Thursday, December 01, 2005

Why Does Bush Speak to a Captive Audience?


"Midshipmen catch naps as they wait for more than an hour for U.S. President George W. Bush to deliver an address on the war in Iraq at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland November 30, 2005."

Yesterday's speech at the U.S. Naval Academy was Bush's 4th speech in 3 weeks before a captive military audience. If you missed it, don't fret. Commander Dubya plans to make two or three more speeches in the next two weeks. All will be in defense of his my-way-or-the-highway War.

Former secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright sums up the latest Bushspeak:

"The president was basically repackaging things and saying everything's fine when every day we read that things are not fine. I so wish I could believe him. I like to believe an American president. But he's got such a credibility issue."

If you had Bush's credibility problem, you'd choose a captive audience too.

The Emerging Democratic Majority reports on yet more polls telling us what we already know. Most Americans don't believe a word Commander Shrub says:

In a recent Harris poll, by exactly 2:1 (64 to 32 percent), the public says the Bush administration “generally mislead[s] the public on current issues to achieve its own end”, rather than “provides accurate information regarding current issues”. And that’s 73-25–almost 3:1!--among political independents. . . In the latest ARG poll, Bush gets a stunningly low 31 percent approval rating on handling the economy, with 62 percent disapproval. . And an amazing 61 percent believe the economy will be worse a year from now than it is today, compared to just 17 percent who think it will be better.

And all this is before the credit card companies bow to pressure from the Bush Administration and double your minimum monthly payments.

Can Bush's poll numbers go lower? Well, yeah.