{"id":5053,"date":"2005-08-24T14:26:19","date_gmt":"2005-08-24T18:26:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/5053.html"},"modified":"2005-08-24T14:26:19","modified_gmt":"2005-08-24T18:26:19","slug":"its-the-war-stupid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/its-the-war-stupid\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s the war, stupid"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new Harris poll<\/a> is out, and it, like every other poll in recent weeks, shows a steep decline in public support for the president.<\/p>\n

President Bush’s job approval ratings are at their lowest point of his presidency as only 40% of U.S. adults have a favorable opinion of his job performance and 58% have a negative opinion, according to a Harris Interactive poll.<\/p>\n

This is a decline from just two months ago in June when the president’s ratings were 45% positive and 55% negative.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Across the board, this is bad news for pretty much everyone in Washington. Cheney’s approval ratings slipped to 35%, Rumsfeld’s approval ratings dropped to 40%, and the public really<\/em> hates Congress.<\/p>\n

Of course, we’ve heard all of this repeatedly for weeks. Bush isn’t popular anymore — we get it. The Harris poll, however, included data on the public’s top concerns. The results were telling.<\/p>\n

Respondents were asked for the two most important issues they believe the government should address. The replies were spontaneous and respondents weren’t offered categories or issues. Less than three months ago, the breakdown looked like this:<\/p>\n

1. Iraq — 24%
\n2. Social Security — 19%
\n3. The economy — 18%<\/p>\n

As compared to the same question from the same polling firm on public opinion now:<\/p>\n

1. Iraq — 41%
\n2. The economy — 19%
\n3. Health care — 11%<\/p>\n

This isn’t rocket science.
\n
\nHow far as public support for Bush’s policies in Iraq dropped? If the Harris data wasn’t telling enough, even the Jingoism Channel is expressing doubts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You knew it was a bad day for the White House when even Fox News was piling on President Bush’s counselor, Dan Bartlett.<\/p>\n

E.D. Hill, one of the “Fox & Friends” morning show anchors, said she thought the Iraq war “was a justified one” but now worries “that there’s not a plan to actually win that ground war.”<\/p>\n

“Well, E.D., I can assure you that’s not the case,” Bartlett assured her. Allowing that it’s been a “bumpy process” with “difficult days,” he asserted: “We have the right strategy to prevail.”<\/p>\n

Hill was not reassured by this assurance. “I guess I’m not convinced,” she replied.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Join the club, E.D.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new Harris poll is out, and it, like every other poll in recent weeks, shows a steep decline in public support for the president. President Bush’s job approval ratings are at their lowest point of his presidency as only 40% of U.S. adults have a favorable opinion of his job performance and 58% have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5053","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=5053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}