Salon columnist Walter Shapiro calls it the “sixth-year swoon.” Both George W. Bush and Bill Clinton experienced it — a downward spiral in the middle of their second term. But the timing, Shapiro argues, is all that the two swoons have in common. Clinton’s troubles caused Americans to dislike him personally, but they continued to approve of his job performance. Bush’s struggles have elicited just the opposite reaction. So Shapiro asks the obvious question:
“So which is a better situation for a beleaguered second-term president: Is it the Clinton-esque ‘I love your work, but your personal life gives me the creeps’ or the Bushian ‘You’re a great guy, but maybe you should think about another career’?”
What do you think?
Posted by Melissa Cooley
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46 Comments
Well the sameness is the hatred. The dif is the source.
I am not a great fan of Bill Clinton. But the right started the flame war on him from the moment he was elected. Their succesor to Reagan was deposed, and it p____d them off. They hated and attacked Clinton way before Monicagate.
Bush stole in in 2000 and everybody knows it. Given that as a start, and the hate the right had already started re-Clinton, bush started in a hole. And he keeps on digging.
Bush never wanted to be president. He was fronted. He is a front. He dismisses polls because he simply does not care. He is there and doing the damage his fronters wanted him to do. IF… and that is a big if….he escapes impeachment which would not bother him or imprisonment which he deserves, he will retire to his past penchant of losing other peoples money to aggrandize his name.
And since he does not read or care much of anything about America or history, he will shrug off his moniker as the worst President in history. Why should he care? The money will always be there.
What do I think?
I think that if the media had an ounce of intellectual honesty instead of taking every opportunity to bash the president the general public might not have such a bad perception of the guy.
Jr,
How did Bush “steal” the election?
I have had this conversation before and no one can seem to muster up how. (by using the truth that is)
Nathan,
I can think of many reasons to condemn Bush and they have been stated here many times. Why don’t you tell me what he has done to benefit our country?
V.L.R.B!!
It’s been documented again and again how Bush stole the election both in 2000 and 2004.
You have links Sum1? Or should I wear my tin foil hat to block the brain jamming signals the government is putting out?
Good post, JR!
Nathan, if the press is to blame for Bush’s low poll numbers and the general feeling that the man’s a screw-up, how do you explain the historically high numbers Bush enjoyed for several years under the same press?
It’s not the press. It’s the man.
Just look at that picture. Can anyone have any doubt that this is the first time Bush has ever put on a hard-hat in his life?
I used to wear a hard hat every day when I was in the Steelworkers’ Union as a welder.
Bush is the consummate player–the man who never dirties his hands with anything, except maybe a soiled golf ball . . .
I cant wait until the electoral college screws some right wing candidate. They will be calling for reform faster than you can say shrub.
Of course, republicans will never lose another national election as long as diebold is in charge.
Lib, he kinds looks like Dukakis in the tank, doesnt he?
Hehehe, absolutely yes, KFG!
BTW, to Joe “King was a Conservative” Williams–
Not only did Bush Co. manipulate the last two general elections, they’re still doing it.
Check out this link from Florida–
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060304/NEWS/603040424/1017/POLITICS
“With just days before elections, state officials were scrambling this week to determine whether they had a problem that could call into question tens of thousands of absentee votes.
“The problem surfaced in the state’s newly minted central voter database, a multimillion-dollar project that is supposed to cleanse the voter rolls of errors and prevent voter fraud.
“The Herald-Tribune on Wednesday found thousands of mysterious entries in the tally of historic votes that suggested people had already voted in elections that haven’t yet occurred.
“The revelation launched a furious review by state election officials who worried that the entries could make it appear as though legitimate voters were trying to vote twice.”
******
Okay, nothing to see here, folks, move along . . .
Yawwwwnn.
Notice that galehead, er proudglib — or Whatever he calls himself these days — fails to note that neither democrat nor Republican voters are singled out in the article he links to — which means that the writer of this non-news article knows that people in both parties are involved. Proudglib also fails to admit that, after only a few hours of cross checking, the so-called problem was easily resolved by election officials — hardly a national scandal here. The problem was found during normal voter data entry checks and it was easily resolved.
