{"id":4691,"date":"2005-07-14T10:55:08","date_gmt":"2005-07-14T14:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/4691.html"},"modified":"2005-07-14T10:55:08","modified_gmt":"2005-07-14T14:55:08","slug":"a-serious-credibility-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/a-serious-credibility-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"A serious credibility problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

For reasons that I’ve never fully understood, the president has excelled in recent years as someone people trust. Even when voters don’t agree with him on an issue, the idea goes, Bush is at least credible and consistent. A “say what you mean, mean what you say” type.<\/p>\n

This has never made any sense, but it’s kept Bush afloat politically for nearly five years. Without trustworthiness, Bush’s authority and standing collapse.<\/p>\n

And when one considers the latest NBC News\/Wall Street Journal poll<\/a>, we see that this collapse is already underway.<\/p>\n

A new Wall Street Journal\/NBC News poll shows how much Mr. Bush’s political standing has been weakened as he confronts controversy over a top aide’s discussion of a Central Intelligence Agency operative’s employment, a Supreme Court vacancy, his Social Security plan and Iraq. Majorities of Americans disapprove of the president’s handling of the economy, foreign policy and Iraq. And a plurality rates Mr. Bush negatively on “being honest and straightforward” for the first time in his presidency.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Specifically, the percentage of Americans who believe Bush is “honest and straightforward” has fallen to 41% (in January, it was 50%). The timing for an erosion of public trust in the president couldn’t be much worse for the Bush gang — this poll was taken before<\/em> the public started hearing about Karl Rove’s role in leaking Valerie Plame’s undercover identity.<\/p>\n

That’s right, this poll is awful news for the president, but it came before a major White House criminal scandal broke onto America’s front pages. In other words, it can, and probably will, get worse for Bush.
\n
\nA few other random notes from the poll that are worth keeping in mind:<\/p>\n

* When asked if they’d prefer a Dem Congress or Republican Congress after the 2006 elections, 45% of Americans want Dems in charge, while 38% want the GOP. It’s the worst Republicans have scored on this question since NBC\/WSJ started asking it in January.<\/p>\n

* Respondents were asked if they thought it would be a good idea to change Social Security to “allow workers to invest their Social Security contributions in the stock market.” 57% said it was a bad idea; 33% said it’s a good idea — the worst performance for privatization since NBC\/WSJ started asking the question last December.<\/p>\n

* Respondents were also asked about their thoughts on replacing Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court. A surprising 55% of Americans want a justice who will uphold affirmative action, and a whopping 65% say they don’t want to see Roe v Wade overturned.<\/p>\n

* Overall, Bush’s approval rating stands at 46%, the second lowest it’s been in any NBC\/WSJ poll since 2001.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For reasons that I’ve never fully understood, the president has excelled in recent years as someone people trust. Even when voters don’t agree with him on an issue, the idea goes, Bush is at least credible and consistent. A “say what you mean, mean what you say” type. This has never made any sense, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4691\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}