Support for Bush Continues to Drop as More Question His Leadership Skills

[FlashHarry]

NY Times story here

Not sure if this is a dupe. Just posted at NYT.

Support for Bush Continues to Drop as More Question His Leadership Skills, Poll Shows

[Pirate Smile]

1. New NYT/CBS poll. Bush approval at 41%

"Over all, 41 percent of respondents approved of Mr. Bush's performance in office, while 53 percent disapproved. Those figures are in line with other national polls conducted in the last week, roughly equal to the worst ratings Mr. Bush has ever received, comparable to Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton's worst ratings, but well above the worst ever posted by the president's father, Jimmy Carter and Richard M. Nixon.

The Times/CBS News Poll was conducted Friday through Tuesday with 1,167 adults, including 877 whites and 211 blacks. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points for all respondents and whites, and seven percentage points for blacks. The survey was mostly completed before Mr. Bush said on Tuesday that he accepted responsibility for flaws in the federal response to the hurricane."

[...of J.Temperance]

3. ONLY 211 blacks and yet 877 whites...they ALWAYS rig it for him don't they

And look at those margins of error percentages!

[Toots]

10. Actually when compared to national stats that is a high percentage

I believe the nation is only made up of 14% blacks, this appears to be about twenty percent blacks. Not sure why the margin of error should be different.

[dasmarian]

12. Agreed

Its a representative sample of minorities to non-minorities and would be a required ratio to be statistically valid.

[ShockediSay]

29. Strong leadership? Weak leadership? Incompetent leadership?

Put that to the American people in the '06 elections and see what you get as their assessment of Bush's leadership abilities.

PS
When does Karl Rove start talking turkey with the special prosecutor?

When does Tom DeLay face the ethics charges that were lodged about a year ago in the House? When does he get a bill of indictment or no bill?

Short memories serve the scalawags well.

[daleo]

24. They said the full sample was 1167

So this would be 75% white, 18% black, 7% other.

On edit - the margin of error is bigger for blacks than whites because the sample of blacks is smaller than the sample of whites. As sample size goes down, margin of error goes up.

[Captain Hilts]

54. Especially when you compare likelihood of voting btwn Bs and Ws. nt

[antonialee839]

4. I have to wonder about the half who still approve of his handling

of terrorism, considering the other day the doofus wasn't able to answer whether or not we are prepared for another attack.

[lancdem]

8. I guess they haven't made the obvious jump

that if we're not prepared to handle Katrina we're not ready for a terrorist attack either.

BTW, this fits in with all the other polls that have him between 38 and 42 percent. CNN is clearly an outlier.

[Lugnut]

23. Amazingly

And unbelievably to me a right-wing acquaintence of mine claims that comparing a natural disaster to a terrorist attack is an apples and oranges comparison. I think she's hopelessly delusional or in serious denial.

[marbuc]

25. How are they different?

The only difference is that natural disasters can be forcast. If Bush fucked this one up with 3 days notice, how is he going to react to an attack with no warning?

[unblock]

27. actually, terrorist attacks can be forecast as well

at least, if you don't gut your intelligence agencies by replacing the good ones that leave voluntarily with partisan loyalist fanatics and blowing the covers of the good ones that won't leave voluntarily....

[Child_Of_Isis]

5. including 877 whites and 211 blacks.

Just pointing out the obvious.

[Miss Chybil]

15. Blacks only make up 12.3% of the US population, yet in this poll

the represent 24% of the respondents. Just playing devils advocate. Someone could make the argument the poll is scewed using your "obvious" assertation. I'm not a pollster, nor a statistician. In fact, I suck at math, but I think blacks were more than well respresented in this poll.

[Art_from_Ark]

53. No, blacks represent only 18% of the respondents

211 blacks divided by 1167 total respondents = 18.08%

[Miss Chybil]

60. I said I suck at math! Sorry, but even by the correct numbers

they are better represented in the poll than in the general population, so using the fewer number of blacks in the poll as some sort of whipping stick, like the poster I was responding to was trying to do, still won't work.