Besides, that article is just another chicken-little piece of muckless raking, where the key words are all speculative, such as: “whether,” “could,” “supposed to,” “mysterious,” suggested, “could (again),” and “appear.”
All chicken and no feed. Typical Galehead crap. He must think plastic peanuts are real food, too.
Yawwwwnnnnn
The right will never forgive slick Willie for being twice as good a politician as they could field. The left will never forgive Rove/Bush/Cheney for selling their souls to the evangelicals. Bush has never been curious George, but he is really good at letting someone else do his thinking.
If anyone is wearing a tinfoil hat these days, it’s gotta be the “staythecoursehistory willvindicatehim!!!!! unswervingly, unexpalinably, ualterably loyal worshipers of the shrub! In these parts we call them Joe and Nathan.
Guys? Since it is as you say “the media” that has bushs approval rating down to…well….YOU and maybe some members of his family (not sure about his dad or Jeb) and maybe his dog Barney; just what protective headgear are YOU wearing? Ya know, since the rest of us are all just zombified pawns of the press?
I mean GEORGE FREAKING WILL has issues with this guy!
If I get to come to the meet up I shall be real glad to see you all. I’m concerned ya don’t get out alot! Ya gotta take off the headgear though. We can’t have ya bumping into folks and tripping over the furniture!
JR,I’m packing extra tin foil of the heavy duty variety. Just in case, ya know…
It is common sense. If there is never even one good thing said about the man or one good news story or any positive coverage then of course public opinion will be down.
Same thing with Iraq. If the news reported on everytime a school was opened because of the efforts of the military to rebuild and restore it, everytime a city/village/town had water becuase of US engineers, everytime a city/village/town was put on the power grid, or everytime the US was giving out public health care and everything else we do there to help rebuild that country and restore order instead of the constant bad news public perception would be different there too.
It is common sense.
Oh, I still don’t see any thing showing how Bush stole the election either.
Never a good thing said about the man???
That is all that talk radio and FOX news DO!!!
I’ll give ya a real life example:
Some time ago,…..quite some time ago actually, bush was up in the polls. While relating the story, the banner under which ever Murdoch shill was doing the story read.
BUSH UP IN POLLS!!!
Yup 3 count ‘em 3 exclamation points!
“Fair and balanced” even in their punctuation as they report and you comply!
We are giving out health care??? I got no insurance. Can I get in on that? And gosh I sure hope Halliburton is building stuff faster than it gets blown up! They are gettin’ paid enough!
J R, indeed.
So, Nathan, Bush has never had ‘even one good thing’ said about him in the media? I’ll just let that assertion echo for a moment, give it time to sink in.
Bush’s own actions are the cause of his current situation. And the capstone of them all is the decision to license the deal giving the United Arab Emirates control of U.S. port facilities.
With Bush, at this stage in his Presidency, all one has to do is report the facts.
If Nathan wants to accuse facts themselves of bias, such as the unilaterial decision by the Administration to give the United Arab Emirates control of 21 U.S. ports, that reflects his level of desperation, not anything in reality.
I’ve heard the expression that is something like “the facts are biased against us” – where does that come from?
If you are President of the United States, should you really be concerned about your approval rating? As the typical blog clowns have already shown on this thread, it’s all about perception and media manipulation.
You can ignore terrorism and terrorist attacks on American soil and still be a ‘liked’ president. It’s all about how you get portrayed in the media. These days, with so much media out there, you can no longer control your image as a politician.
Unless of course you could write a law that would restrict who can talk about you just before an election. That would be a brilliant piece of media manipulation.
Daniel Excuse-Me-Who-are-you?
Didn’t you get the memo? Cheap-shotting people for changing their WEB name is so last month, man.
If you’re going to go with personal attacks, at least make them ENTERTAINING and not passe . . .
I’m embarrassed for you, dude.
Nathan, if we’re doing “so much good” in Iraq, why do the Iraqis overwhelmingly want us to leave? Why did they vote into office people who ran on the issue, “US out now?”
