Wrong, sort of. I think a lot of people like him for reasons that have nothing to do with his policies, and everything to do with his identity/persona as a regular guy who talks tough. Now that they're being confronted with his policies and their implications in a more direct manner, they're realizing that those are what matter and may not be consistent with his identity/persona.

uday: "if the west attacks us, we will so fuck you up it will make 9-11 look like a picnic" (more or less his words)
trans: by its own public admission, iraq has weapons of mass destruction
caveat: yes but uday is totally lying
counter-caveat: yes but aren't the US supposed to be looking for specious fig-leaf pretexts, and isn't this one served on plate?

several things this last week have made me wonder if what's going on at the moment is a secretly negotiated rat-run for saddam, sanctioned by bush, in which bush gets the credit for eyeball-top-eyeball nerve up to war's brink AND then no war, while saddam gets not to be blown to atoms by western bombs AND not to be hung from a lamp-post by justifiably enraged iraqi mobs (or executed by the buggins's-turn warlord-in-waiting)...

i think momus is correct that bush's high scores have all come from relative inactivity, that actually he's in fairly squeaky place where ANY actual decision ignites discontent: he has a lot of conflicting idealisms invested in him, right, centre, (pro war) liberal, and seeing as the US is not in a mood to come to terms with divided itself, betraying any one of these will ignite stuff disastrously for him

i think momus is wrong in that much of bush's high score comes from any pro-bush sr residual: i think the residual wd be direct from reagan, a lot of the stuff bush sr could never pick up on (bush sr is totally the republicans' jimmy carter)

I think Foucault (and phil jones from the free music thread) would disapprove of this sentence

Also, I think what's really interesting about this graph is that certain polls seem to tend towards certain deviations from the mean. Are they calling the same people every month, or what?

I suggest that he did. Just look into the delay it took to scramble jets vs. standard FAA procedures in the event of a hijacking. That should really disturb you.

Its probably has to do with the way each poller phrases their questions and interprets their answers.

What has Bush done that isn't connected to TWAT/Iraq. Tax cuts yes, removal of funding from family planing NGOs but what has he actually done?

Well put fleterjet. Standard USAF/FAA operating procedure, even before 11/9, was to scramble jets to intercept any plane that deviated beyond certain limits from their flight plans. I accept though that something could have gone wrong with the system but its never been properly and independently investigated.

I can't believe I'm giving time to a conspiracy theory, but:

1) and how exactly did that procedure break down? What evidence is there that jets were not scrambled after we knew which additional (if any) planes had been hijacked?

2) what makes you think that the authorities' response to such an unexpected event would be swift and procedural? You wouldn't be caught off guard and not sure what to do? Even the decision to ground all planes was something that wasn't obvious or obviously correct to everyone at the time.

The gaping flaw in the conspiracy theory is an unwillingness to believe that bad things can happen to people you don't like, perhaps by people who dislike the people you don't like for the same reasons you do.

if automatic procedure was just this once breached then complicity reaches right down into the airforce, even if it's only the complicity of obeying orders: i don't believe all these ppl would have stayed mute just to cover up for their bosses' weird behaviour

a cover-up bcz of screw-ups further down the line — ie when their OWN incompetence is at issue — is a different matter

ie there wz a conspiracy to cover up a cock-up

The procedure is to immediately scramble a jet after it alters its course without a good explanation. The first jet was scrambled some 50 minutes after the first plane veered off course. That is, frankly, pathetic, conspiracy or not.

>2) what makes you think that the authorities' response to such an
> unexpected event would be swift and procedural? You wouldn't be
> caught off guard and not sure what to do? Even the decision to
> ground all planes was something that wasn't obvious or obviously
> correct to everyone at the time.

In the year previous to 9/11, there were about 50 incidents where jets had to be scrambled. It is a routine procedure.

As for the matter of covering things up, its not so hard. The government is blocking any real investigation into 9/11. First it appointed fucking Kissinger, now it is giving the investiongation a budget less than 1/5 of that which Ken Starr had to find out Clinton got a blowjob. And the press in this country is pathetic.

FUCK YOU.

Tom

P.S.

DICKHEAD.

What is deeply wrong is that the events of 11/9 have not been properly, fairly and independently investigated so that the agencies and organisation involved can learn from what happened. Its quite obvious that was no complicity of the US government, its member or agencies. Their response, especially Bush's, in the immediate aftermath I think demonstrates this.

The reason that all these conspiracy theories are out there is because no one knows what really happened. I'm sure the Bush Junta knows what happened and is afraid what any investigation might bring out into the open, because quite clearly something went very wrong on their watch.

There are corrupt people in any orginization... deal with it. I am a structural engineer. In my profession, there are a few bad seeds that would, for example, cut costs on a bridge design and knowingly put the lives of people who drive over and under it at risk. Do I get mad if these people are found out and exposed? No, I encourage it.

in other words, the conspiracy requires a vast cast of malicious telepaths at all levels of society, quite casually prepared to murder their own fellow citizens

us govt sluggishness on setting up an enquiry — which is a disgrace — suggests to me that the fbi know exactly where and how they fucked up: ie not processing information properly, not taking warnings seriously, not being able to persuade politicians to take warnings seriously, generally being lousy at security despite it being their job... historically the problem with the cia and the fbi has been crapness of information processing, compounded by impotence in the face of what ideology was in control in the white house

ps appointing kissinger head of the inquiry is hardly evidence that subtle minds are at work pulling a brilliant cover-up!!

don't know abt a rational discussion bit.

fletjet has not ans mark's point so far.

remember, what sunk Nixon in Watergate -- and almost sunk Poppy Bush in Iran-Contra -- weren't the crimes being investigated (breaking and entering re Watergate, circumventing American law to arm the Nicaraguan contras re Iran-Contra) -- in both cases, it was the cover-ups.

About how the conspiracy would require the complicity of too many people? Well, I don't think so. The delay of sending jets could have been accomplished by many methods that do no include simply giving a direct order "do not take off!" The ground people had no clue what the fuck was happening, they would have no idea that their delay would cost the lives of 1000's. I am sure a lot of the people involved have questions and doubt about what happened. But liek I said, how is anyone going to find out what they think, if the government and the press are not asking questions?

what methods are those?

''The ground people had no clue what the fuck was happening, they would have no idea that their delay would cost the lives of 1000's.''

surely, now that it has cost 1000s of lives, those ppl would ask questions and go to the press.

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2002_hr/

BTW Martin I am completely with you on the logic of not-finding-anything: Bush functions on logic and rhetoric that explicitly assumes they have something, and that our not-finding-it is concrete proof that they're sly dissembling foxes who are completely unserious about "disarming." He uses the word "disarm" quite a bit, which in classic beating-your-wife fashion stems from the presumption that there's something specific to be disarmed. (I don't doubt that he might very well be right, but as a piece of argumentation it's tragically misleading.)

That's how intel works. Currently whatever sources we have inside Iraq, NK or AQ are quite likely the only things standing in the way of another attack. Bush, Rummy et al. apparently have decided that playing the sphinx at home despite the fact that they appear insane to some is worth it in the face of losing critical intelligence.

No sense of possible glee from fellow lefties I know*, however there is the sentiment that it'll take once-alive bodies shipped back here to make those who are pro-war less rah-rah.

*This statement obviously has nothing to do with the many lefties I don't know.

Bush approval ratings now worst of any president since polling started:

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=89A9E6D46B2183BED1E87023E53E8842?diaryId=8899

(70% disapproval; 25% approval)

Makes you wonder what 25% of the respondents still see in him.

Someone who might still manage to kick-start the Rapture in December?