a poll was released today that put gw bush’s final approval rating at 22%, the lowest of his presidency(and possibly the lowest approval rating of any president at the end of their presidency…even nixon had a higher approval rating after he was impeached). ow.
to put it in perspective, both ronald reagan and bill clinton had 68% approval ratings at the end of their presidencies. even gw’s daddy had an approval rating of 54% when he left office. 22% approval rating at the end of an 8 year presidency. ow.
it’s of course possible that gw bush isn’t a bad guy. i mean, he was a terrible president. an egregiously terrible president. and what he did as president, driven by his unique mixture of arrogance and ineptitude, is kind of unforgiveable. but i’m pretty sure that he’d be fun to play softball with. well, maybe not. i guess i’m just trying to be charitable. he’d probably say ‘boo ya motherfucker! in your FACE!’ from about 2 inches away if he won, and ‘oh well, softball is a girls game anyway’ if he lost.
in any case, the 8 years of bush and republican rule are coming to an end. the remainder of bush’s term can be measured in hours. tick tock tick tock. i mean, it’s almost done. 8 years of bush and cheney and tom delay and donald rumsfeld and trent lott and etc etc. almost done. america is still crazy, and could theoretically still elect a dangerously arrogant and incompetent president in the future. most americans still employ the ‘he seems like a fun guy to have a beer with’ criteria when voting and are invariably less discriminating in choosing a president than they are in choosing a plumber (i mean, would anyone pick a plumber based on the ‘he seems like a fun guy to have a beer with’ criteria?). but maybe we’ve learned. i doubt it, but it’s possible that enough people have learned and there’ll be a reasonable and reasonably informed majority who will at least try to make informed and educated choices when they vote. who knows what will happen in 2 and 4 years when america votes again. in the meantime it’s 96 hours until regime change.
moby