Bush's poll number are low because of his support for amnesty for illegals and his refusal to actually secure the borders.

When in doubt, blame the media.

The MSM killed those 14 Iraqies today not the two car bombs, but in good news today, 345,000 cars did not blow-up in Iraq today.

No, terrorists and criminals killed those 14 Iraqis. Funny how the libs fail to blame the deaths on those actually causing them. If an American accidentally kills a civilian, its a war crime. If a terrorist in iraq does it, its still the Americans fault. One trip to dailykos and you will see that they are actually rooting against the U.S. now. Disgusting.

The media said, during the 2004 election, that they were worth 15 points to Spitball Kerry's numbers. If I were a polls-hound, I'd contend that the media are worth about minus-20 to Bush's numbers today.

Barney, your writing has vastly improved; I counted only five errors in your two-line post above. Way to go, little fella...

Bill, I have to agree with you. It is the illegal immigrant/border problem that has me disappointed in him.

I am hereby extending a peace offering to all the kooks who troll here. No, I'm not gonna stop being me; I'm gonna offer you an alternative:

http://americablog.blogspot.com/

Tired of having your posts shot down? Tired of being called names? Well, here's your chance to leave that all behind. AmericaBlog is the place for you kook trolls--it's one of, if not the, most far-left, conspiracy-filled blogs on the internet. No troll here even approaches the kookery displayed there. And there are very few, if any, right-wing trolls there to cloud the discourse.

Give it a try, kookbats; I guarantee you'll love it there. They hate America more than you!!!

BTW, I took a poll today, and 98% of the people I polled said they approved of any measure the administration used to protect us from liberalism...

keefer (that's keefer with a small "k"), I was thinking we could have a little fun here, so I have a question for you.

IPXNV DIEPZ PVSFN FNCFS BCPVU DJQIF STZZZ

Keefer, incomplete sentences, slang and made-up words?

"IPXNV DIEPZ PVSFN FNCFS BCPVU DJQIF STZZZ"

Geez, RS, at least use spell check before posting.

Just more proof these right-wing nuts has a 0-grade education. Go back to kindergarten and call me when you pass finger-painting. Maybe then you'll be able to understand that wealth don't trickle down.

The media does only report the bad news in Iraq, which is an insult to our men and women working over there. Why is your right wing media doing that? Why was it a former CIA official who took Von Rumsfeld to the woodshed and not an actual reporter? Corporate controlled media. That's why.

Peace!

Matt,

I also think part of the reason is because President Bush, more than any other president, is willing to stick his neck out and tackle tough issues and take tough positions. The biggest thing clinton ever tackled other than socialized medicine, which was just a dumb idea, was V chips and midnight basketball. President Bush wakes up in the morning, fights World War 3, then for a warm up tackles social security reform, inmmigration reform, intelligence reform, tort reform, energy reform, prescription drug and medicare reform and tax reform, then when he is warmed up he tackles jobs, the economy, iran, syria, north korea....

I'm about ready to give up on this blog.
Mark posts a comment on an important issue of the day - and everyone starts ignoring it.
Instead, we get endless back and forth insults.
Can't you guys insult each other on-topic?

You're a smart guy, Tom. I'll bet you can figure it out. I'm sure keefer can.

And as far as wealth trickling down, if there was not wealth concentrated in the hands of a relatively small minority, who would provide all the jobs -- government? LOL!!

Just as many on the Left claim that there are people in this world that neither desire nor deserve freedom (a position I find repugnant), I would submit that there are people who neither deserve nor are able to handle wealth. If you took 100% of the wealth from the richest 1% and divided it up evenly among the bottom 20%, (redistributing the proceeds of life's lottery, as Dick Gephart would put it) it would only be a matter of a generation or less before the top 1% would be back on top and the bottom 20% would be poor again. Lazaro Cardenas tried wealth redistribution in Mexico back in the 30's when he nationalized the oil and gas industries (most of it American) and busted up the land barons), and you can see how well that turned out.

