President Bush’s approval rating has dropped even further to 32%, the lowest of his presidency. How ironic for an individual who so frequently touts democracy as a cure all for the world’s problems, yet uses the powers of his office to engage in acts that contradict the will of the voters.
Take care, Josh, with what barometer you choose to measure the will of the electorate. A mandate for change can be merely a popular wind that only blows constant with the current weather.
The citizens of this country should not delude themselves into thinking that disengagement and withdrawal is the solution to the country’s involvement in that part of the world. There are winds aloft, both at home and abroad that wish us dead. The weather will surely change. When the storm clouds gather and break, leadership and the peopele had best be prepared to survive the deluge.
Want to know how low a chief executive can go??
I voted for Lyndon Johnson in 1964 because, in the climate of those times, Goldwater was a “hawk”, and it appeared that Johnson would not move in that direction. He lied! The Tonkin Gulf incident turned out to be a fabrication. Johnson, in his wisdom, chose not to run again.
The people then elected a Republican whom they gave the mandate to bring us together. We had more years of lies, and war, and death. He was ultimately branded a criminal, and so was his lackey first Vice-President. Both were driven out of office prematurely.
Reagan had the Iran-Contra affair, which he ‘knew nothing about’. How quickly we forget.
Shall I go on?
Interesting will be the hindsight and historical perspective framing your points of view when you are 64.
More people voted for Gore than Bush, who ‘won’ in the Electoral College, and Robert F. Kennedy has made a good case that the election was stolen from Kerry in Ohio the last time round.
It would seem that the will of the American people was never to have elected this empty shell.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
….and Harry Truman????…
The movement for wider representation in candidacy for elected office ought to push for eliminating the Electoral College in favor of the popular vote.
As for Kerry, his is an issue not worth debating. Had he truly been a worthy candidate, he would have swept Bush out of office. He obviously wasn’t.
Elections which are won by a nose are never a clear mandate.
See:
http://members.cox.net./mathmistakes/polling.htm
….an interesting analysis of what influences elections results in this country….and food for thought when contemplating the ‘will of the American people’.
also:
http://www.coloradocollege.edu/cc/AboutCC/What’s New/Speeches/Loevy.html
1948: Pop EC
Truman: 49.5 303
Dewey 45.0 189
Thurmond 2.5 39
1960:
Kennedy 49.9 303
Nixon 49.6 219
….and, of course, election results reflect the percentage of eligible voters voting. Thus, when we speak of ‘mandates’ or ‘the will of the people’, one must first consider the number of voices heard.
ref:
http://elections.gmu.edu/voter_turnout.htm
…so when one examines the voting age/voting eligible population for the 2000 election they range around 52 and 54% respectively. In 2006 the numbers are 61 and 51% respectively.
In my opinion, the day we see an 80% turnout of the voter eligible population, with the winner carrying 60% of that vote, I’ll call THAT a mandate.
Gore Vidal pithily described the Bush-Cheney presidency as a Shogun and Mikado partnership.
Bush’s latest executive signing statement claims that the executive branch has power to open mail in an emergency as it sees fit.
This latest salvo in the Bush-Cheney war on the U.S. Constitution is one more staking-out of executive power in territory that rightly belongs to the people of the United States.
Cheney’s New Paradigm of constitutional interpretation asserts near limitless executive power in this administration’s quest for an imperial presidency.
One has to wonder why Bush-Cheney engage in this relentless pursuit of the expansion of executive powers, if they believed that they might have to cede that newly ‘acquired’ power to a Democratic administration, which cessation one would assume should be anathema to the Republican Party.
Is this brazen power grab done for its own sake, or do these malefactors have a more insidious plan?
I should have said “cession” rather than “cessation.”
One wonders if the new congressional majority will have the cojones to countermand the power grab you’ve addressed.
Let’s hope so.