[L-I] George W. Bush, c'est fini

Bush is finished -- it's time to plan ahead for a struggle against a 
Democratic President in the White House who won't end the occupation 
of Iraq (thirteen months is a shorter period of time than you think).

*****   New York Times   October 3, 2003
Poll Shows Drop in Confidence on Bush Skill in Handling Crises
By TODD S. PURDUM and JANET ELDER

The public's confidence in President Bush's ability to deal wisely 
with an international crisis has slid sharply over the past five 
months, the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll has found. And a 
clear majority are also uneasy about his ability to make the right 
decisions on the nation's economy.

Over all, the poll found, Americans are for the first time more 
critical than not of Mr. Bush's ability to handle both foreign and 
domestic problems, and a majority say the president does not share 
their priorities. Thirteen months before the 2004 election, a solid 
majority of Americans say the country is seriously on the wrong 
track, a classic danger sign for incumbents, and only about half of 
Americans approve of Mr. Bush's overall job performance. That is 
roughly the same as when Mr. Bush took office after the razor-close 
2000 election. . . .

A summer of continuing attacks on American soldiers in Iraq, the 
failure so far to find weapons of mass destruction there and Mr. 
Bush's recent request for $87 billion to pay for military operations 
and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken a toll on 
public support for his administration's Iraq policy and on views of 
his ability to handle such issues in general.

The poll found that just 45 percent of Americans now have confidence 
in Mr. Bush's ability to deal wisely with an international crisis, 
down sharply from 66 percent in April, and half now say they are 
uneasy about his approach. Nearly 9 in 10 Americans say the war in 
Iraq is still going on, and 6 in 10 say the United States should not 
spend as much on the effort as Mr. Bush has sought. Three-quarters of 
Americans, including a majority of Republicans, say the 
administration has yet to clearly explain how long American troops 
will have to stay in Iraq, or how much it will cost to rebuild the 
country.

"I am very uneasy because of the war," said Joyce Austin, 69, a 
retired nurse's aide in Readstown, Wis., who was reinterviewed after 
the poll was conducted. "I don't think the Bush administration had a 
good plan for ending the war, and for what was going to happen 
afterward. I don't think they realized how much it was going to 
cost." Mrs. Austin paused and added, "Maybe they knew and just didn't 
tell us."

The nationwide telephone poll of 981 adults has a margin of sampling 
error of plus or minus three percentage points. The poll, taken 
Sunday through Wednesday, was in progress when the Justice Department 
announced that it would investigate accusations that someone in the 
White House may have leaked the name of an undercover C.I.A. officer.

As the week progressed and news coverage of the investigation 
intensified, respondents were somewhat less likely to credit the Bush 
administration with bringing heightened honesty and integrity to the 
workings of the White House, compared with past administrations. In 
the end, just over one-third of the respondents said the 
administration had brought more honesty and integrity, while 18 
percent said it had  brought less and 43 percent said it was about 
the same as other administrations.

For months, Americans have been critical of Mr. Bush's handling of 
the national economy, and they remain so, with just one in five 
saying the administration's policies have made their taxes go down 
and a near-majority saying the policies have had no effect on them 
personally. Half of the respondents said the federal tax cuts enacted 
since 2001 had not made much difference in the economy, and the rest 
were about evenly divided on whether the tax cuts were bad or good. 
Just 40 percent of voters expressed confidence in Mr. Bush's ability 
to make the right decisions about the economy, down from half in 
April, while 56 percent said they were uneasy, up from 42 percent in 
April.

During Mr. Bush's tenure, a majority of Americans say, jobs have been 
lost and not created, there has been no easing of the high cost of 
prescription drugs and schools have not improved. Six in 10 Americans 
- and 4 in 10 Republicans - say the economy is worse than it was when 
Mr. Bush took office. Four in 10 of those polled were worried that 
someone in their household would lose his job in the next year.

Even worse news for the president was that Americans have also become 
critical of his handling of foreign policy, which had been been seen 
as his strength for most of his presidency. The latest survey found 
that 44 percent of those polled approved of Mr. Bush's overall 
handling of foreign policy, down from 52 percent in July, and that 47 
percent approved of his handling of the situation in Iraq, down from 
58 percent in July.

Polls last winter showed that public support for the president's 
decision to go to war in Iraq was sharply divided along partisan 
lines, with broad indications of reluctance. Now there are growing 
doubts about whether the results were worth the loss of life and 
other costs involved. Only 41 percent said it was, while 53 percent 
said it was not. When the question was asked using Saddam Hussein's 
name, the results were almost reversed, with about half those 
surveyed . . . saying it was worth removing him from power, and 41 
percent saying it was not. . . .

Opinions of Democratic primary voters are so unformed that the mere 
mention of a person's title changes the dynamic. When voters were 
asked which candidate they would choose, without mention of titles, 
17 percent said Gen. Wesley K. Clark, 11 percent said Representative 
Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri and 10 percent said Senator Joseph I. 
Lieberman of Connecticut. The other candidates were all in single 
digits. . . .

<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/03/national/03POLL.html>   *****

-- 
Yoshie

* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/>
* Calendars of Events in Columbus: 
<http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>, 
<http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/>
* Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/>
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/>
* Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio>
* Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>

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