Getting back to the topic, . . .
Rove is wrong. It isn't just Iraq that's the problem. It's several things, like the Delay matter, the Abramoff matter, the Brownie matter, the Miers matter, the leaks, the investigations, the lack of investigations, the stonewalling, . . .
Americans are the best educated, most sophisticated people of all time. They aren't about to let a bunch of politicians treat them like children, no matter what the reason. We've had too long a run of dishonest and incompetent leaders to accept any administration at face value.
Bush and Rove have been saying "Trust me" to every scandal that has raised its ugly head. They haven't provided any proof to dispell the rumors. Just "Ignore it. Trust me."

It's time for the Bush government to start publishing a few numbers, quoting a few facts, and releasing a few documents. Stop treating us like kids, and maybe we'll start treating them like statesmen.

Rove has to have a conversation with Laura before issuing that sort of statement. Laura feels sure that the polls are wrong. Everywhere she goes there is nothing but love and admiration for her husband. She does not believe the polls. They are wrong, wrong, wrong.

Retired Spook, find me one person on the left who claimed "that there are people in this world that neither desire nor deserve freedom." Go on, I'll give you a minute.

Of course, I could find you any number of right-wingers who think we should just carpet-bomb Iraq and to hell with those innocent Iraqi citizens who both desire and deserve freedom -- you can go to Little Green Footballs or FreeRepublic and find them in about five minutes -- but I don't want to get off topic here.

if rove means strongest in terms of year over year growth, we ought look no further than our creditors, the chinese, for the world's highest gdp growth rate. data opacity aside, their growth rate easily doubles ours.

if in terms of actual size, well, we've been number one for decades - a hell of a lot longer than bush's term. by that logic, we could also have said clinton's tax increases and bush 1's tax increases made our economy the strongest in the world.

of course, no one wants to acknowledge that our debt ceiling has been increased to 10 TRILLION dollars. you know, we could remove taxes altogether and our economy would rip THROUGH THE ROOF. obviously lower taxes help to stimulate the economy, just like governemnt spending does. of course, when you spend and reduce taxes, its easy to point to gdp growth and take the high road. but the buck don't stop there fellas! kicking all of the accumulated debt down the field will prove to be a massive burden for the next generation and the next administration whom will be faced with the terribly difficult task of restoring our nation's fiscal order after eight years of the bush DISASTER.

The only people that care about the alleged scandals of Delay, Rove, Libbey, et. al are Cris Matthews, and his 3 viewers. Nobody cares about that stuff. They care about tax cuts, a strong economy, border security, freedom from liberal judges imposing their unelected views, cutting spending, etc.

tina - what do you exactly mean by 'unelected views'?

do you think justice roberts and alito should have been subjected to some national election contest.. or just those who don't espouse your dogmatic worldview? might be risky for you if we went that route as clear majorities support socially centrist and progressive policy.

with regard to cutting spending, how do you reconcile that supposed conservative fiscal mantra with the clear evidence that spending (and the size of government) has increased dramatically on bush's watch?

Blow,
China's GDP is only $8,158 compared to our $12,370. Our GDP grew from 2000 to 2004 by 4.4%, the world’s GDP grew by 4.0%. China grew by 8.5% after the acquisition of Taiwan, but the country is so impoverished that growth twice that for twenty years won’t bring the standard up the US. Your “massive burden” for the next generation is fine talking points but it doesn’t square with reality. The robust economy is the greatest present Bush can bequeath to the next administration.

I'm having trouble, spook. Hint?

Tom, it's cryptic. You wouldn't understand...

Blow,
Can you qualify that "as clear majorities support socially centrist and progressive policy" from judges statement?

bane,
unless taiwan was "acquired" (as you say) by china last year (and it wasn't), year over year growth rate has absolutely nothing to do with taiwan.

either way, you proved my point.

Spook said: howmuchdoyourememberaboutcipher

bane,

here you go - i think the data point to my assertion on the major issue of abortion:

http://www.pollingreport.com/abortion.htm

Come on, keefer, it's about the simplest code I could think of, as simple as, say sliding down a slide at the playground. (I really am making this too simple -- geez.) If Shipley gets this before you do, all of spookdom is going to be embarrassed.

Shoot, rico beat you to it, keefer. Gotta go watch the Prez's speech. More later.

I used my Green Lantern secret decoder ring. Lol!

