Dark Bilious Vapors

But how could I deny that I possess these hands and this body, and withal escape being classed with persons in a state of insanity, whose brains are so disordered and clouded by dark bilious vapors....
--Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy: Meditation I

Home » Archives » May 2005 » Trying to Milk it for all it's Worth...

[« Bush Runs Roughshod...Again...] [0% Down... »]

05/14/2005: Trying to Milk it for all it's Worth...


The Bolton nomination is not the only “over reaching” coming from the While House and GOP this season. Andrew Ferguson has written this piece for The Weekly Standard: Operation Overreach: The downside of big-government conservatism..

”Laura Bush delivered a lot of jokes during her now-famous stand-up routine at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, but one of them touched a real sore spot. Not the joke about milking the horse. This one: "I said to him the other day, 'George, if you really want to end tyranny in the world, you're going to have to stay up later.'" When the joke was replayed over and over again on TV, a cry rose up from every corner of this sweet and verdant land: "No, no, George, don't stay up later! You just go on to bed! You're doing too much already! Really!"

Or maybe that was just me. In any case, Mrs. Bush's joke points to something important in our present political moment, four very busy months into her husband's very busy second term. It even sheds light on those discouraging poll numbers that have lately troubled all the president's men and his publicists in the press. The president himself, of course, pays no attention to polls.

And a good thing, too, because Bush's job approval ratings are now at the lowest point of his time in office-down to 47 percent in the latest Washington Post poll, 48 percent in USA Today's. In the Post poll, the number of people who "strongly approve" of his job performance, which for most of the last four years has roughly matched the percentage of people who "strongly disapprove," has fallen to 25 percent, while the strong disapprovers have surged to 38 percent.

A solid majority, 56 percent, approve of Bush's handling of the "U.S. campaign against terrorism." From there, the numbers head south. Only 42 percent approve the way Bush has conducted the Iraq war, and 54 percent now say they believe the war should never have been fought. Forty percent approve his handling of the economy. With gas prices high, approval of Bush's energy policy is low: 35 percent. Even lower, though, is the percentage approving Bush's signature domestic initiative: 31 percent approve, and 64 percent disapprove, of the president's handling of Social Security.

These gloomy data follow the Terri Schiavo affair, when very large majorities--up to 70 percent in some polls--expressed their distaste for the effort by Bush and congressional Republicans to encourage federal courts to take up her case.

Scanning the poll numbers, Dean David Broder of the Washington Post announced that Bush is the victim of "overreach." John Podhoretz, in the New York Post, came up with a better tag and got closer to the nub. The public, he wrote, may be suffering from "Issue Fatigue"--an overload of public policy proposals and the politicking that goes with them. "While [Bush] refused to allow himself to rest after the 2004 election," Podhoretz wrote, "the American people seem to have desperately wanted a break." Both Podhoretz and the Dean are on to something, but what if they don't go far enough? Bush's problem may be more elemental. Overreach, and the resulting fatigue of the public, may be the inevitable consequences of the way Bush approaches his job--it might, in other words, be built into his governing philosophy



Conservative reform, in fact, turns out to be a lot like liberal reform. Each involves a whirlwind of government activity. Each is a formula for politics without end--splendid indeed for politicians and government employees, but a bit tiring for the rest of us. Who can blame the public for beginning to show its weariness? The fatigue came to a head in the Schiavo case, and the president's poll numbers have yet to recover.

….

A lack of modesty and self-restraint is one excellent reason Americans grew to despise liberals in the first place. The high-water mark of American liberalism came in 1993 and 1994, when President Clinton and his wife, under the guise of "health care reform," decided they would assume control of one-seventh of the nation's economy in order to make it more rational and fair. Voters responded by handing the federal legislature to the Republican party. History may record that what offended them wasn't liberalism but busybodyism--the endless, frenetic search by elected officials for ever-new ways to make the country more fabulous. Bush and his Republicans are close to proving that busybodyism can become a creature of the right as well as the left.

