I can’t say I blame them

March 20, 2006

According to the most recent SurveyUSA poll, Bush’s approval rating in Ohio is a pitiful 34%. This from a state that backed Bush’s presidential campaigns, twice.

So, when Bush visited Cleveland this morning to share his bizarre optimistic perspective on the war in Iraq, which of the state’s major GOP players were anxious to be seen with him? Well, none.

When a president’s popularity plummets as Bush’s has, other politicians often avoid public appearances with them. Prominent Ohio Republicans including Sen. Mike DeWine, Sen. George Voinovich and Rep. Steve LaTourette say they’re skipping Bush’s speech because of prior commitments.

DeWine is visiting his convalescing father in Florida and accompanying him to spring training baseball games. LaTourette previously scheduled a staff retreat in Washington. Voinovich has meetings in Washington that he couldn’t reschedule. Gov. Bob Taft, whose popularity is even lower than Bush’s, isn’t expected to attend, either. Taft noted that he attended Bush’s speech last month outside Columbus, as did Voinovich. Today’s event isn’t on the schedules of either Jim Petro or Ken Blackwell, the GOP candidates to replace Taft, their spokesmen said.

Maybe some of these guys have legitimate excuses and plans that just couldn’t be changed. But all of them? Taft isn’t even going to be on the ballot again, but he still doesn’t want to be seen with Bush.

Of course, I can’t say I blame them.

I guess Bush’s advance team is going to have to go from hand picked audiences to outright shanghai’d;>

  • I can’t wait to hear what Bush is going to say to the people of Ohio to get them to support the war in Iraq. I’m sure it will be a repeat of VP Cheney’s talking points over the weekend.

    On a side note, I was reading through this old (9/04) interview with Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper (U.S. Marine Corps, Ret.). Here’s an admitted Republican armed forces commander and what he has to say about Rummy, Cheney and the rest of Bushco is enlightening. I encourage everyone to take at least a brief look at it…and remember, this was a year and a half ago.

    Here’s one outtake (given Cheney’s statements from this weekend) from the interview:

    Why would the secretary of defense not say: “We’ve got this problem here. We’re going to go get it””?

    I think to a degree, he’s stubborn. Being stubborn, holding to your convictions, is good to a point, but when the evidence around you indicates your position is not tenable, then you ought to start to adapt to the situation. It got well beyond where it was tenable, and he was still holding the position. We even see some of the same things with the vice president, who in the face of all the available evidence maintains there’s a link between Al Qaeda and the Iraqi regime. There’s no evidence of it, but he maintains it. I really think that many in these key leadership positions on the defense side, and I think in the case of the vice president, they’re in denial.

  • Odd that DeWine, apparantly Bush’s new chief apologist, who is sponsoring a bill to make legal the illegal wiretappings Bush is engaging in, couldn’t be bothered to attend.

  • Other excuses used:

    “washing hair”
    “grandma died”
    “Oprah’s on”
    “root canal”
    “PTA meeting”
    “corn on my big toe is acting up”
    “2 for one Double Quarter Pounders at Burger King only good today”
    “went to Failure to Launch at matinee”
    “had to get an oil change for the Skylark”

  • This audience was billed as not hand-picked. It did not take one audience member to ask, as another had done months ago,”How can I help you, Mr. President……..?” This has Karen Hughes’ manly hands all over it.

  • Gridlock — There’s a really interesting editorial over at the NY Times today by retired General Paul D. Eaton, A Top-Down Review for the Pentagon
    , in which he literally tears Rumsfeld a new one.

    I found this quote “Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is not competent to lead our armed forces” to be particularly damning.

    Bush, Cheney and friends are persistant liars, but the truth is slowly working its way through the muck.

  • The American people have been made fools of by the clever schemes of Karl Rove, the Dr. Frankenstein of American politics, the man who took this half-brained creature, this pseudo-moron, mental pygmy, dormant brain dumbya, mindless George Bush, and transformed him into president of the U.S. Now in 2002 Dumbya and Dick clearly saw WMD in Iraq but now they are unable to see what 77% of Americans now see in Iraq, a raging civil war with 138,700 U.S. troops caught in the middle. No wonder 70% American people thinks Dumbya is incompetent, an idiot, a lair and blind and can’t see. The emperor (dumbya) has no clothes, and not much of a brain either and he seems to revel in his anti-intellectualism. dumbya is now road kill on the political super highway…70% do not find dumbya “honest, trustworthy or competent. Bush and Cheney are losers who keep telling their “fans” (kool-aid drinking repubs) that they are winning the game, even though their team is behind 56-0 at half time. The scoreboard doesn’t lie, even if Bush and Cheney do lie. The neo-con men’s objective in America and Iraq has failed.

  • Marcus,

    I caught Maj. Gen. Eaton on one of the news networks this morning discussing his letter. I’ve had the opportunity to read through it and I agree. This is a damning accusation, not only of Rummy but the admin in general.

    Just for those who don’t know, Paul Eaton was in charge of training the Iraqi army back in 2004.

  • Back to Ohio.

    What you want to bet Bush doesn’t have Diebold fix the elections for them 😉

  • …”The mid-term elections are coming and it scares me to death, speaking as a partisan Republican”…

    …”What we need are Congress people who will ask President Bush tough questions, not be rubber stamps”…

    …”I hear all these people come in and say: ‘That President Bush, we got to get that guy out of there.’ But you ask them who they voted for, and they hush up because they were the ones who voted him in. He’s their boy.”…

    http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/03/19/change_of_heartland/

  • The scary part of it is that, here in Ohio, all the blame is being poured onto just two guys—both of them “lame ducks.” There are far too many people who are openly patting Blackwell on the back right now, not bothering to realize that this bum—who wants to be our next governor—is worse than lame-duck Taft could ever be. What’s completely unbelievable here in the Buckeye State is that no one’s looking at who might be coming into the presidential race behind Bush—who’s just as lame a duck as Taft is. They’re pretty much “no-names” here, but the Republican who’s not known is the Republican who’s mud-soaked credibility is just as unknown. And a no-name Republican could easily promote a solid “reformist” mindset by badmouthing Bush to an even greater degree than the Democrats.

    What Ohio needs right now is a solid, daily update on ALL the potential GOP contenders for the Presidency—and a solid track on anyone else who decides to “test the waters.” With Diebold in the mix, it might be the only way to crowbar Ohio back to the real-world side of the Congressional aisleway….

  • As far as I’m concerned, GWB can come to Ohio and campaign for Mike DeWine, Ken Blackwell (or Jim Petro), Deb Pryce, and any other GOP candidate whenever he likes.

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