Blow,
You're either insane or you don't understand domestic production!
Get a book, study up on GDP; China doesn’t even cut the top 50 countries in GDP. An increase from dismal to pathetic is impressive when it’s Communist, but the US production went from sterling to the highest of any industrialized country and you think that’s a problem. What time is recess at your school?

Blow,
You post an abortion poll and it still disproves your point!
"Do you think partial-birth abortions -- an abortion procedure conducted late in pregnancy -- should be banned or not?"
.
61% want it banned, compared with 46% in 1996.
and this proves we want liberal activist judges, how?

bane,

you resort to gradeschool debate tactics. i worked in the econometric field for years so if you want to challenge my creds, i'll wipe you all over the floor.

my point was that, measured on a year on year basis (you idiot), gdp growth in china vastly exeeded that of the US. plain and simple. i said nothing more than that.

bane,

you resort to gradeschool debate tactics. i worked in the econometric field for years so if you want to challenge my creds, i'll wipe you all over the floor.

my point was that, measured on a year on year basis (you idiot), gdp growth in china vastly exeeded that of the US. plain and simple. i said nothing more than that.

Tina:
"The only people that care about the alleged scandals of Delay, Rove, Libbey, et. al are Cris Matthews, and his 3 viewers. Nobody cares about that stuff. They care about tax cuts, a strong economy, border security, freedom from liberal judges imposing their unelected views, cutting spending, etc."
The polls state otherwise.
Bush would not be losing ground if people cared about what a good job he's doing with tax cuts et al.

Blow,
Measured on a year by year basis or aggregate, we have out grown China by leaps and bounds (neophyte). Any growth in China looks amazing to people like you that don’t have the wherewithal to look beyond the talking points of your favorite socialist collage professor, or koskid. Per capita output from China was pathetic a decade ago; it’s now dismal and may someday be abysmal, and that’s not even taking into consideration the false valuation of the currency!

And, if you’re an economist (yeah, right) how could you make such a sophomoric statement as, “of course, when you spend and reduce taxes, its (sic)easy to point to gdp (sic) growth and take the high road”? What does either of those qualifiers have to do with GDP?

Hick,
Can you produce the internals to support that statement?
The support for Bush has been dropping from right-of-center in the past few months, and support from the left is the same as it's been since 2000, just how do you figure that you know more about why conservatives are unhappy with the administration?
Fact is, Tina has a better handle on the situation than you do, yours is wishful thinking not supported by any evidence.

Show me a poll that Bush is being hurt by Libbey, et al. and that these alleged scandals are in the top five of all issues. No poll exists. Rather, in a poll of SF Voters, 9 out of 10 did not know who Libbey was. The number one issue is Border Security, and the Demorats lead by Pelosi are against it.

Spook, you should have sent the crypto wheel to Rush Limbaugh. keefer only parrots what comes out of Rush’s mouth.

Blow,

People don't want emminent domian and legislating from the bench. A CA judge just struck down a high school exam that students need to pass in order to graduate. The judge, a liberal nut, said the exam was unfair to all students. This is what pisses people off - legislating from the bench. This is an issue, and it may be the October surprise.

"If Shipley gets this before you do, all of spookdom is going to be embarrassed."

No worries there. Codes aren't my bag. Haven't even read the Da Vinci Code (despite my card-carrying membership in the Anti-God left).

I think Bush may have helped himself giving this speech with the center right voters . In addition, passing the tax cut extension is also good for him and his base. Gas prices are heading down -so any drop of 3% to 5% in his approval numbers in this area will go away. I also tell you that the emminent domain is a very big issue. Liberal Sonoma city (the wine country) just stopped a hospital from seizing some person's land. This is a sleeper issue that cuts across party lines.

A lame duck President, and his worshippers' last resort: blame that oh-so-evil MSM.

Actually maf, I would like to know why the MSM hasn't mentioned the al Qaeda document. If it's authentic, it seems like important news.

hmmmm - Bush's low poll numbers due to Iraq? I thought it was argued here on B4B that his low numbers were actually a fable made up by the MSM. Doesn't Rove read his own talking points?

Or maybe, just maaaaaybe.... is it possible that Bush's poll numbers of historically low levels are due to his trademark incompetence?

