News Item: The White House artfully created a continuous
string of events that showed the president taking care of “the
people’s business.” Pictures of the president hugging a disabled
child, putting his arm around an elderly flood victim, or visiting
an elementary school provided a soft contrast to the harsh attacks
on him.
No, the above is not a recent news story on George W. Bush. It
is a piece — with names omitted — written on the eve of the 2000
Democratic Convention, explaining Bill
Clinton’s handlers moved to raise his job approval numbers after
the Lewinsky scandal broke. It contains one of the few instances
where, in addition to mentioning Clinton’s 68 percent job approval
rating, his personal rating of 21 percent is also
included.
Remember, Clinton was the first president for whom pollsters
separated out personal approval versus job performance. They called
this phenomenon “compartmentalization,” which is another way of
saying, “I wouldn’t trust my daughter with the bum but hey, my
portfolio is way cool!”
Today, depending on which, if any, poll you believe, Bush’s job
approval rating is anywhere between 41 and 47 percent. Not too
great but not disastrous, especially when the nation’s confidence
in the Congress (33%) and the media (28%) isn’t too rosy either.
And, considering that Presidents Clinton and Reagan both polled
under 40 percent at times, he seems in good company.
I point all this out because, like the Clintonistas, today’s
media also use poll numbers to influence public opinion rather than
report it. And the motive is the same: to protect their political
interests when they are threatened. Why the constant reportage of
George Bush’s sinking poll numbers? Because there’s panic out
there, and the panic is all on the left.
There are two main reasons for this. The first is that despite
the constant anti-Bush barrage, things are looking up. Here at
home, with the unemployment rate at a record low and Bush’s tax
cuts leading to a thriving economy, one hasn’t heard the name
Herbert Hoover in months. The No Child Left Behind Act — so
mischaracterized that even those on the right reviled its passage
— is returning great results, especially among minority
students.
In Iraq, although civilian casualties have spiked, American
military fatalities have decreased as Abu Zarqawi’s thugs have
changed their tactics now that it’s clear that President Bush will
not be deterred from staying the course there. Their only hope now,
as Iraqi forces grow in strength and efficiency, is to foment a
civil war even they know they cannot win:
If…the government extends its control over the country, we
will have to pack our bags and break camp for another land in which
we can resume carrying the banner or in which God will choose us as
martyrs for his sake.
In Afghanistan, where the al Qaeda banner once waved, recent
elections were such a success that President Karzai suggested that major military activity is no longer
necessary; further evidence of peace through victory. The truth is
that liberals are in a race against time. As they so disastrously
proved in Vietnam, the only way for the U.S. to lose a war is to
not complete it. In President Bush, they’ve met their match.
And that is why the other reason for liberal media trepidation
is the future. Saddam Hussein’s upcoming trial will reveal such
acts of such unspeakable brutality that trumped-up charges of
presidential neglect of the people of New Orleans should make even
the most hardened leftist blush in shame.
The knowledge that John Roberts will be confirmed in addition to
speculation on Bush’s next judicial nomination further impel the
media to produce negative poll numbers, as if to imply that the
president has no moral authority. The history of this gambit, which
failed so miserably in the last election, should convince them of
its futility, but it will not.
Even as another court in California decrees the Pledge of
Allegiance unconstitutional, as “peace mom” Cindy Sheehan declares
the military has “occupied” New Orleans and Louis Farrakhan says the
president purposely blew up the levees to exterminate the black
population there, the liberal media actually believe that the
president’s typically low summer poll numbers suggest that the
people are on their side.
This self-delusion and its consequences may explain why the
president’s party now controls two branches of government and, if
the constitutional process is allowed to work, may reconstitute the
third. This, of course, is the result of their winning the only
polls that really count.