[StevieM]

6. I think Reagan was at 30% during the 82 recession (eom)

x

[lancdem]

11. I'm pretty sure he never was that low

[oasis]

26. Reagan should have been lower. The lying, putrid corporate pig.

[0007]

51. Must be polling the same folks week after week.

Put up a goddamn poll in your fucking newspaper and let everyone that can read vote.

'Ya just might pick up more business than you can handle.

[...of J.Temperance]

2. More question his leadership skills?

WHAT leadership skills?

:bounce:

Oh that was amusing, just thinking of Too Stupid Too Be *resident and leadership skills in the SAME sentence.

[EVDebs]

7. Outsourcing doesn't take ANY skill. Just as 'privatization'

both are cop outs. Lou Dobb's nightly tirades against the 'outsourcing of America' and 'exporting jobs' begs the question of how nascent industries that BushCo should be supporting are left to the destructive forces of the so-called 'free market'.

This whole laissez faire dreamworld is all part of the UNcreative destruction of the USA. They're all a bunch of slow learners, that's all. Forgive them for they know not what they do...

Most intelligent Republicans, Paul Craig Roberts specifically but there are many others who cringe at this neo-con crowd of lemmings, want to see Bush tossed out. Don't forget during the election the Republicans for Kerry groups that sprang up.

[In Truth We Trust]

9. These polls are just as fixed as is our elections, or NYT wmd stories

At best this fucking idiot has 20%...AT BEST!

Why believe this shit when we know they've admitted to writing tax payer funded checks to reporters across the board. Lies, LIes, and more fucking lies!!!

[trogdor]

49. And he does, in a way.

His approval, as shown in most recent polls, is soft, while nearly everyong who disapproves, disapproves strongly.

[rocktivity]

13. And that was BEFORE he became President Potty Stop!

link

:rofl:
rocknation

[populistdriven]

14. 63 percent - said the country was "pretty seriously" on the wrong track...

Q: Why did this take people 5 years to figure out?
A: Corporate media whores.

[tgnyc]

16. Support for Bush Continues to Drop, Poll Shows (NYT)

For the first time, just half of Americans approve of Mr. Bush's handling of terrorism, which has been his most consistent strength since he scored 90 percent approval ratings in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. More than 6 in 10 now say that he does not share their priorities for the country, 10 percentage points worse than on the eve of his re-election last fall, while barely half say he has strong qualities of leadership, about the same as said so at the early low-ebb of his presidency in the summer of 2001.

More Americans now distrust the federal government to do the right thing than at any time since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. And the poll revealed a sharp racial divide. While half of all respondents disapprove of the way Mr. Bush has handled the aftermath of Katrina, nearly three quarters of blacks do. (Mr. Bush won only about 10 percent of the black vote last year.)

<snip>

Over all, 41 percent of respondents approved of Mr. Bush's performance in office, while 53 percent disapproved. Those figures are in line with other national polls conducted in the last week, roughly equal to the worst ratings Mr. Bush has ever received, comparable to Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton's worst ratings, but well above the worst ever posted by the president's father, Jimmy Carter and Richard M. Nixon

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/15/politics/15poll.html?ei=5094&en=835384024f7e4005&hp=&ex=1126756800&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print

[NYC Liberal]

17. Thanks, America, for waking up 10 months too late!

Always good to know people are on the ball! :banghead:

[moobu2]

18. Cant believe it's that high

What's wrong with people? Worst president ever, and cant even go pee without asking

[cliss]

19. That was a good article.

I LOVED reading it. I was quite surprised about the quotes from Dan Bartlett: "Government failures at every level". (whew) WOW. Unbelievable.

This just shows what we've suspected here at the DU: Bush and his crew are absolutely desperate. They are in thermonuclear meltdown mode, as we speak.