Retired Spook, find me one person on the left who claimed "that there are people in this world that neither desire nor deserve freedom." Go on, I'll give you a minute

Well, Doug, I didn't get back as soon as I expected to, so I don't know if you're still out there. Probably not, you sounded like a drive-by, and not a very well informed one at that. You'd have to be living in a cave not to have heard the expression "some people can't handle freedom" from some elitist lib at some time. I googled the expression and one of the matches was a comment on this web site in which the commenter says:

Not getting involved because it is not our business. Besides some people can't handle freedom and therefore don't deserve it.

(BTW, check out the pictures at the top of the home page and the Teddy Kennedy sound bite - what a hoot.)

Rico, well done on the coded message. How about this one:

FNBJM NFBUP SWFZB UFBSU IMJOL EPUOF UZZZZ

Keefer, didn't the AF teach you anything about cyphers or have you just forgotten in your old age? You need to get yourself a decoder ring. Do you eat "Captain Crunch"?

Can you tell I just had a great day today? Business is great, although the stock market has sucked the last few days.

Retired Spook,

I saw those five-letter word groups and I had flashbacks to the good old days of one-time pads and trigraphs. :-)

sophomoric statement (neophyte) BY Bane

(Hey ain't no one gonna outpiss baneboy he musta had a hyperkritycal father & has alwaz needud the phinal werd)

So kut him sum slak.

Spook,
difdl zpvsj ocpyg psbnf ttbhf zzzzz

I hope I did that right, lol!

I hope I did that right, lol!

Rico, you turned your code ring the wrong direction.

Bring back some good memories, A-10? Me too.

"Rico, you turned your code ring the wrong direction."

Nope. I got it right.

Nope. I got it right.

Good, then follow the instructions.

RE: intercepted al-qaeda letter

gimme a break - how many secret this and intercepted that have we had in the last few years? Each time, the Bushian cultists breathlessly cling to any hopeful evidence that would vindicate this stupid misadventure in Iraq - and each time the "secret documents" prove to be hoaxes or irrelevant tid bits.

You wingbats all are so so wishing that any evidence will turn up that will miraculously make this horrible fiasco in Iraq worth the blood and treasure we have squandered on it. You can't bring yourselves to face the fact that 2,400 of our troops have needlessly died because the commander-in-chief can barely find Iraq on a map, much less make critical decisions about a complex region of the world, or about a pointless war he doesn't know how to win or how to end. He can't even identify who the enemy is.

Newsflash to all wingbats: it's not al-qaeda we are fighting in Iraq. Furthermore, Al-qaeda couldn't be happier that we are there. They may fret about their lack of influence in a country where they never had much influence to begin with - but it serves their strategic goals to have the US bogged down in a guerrilla war in the region.

Iraq was a secular, nationalist, highly socialized country that was reviled by Osama and the Islamic religious fundamentalists. We went and did exactly what Osama hoped for: invaded an oil-rich Arab nation that was his enemy. The message that sends to many in the region is that Osama was right - the US is only after their oil, wants to strengthen Israel, and wants to weaken Arabs. According to an exhaustive report released a few months ago by the CIA's National Intelligence Council, Iraq has become a breeding ground for the next generation of "professionalized" Islamic terrorists.

But you all go on fantasizing about the latsest "secret al-qaeda documents" and whining about why the evil MSM isn't making a hullabaloo about them. How pathetic.

Aarontime said: "gimme a break - how many secret this and intercepted that have we had in the last few years? Each time, the Bushian cultists breathlessly cling to any hopeful evidence that would vindicate this stupid misadventure in Iraq - and each time the "secret documents" prove to be hoaxes or irrelevant tid bits."

It might surprise you that I generally agree with you. All those released documents are essentially impossible for someone who isn't "in the know" to evaluate. So I'm not inclined to pay much attention to them -- until there is some official indication that they should be paid attention to. So far that hasn't happened.

But that's precisely what makes this document different. This one was posted on the CENTCOM web site. I don't consider that site to be your typical "Bushian cult" site. They may have a bias, but I don't think it's anywhere near the "kool-aid" area. So the fact that it was posted there suggests a degree of significance that is lacking with the other documents. And for that reason, it seems to me that someone in the MSM -- or at least someone in the lefty blogsphere -- should have picked it up somewhere along the line and at least discussed it. But I can't find a single peep. And I find that odd.