Secondly, if the media has so much impact on people’s perceptions, why didn’t Clinton’s approval tank to 34 percent during the 24-7 shark feeding frenzy of “all Monica, all the time?”
Was it media that handed Bush his historic HIGH approval ratings his first two years?
No? So it really IS just Bush, isn’t it . . .
One Shot–
“You can ignore terrorism and terrorist attacks on American soil and still be a ‘liked’ president.”
My gosh, that’s vile. When terrorists attacked in ‘93, Clinton caught them, tried them, and jailed them. Ditto with McVey. When Ahmad Ressam tried to cross the border with a car bomb to attack LA New Year’s Eve 2000, Clinton’s people caught him, tried him, and jailed him.
Now we come to Bush and 9-11. One hapless terrorist caught, Moussawi. Trial is on-going. No one convicted. Osama bin Laden, still at large. Anthrax killers, no leads, no arrests, no convictions.
You don’t have one bit of evidence that Clinton “ignored” terrorism, but that doesn’t stop you from ignoring all the evidence that Bush has and is screwing up the “war on terror.”
Enjoy your bizzarro world, dude.
Nathan,
I am still waiting for you to make the case for Bush. What has he done to benefit this country?
V.L.R.B!!
Dear Ian,
The two greatest things Bush has done for this country are:
Beat Algore
Beat John (did you know he went to Viet Nam?) Kerry
As far as I’m concerned, his job is done!
Hank
Hank,
Please, give me some specifics. In truth, I think that there would not have been much difference had Gore/Kerry won in either 2000/2004. The demorats would have engaged in the same insane and destructive immigration and trade policies and they would have gone into Iraq because of zionist commands.
V.L.R.B!!
Dear Ian,
I’m not sure we would have gone into Iraq. We probably wouldn’t have invaded Afganistan.
We probably would still be treating terrorists like criminals. Since a suicide bomber removes himself from the judical system, we wouldn’t have had to respond to 9-11 at all. Unless, of couse, we found out that UBL was trying to manufacture aspirins somewhere!
Hank
I’m not so sure we wouldn’t be better off treating terrorism as a crimonal issue. Why not spend the time and effort hunting down the people who want to kill us as opposed to oh, say, attacking a country that didn’t attack us and spending half a trillion dollars fighting a war we’re going to lose? No foriegn power has ever won against an insurgency (home grown). That’s just history.
I think I’d get a lot more pleasure out of seeing Osama and company’s heads in bags than all the dead civilians we’ve left scattered about. As ProudLib said, under Clinton, we caught the bad guys. That doesn’t seem to be happening with Bush, unless you count the 50 or so “Al-Queda #2s) we seem to capture every week or so and then hear no more about.
How about we concentrate on capturing terrorists rather than blowing up small countries?
XXX, we did capture an old man in a spider hole…lololololol
Hank;”I’m not sure we would have gone into Iraq. We probably wouldn’t have invaded Afganistan.”
Please, Hank. You’re saying that the Iraq war is/was an effective strategy against Al Qaeda? That must be why we had bin Laden and al Zawahiri captured so quickly???I assume you know who I’m talking about – the guys who planned and implemented the 9/11 plot.
When it comes to fighting terrorism, our “war president” has failed miserably. Any thinking person knows this.
Hank,
Truly, that response qualifies you for the ’stuck on stupid’ penalty box. I mean, seriously–grow up.
As for the militarization of terror, it doesn’t seem to have done a hell of a lot to ferret out the folks responsible for 9/11, now does it? If anything, the militarization of our counter-terror strategy has led to a ballooning of the number of potential terrorists through the occupation of Iraq and our extra-judicial detention procedures. Part of the problem, and not part of the solution.
My guess is that, under President Gore, we would have invaded Afghanistan, and, given that he has an attention span and isn’t a feckless little boy, we would have actually captured or killed Osama. Moreover, I also suspect that we would have done the things necessary to keep Afghanistan from its current decline into failed narco-state.
And here I thought the GOP was suppposed to be the ‘party of ideas.’ All Hank can do is naysay. Kinda sad, don’t you think?