They also know they are looking at the beginnings of the storm, also. Things are not going to get better this winter. Here's why Bush is finished, and they know it.

1) Gas prices are predicted to go up. This is the one thing that will kill his ratings. You mess with Americans' ability to drive, and you're DEAD MEAT.

2) Heating oil prices are expected to skyrocket this winter. I expect to hear about frozen bodies in the Northeast, due to lack of money. Bush will be seen as heartless, a real monster.

3) Hurricane Katrina is expected to cost around $200 billion. Money that we don't have. Is he going to raise taxes? People will be homicidal.

4) Because of rising gas prices, food will go up, stuff will go up, anything that was brought to you via 4 wheels will go up. I predict LOTS of furious people (don't need crystal ball for that one).

5) Bush is finished because he's so unpleasant to look at. His persona & charm and ability to get himself out of a mess is rated at = 0.

[FlashHarry]

20. What's the opposite of "bounce?"

Er... sink?

[punpirate]

31. Uh, the opposite of "bounce" would likely be...

... thud!, the sound one makes when stopping suddenly. :P

[jokerman93]

43. What do you call that sound

What do you call that sound a watermelon makes hitting the pavement from nine stories?

[glitch]

52. SPLAT!

I've always liked that word.

[Jim Sagle]

21. Not to mention his potty training, haw haw haw.

[Coastie for Truth]

22. This gross mishandling of Katrina is more of a "negative"

then his initial 9/11 "bull horn" was a "plus"

This is my wife's theory.

Terrorism "happens to somebody else" - we don't fly that much any more - wife hasn't flown since her stroke and my flying has dropped by 80% since I "retired." We haven't been to NYC in years. So, "tedrra" is perceived to be a "remote threat."

But a hurricane? A natural disaster is perceived to be an "immediate threat."

We live right here (between the San Andreas and Calaveras/Hayward Faults, in the Guadalupe River-Coyote Creek-Alviso Spill Way in the Red, "VIII-Very Strong" region at the southern tip of SF Bay in the map)--->

<>
and before that we lived in the "Blizzard Belt" and "Tornado Alley" --- and we lived in New Orleans "between Betsy and Camille"

The gross mishandling of Katrina psychologically increases our discomfort level much more then AlQaida.

[Nothing Without Hope]

28. Hitler's support was never higher than about 40%, contrary to what I was

taught from those crummy, biased textbooks in grade school and high school. So now we have another one of those controversial little parallels.

[Stephanie]

30. Every headline just makes me ROFLMAO now!!!

Leadership skills??? He doesn't even have potty skills! Oh my god this he can never, ever live down. You have just witnessed the end of the Bush presidency.

[underpants]

44. I hate to say this

but ---the floodgates are open

That is the expression that first comes to mind. I am hearing it everywhere. All the pent up angst (people who don't have a DU to vent on) is spilling out. Questions about 9/11 (7 minutes) and what went on BEFORE 9/11 are heard quite often. I am including references on TV as well as comments at work and ones I have just happened to hear.

The emporer has no clothes.

[amber dog democrat]

57. Maybe this will do it.

It looks like this aftermath of Katrina is beyond his ability to dance around. After
9/11 and Iraq, this may be the thing that does him in. If he is all but abandoned by his own party, it will almost be worth having a moribund Chimp administration fecklessly striving to do god knows what He may have to be impeached by his own party.

pretty is as pretty does.

[jsamuel]

32. Libs - 18% Mods - 43% Cons - 34% Refused - 5%

[BrightKnight]

33. He has no leadership skills. He can't construct a sentence.

He is like the stereotypical mob moron.

[ladylibertee]

34. It was mentioned here before, but I think it's okay. Bears repeating

[applegrove]

35. Support for Bush Continues to Drop, Poll Shows

Support for Bush Continues to Drop, Poll Shows


By TODD S. PURDUM and MARJORIE CONNELLY
Published: September 15, 2005

"WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 - A summer of bad news from Iraq, high gasoline prices, economic unease and now the devastation of Hurricane Katrina has left President Bush with overall approval ratings for his job performance and handling of Iraq, foreign policy and the economy at or near the lowest levels of his presidency, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.