And the public seems not to like it, whichever direction it comes from. Maybe, under certain circumstances, what people really do want--pace Laura Bush--is a president who goes to bed early and wakes up late. Maybe they wouldn't mind a president who spent a lot more time on his ranch, trying to milk the horses instead of us."


Karen on 05.14.05 @ 05:10 AM CST



[ | ]

May 2005
SMTWTFS
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
293031    



Home
Archives
Archives of Blogger site
Archives: May '04-Feb '05
Archives: Feb-March '05



RSS 1.0 FEED
Powered by gm-rss

Len's sidebar:
About Len (The uncondensed version)
Memorial to a dear friend
Frederick W. Benteen
The Web of Leonards
The St. Louis Cardinals
The Memphis Redbirds
The St. Louis Browns
The Birdwatch
Hey! Spring of Trivia Blog
BlogMemphis (The Commercial Appeal's listing of Memphis blogs)
The Guide to Life, the Universe, and Everything
George Dubya Bush Blows
Kraftwerk: Chicago, 6/4/2005
My Chicago: Part One
My Chicago, Part Two
Millennium Park
Miscellaneous Chicago
Busch Stadium Tour and BoSox/Cards Game: 6/6/2005
St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame Museum

Len's extended blogroll:

Brock's Sidebar:
About Brock
The Agitator
Agoraphilia
apostropher
Boing Boing
Brad DeLong
Crooked Timber
The Decembrist
Dispatches from the Culture Wars
Fafblog
Flypaper Theory
Heretical Ideas
John and Belle Have a Blog
Jon Rowe
Julie Saltman
The Language Guy
Literal Minded
Majikthise
Marginal Revolution
Matthew Yglesias
Oliver Willis
Orin Kerr
Pandagon
Pharyngula
Political Animal
Positive Liberty
Signifying Nothing
Unfogged
Unqualified Offerings

Karen's Sidebar
About Karen
The Ig-Nobel Prizes
The Annals of Improbable Research
The Darwin Awards
EBaums World
Real Clear Politics
U.S. News Wire
Foreign Affairs
The Capitol Steps
Overlawyered
Engrish
Legal Affairs
Nobel Laureates for Change
Program On International Policy
Law of War
Sunday Times
Media Matters
Fafblog
Is That Legal?
Discourse
Andrew Sullivan
Evolutionblog
Literal Minded
Jon Rowe
Dysblog
Freespace Blog
Thought Not
Publius Pundit
Maddox
Blog Maverick
Rosenberg Blog
Crooked Timber
GreeneSpace
EdCone.com
Conglomerate
McSweeney's

The Rocky Top Brigade:


Rocky Top Brigade Sampler


A New Memphis Mafia


The liberal alternative to Drudge.

Get Firefox!




The Rebel Alliance of Yankee Haters
Blue Squadron (NL)
Babalu (Marlins)
Leaning Toward the Dark Side (Mets)
Ramblings' Journal (Cubs)
Mediocre Fred (Brewers)
Len Cleavelin (Cardinals)
Red Squadron (AL)
Obscurorama (Red Sox)
Frinklin Speaks (Mariners)
Steve Silver (Twins)
Steve the Llama Butcher (Red Sox)
Rob the Llama Butcher (Rangers)
MoatesArt (Red Sox)
Rammer (Tigers)
JawsBlog (Indians)
Ubi Libertas (Blue Jays)
Oldsmoblogger (Indians)
Mass Backwards (Red Sox)
Unassigned
Industrial Blog
Cry Freedom



How many visitors are here:


Blogrings/Blog indexes/Blog search:
« ? Verbosity # »


Listed on Blogwise
Blogarama - The Blog Directory
Popdex
Popdex Citations
Technorati
Blog Search Engine



Greymatter Forums Weblog Commenting and Trackback by HaloScan.com
template by linear