etc.--that lie at democracy's core.

You see Mr Shransky for Mr Bush "freedom" and "free elections" are only sound bites to gain a temporary political advantage. Don't forget, freedom and democracy was reason three our four for the invasion of Iraq.