Come on, Hank. Name something effective Bush has done to help the country….besides “beating Kerry and Gore”. You’re just evading the question.
Well,
As Gore was involved in detailed investigations as to the terrorists, (the bush transition team was not interested in pursuing it) The chances are that the 911 attack would not have happpened had Gore been allowed to assume the office that he won.
Further, competent staffers with 8 years of experience would have largely remained as holdovers . Ya know instead of folks who had been on the job only eight months. And of course there is the matter of the general level of competence among the folks bush did appoint.
So,,,,,,if no 911 attack, no need to go to Iraq.
Afghanistan would likely have still happened, because of the outrageousness of the Taliban. But it would have started later and been finished by now.
“Dear Ian,
The two greatest things Bush has done for this country are:
Beat Algore
Beat John (did you know he went to Viet Nam?) Kerry
As far as I’m concerned, his job is done!
Hank”Truer words have never been spoken.
That’s a sad day for our country when the only thing you can point to as accomplishments by Bush is that he beat his opponents.
But you’re absolutely right. That is his only accomplishment–Afghanistan, failure–social security reform, failure–Iraq, hehehe you’re kidding, right?–Osama bin Forgotten, failure–Anthrax killers, failure–”compassionate conservativism,” failure–national debt, failure–job creation, failure–health care reform, failure–drug plan, failure–terrorist attacks, prevention of, failure–protecting and defending the Constitution as in stopping illegal wiretaps, failure–helping Republicans win in November, failure.
Worst. President. Ever.
PL,
I wouldn’t call Afghanistan a done deal just yet. You also failed to mention shrub’s criminally negligent immigration and border security failures!
V.L.R.B!!
PL – I might put him in a tie for worst with his fellow Texan.
Bush’s accomplishments?
The deaths of 2300 American troops.
The deaths of tens of thousands (if not more) Iraqi citizens.
The greater division of this country.
Increased the number of people living in poverty.
Allowed and encouraged the outsourcing of our jobs.
Left our borders wide open. (That’s for you, Ian.)
The growth of terrorism, worldwide.
Succeeded in making his rich friends, richer. He’s especially good at that.
SO this is the standard of debate now?
Bushie #1″He did his job because he beat his opponent.”
Bushie #2 “Ditto Bushie #1″
Well that sure makes things alot less complecated andt fits the thread TOO.
Hey PL and everbody? No more need for evidence or arguement!
Bush is the worst presdent ever becuase……almost everybody says so!
I make a prediction – - Rep-bums will win the 06 & 08 elections by a landslide.They have a planFirst just at the right time they will drag BenLadun (sp) out of the spiderhole where they have him. ThenThey will find an other boogy man to scare the voters. ThenThey will through a miner change to the medical drug program, just enough to quieten things down long enough to win an election. Then, The big one ;With China becoming so dependent upon selling their cheap, piratedproducts to this country, Bushytail says they are playing unfair and stops all shipments to this country and ties up all debts to China and Chinese investments in this country.CHINA GOES BANKRUPT ! !Who else do you think the voters would vote for.
I think Bush et al. may be cynical enough to try A guy’s plan. Hopefully, voters won’t let them do it.
The real problem with GW Bush is that he never really wanted the job he now has. And, he is perfroming in said job like he never wanted it. I think his whole effort was motivated by his desire to vindicate his father’s failure at winning a second term. Well, he has won his second term. Can he and we agree that he can go home to Crawford and stay there forever this time?
I say we figure out how to form a HR department that can convince GW that him taking an early retirement is in everybody’s interest. If there was a graceful way for him to step down, I bet he would do it in a minute.
I prefer professionalism in a president. What a person does in his personal life, whether that is you, me or the president, it should be exactly that – personal. I’ll choose Clinton over Bush any day of the week.
Betty:You got it right!
I’ll take Pat Buchanan ovet the traitor Clintion or the traitor Bush, any day of the week!
V.L.R.B!!
Was something Pulled?
personal is better
Tater -
Thanks for the affirmation.