How the Poll Was Conducted (September 15, 2005)

New York Times/CBS News Poll Results For the first time, just half of Americans approve of Mr. Bush's handling of terrorism, which has been his most consistent strength since he scored 90 percent approval ratings in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. More than 6 in 10 now say that he does not share their priorities for the country, 10 percentage points worse than on the eve of his re-election last fall, while barely half say he has strong qualities of leadership, about the same as said so at the early low-ebb of his presidency in the summer of 2001.

More Americans now distrust the federal government to do the right thing than at any time since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. And the poll revealed a sharp racial divide. While half of all respondents disapprove of the way Mr. Bush has handled the aftermath of Katrina, nearly three quarters of blacks do. (Mr. Bush won only about 10 percent of the black vote last year.)

The hurricane, alone, does not appear to have taken any significant toll on Mr. Bush's overall job approval rating, which remains stuck virtually where it has been since early summer. But the findings do suggest that the slow federal response to the hurricane has increased public doubts about the Bush administration's effectiveness. Fifty-six percent of Americans said they were now less confident about the government's ability to respond to a terrorist attack or natural disaster.

...SNIP "

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/15/politics/15poll.html?hp&ex=1126843200&en=dc264fe94181d5b9&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[PATRICK]

36. The timeline

It takes a while for polls to really reflect a change due to an event. So they hurry the polling to make it look not so bad then go quiet as possible as they continue to sink. Then when it might dip back up that "direction" will be emphasized. Obviously the GOP does not hesitate to control the polling as much as possible, but the Dems drop the ball in not fighting the various skews.

It is another hoop for the public to jump through in order to make the government respond to them. Perfectly clear is not clear enough. LOUDLY perfectly clear and sustained is the bar to clear to even hope for change. Meanwhile in the stores and on the streets the mood turns very permanently ugly against the real crooks and liars. Polls don't really reflect what we know by shared anecdotes. And despite swaths of enforced ignorance in controlled areas of the nation, the word spreads.

[applegrove]

39. I really think that at 40% - you have all the adolescent nuts or naive.

And of course the baser instinctives.

Will be a hard thing to get past. Fortunately Dems don't need to. As long as we train ourselves & our people to vote like you have never seen voting before. To think of FEMA if it snows or rains. And the second you feel like "perhaps I can get groceries instead of voting.. the exit polls leaked on the Internet say DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE won" - you immediately go vote and stop off at the nearest college and pick up 5 more of you.

There need to be places where parents can drop off their kids for a few hours. There needs to be so much done to ensure votes are not suppressed.

[PATRICK]

42. behind the poll

I think we have yet to crack the majority hypnotized by the MSM who let slip their own main game when Bushboy blundered far too dramatically. Yet the obstinate rudder of the MSM and consequently the popular knowledge is bent ever away from the most logical and obvious conclusions, from real accountability, from real parties and systems and reality itself.

The target has wounded himself as thousands die for nothing, but the best we can accomplish is a narrow victory in the polling. In WWII the nation had a clear and practical focus, united in all sectors(even those that had been betraying them before pearl Harbor). Even then, the focus was too narrow. Even as it reached out in anger to prevent it happening again and rewarded the war party with a seeming mandate for liberalism it fell short. fell short without many even realizing the signs it left our own garden full of weeds. Which weeds launched McCarthyism and the GOP resurgence- and ever worsening chains upon our national values.

It falls ominously short today. Any individual you probe, possibly even Bushbots can agree on the sense of imminent danger, the divisions and hopelessness, the sheer feeling of outrage. But like people dazed, asleep, preoccupied, distracted by anger, and constantly reassured all at the same time- the people as a people are rendered voiceless as a rational community.

There are no clear consequences of crime and national disaster for those people and organizations who guarantee much more of the same, by design and neglect. No challenges, no action calls come from the the unworthy mediators of national consciousness- the rags and pixels and loudmouthed luminaries of the gatekeepers of "news". Competent reasoning and moral compasses and balance are so out of touch with reality that the people wandering in the wilderness starve their collective minds trying to use them as guides, and wrongly judge themselves by the poor representation foisted on them by the minority of uttermost greed.

He who has eyes to see let them see. Ears to hear let them hear. But you need a guide like Virgil to Dante to survive the Inferno of lies and glamorized reduced truth.

The pollsters tell us the people are against the war now because of the losing costs and the total disengagement from the obvious narrow goal of the war. I mean total since if the people could wrap themselves around an illegal aggressive murder and occupation for profit and power
they would demand heads, not grumble about the endless losses in the military contest. Why are we there? We are there because those given power over us want something no real American would sanction. We are constantly offtrack and not just in obvious failures or a sense of misery. We are offtrack in not realizing the enemies of America are running America. it is not about mistakes, incompetence or not caring. it is about our own occupation, unacknowledged, unresisted in terms of real world resistance.

Those who are awake serve as the alarm clack but the smell of smoke and the sound of sirens comes from events that cannot be slapped away and provoke more than debate and irritation at the clock. The people awake blinded and groggy and dazed by illusory dreams. And the Sandmen move in again.

We are at the point where those with the most power and the most fear and hatred could tip the balance. That is an unworthy tragedy the world can ill afford. The world needs an America that may never have existed except in the now balding lies of its drolling, doting rulers.

The common American has no idea of his/her destiny as it really is now, forced by events and the engagement of the ancient wrongs of the world.
Democrats fearfully tread behind the limited unity of the obvious. Does Bush have to come to your door and shoot your dog or kid to make the point? Even there, for 30+ %, the answer is yes. For the rest of the ugly web, for the clarity of what is going on, the vast majority fumble in the dark with the majority good will duped and misdirected.

Our moral victory, our Stalingrad is not reflected in a general approval poll. It is not in sight at all, yet.

[cliss]

45. A powerful post, Patrick.

This one is worth framing. It really sums up our national dilemma at this juncture.

[Barrett808]

48. Well said. n/t

[yorkiemommie1]

56. excellent analysis

n/t

hopefully you will write many letters to the editors, op-eds?

[ladylibertee]

37. I heard that on CNN last night that he is at 32% I can't wait to

watch him sqirm tonight during his speech. I'm gonna have popcorn, all that good stuff.:rofl:

[FlashHarry]

50. Is CNN allowed to report that? Didn't they get the memo?

Amazing.

[opihimoimoi]

38. The Hapless Dufus...has to ask Condi for bathroom pass? at the UN?

So Telling.....

[applegrove]

40. Not really telling. It actually humanizes him. Silly we go on about it.

But you would think there would be an ear pull signal or some such thing at this juncture. I hate to think of what the Crawford Presidential Library will be filled with if they haven't yet worked out a signal for when nature calls.

[Nostradammit]

41. Yes, he was certainly God-like before

:eyes:

Yeesh.

[opihimoimoi]

46. So Katrinaesque, mishandled from the TOP

[Blue_Tires]

47. it's time to take an honest look at

exactly HOW he got re-selected

[kestrel91316]

55. WHAT leadership skills????

[Skittles]

58. he has never had any

it's all been a media creation that Katrina brought crashing down in their faces

[BiggJawn]

59. He HAS no "Leadership Skills". Never has.

TANG, Texas Rangers, various oil projects, didn't matter, he'd roll in, totally fuck things up, and when the cheese got binding, here comes Poppy and Poppy's rich friends to bail the kid out.

The only things he's ever done that has the slightest appearance of initative have involved signing papers that result in people dieing...