What Comes from Not Paying Attention
In the past, I have discussed Bush’s poll ratings. According to a pattern that had held for the better part of three years, his numbers should have been down to at least the low-forties by now. However, in the last month or two of 2003, Bush and his administration put a great deal of effort into reshaping opinion with the whole “media filter” nonsense, and the capture of Saddam Hussein, meaningless as it was, gave Bush another boost.
New poll information, however, puts his present numbers in a very interesting light: according to the surveys, Bush’s “personal qualities” are what mainly props up his numbers. I got a hint of this on my trip home when a fellow traveler commented that Bush had real leadership skills strengthened by his Iraq experience. People seem to be convinced that this is a man of character.
People, it seems, have not been paying attention. This man has a frankly despicable character; if you read this line of entries I posted in the latter half of 2003 on Bush’s character (still unfinished–I have yet to cover his business dealings or tenure as governor of Texas, or even his presidential years yet), you will get an indication of what I am talking about.
This is a man who had a silver-spoon upbringing, all the benefits and perks one can have in life from being in a family of wealth and influence. And perhaps that is what helped bring him to be the wayward playboy he was–drunk, using drugs, using family influence to get into schools he didn’t rate and to stay out of Vietnam. He displayed hypocrisy many times (castigating a friend for avoiding service, while he chickened out himself, for example). He displayed an arrogant disregard for the law, being arrested three times and later violating SEC regs three or more times. He went AWOL while dodging the draft in the National Guard. He had his family connections (including bin Laden family members) buy him companies that he drove into the ground. He displayed unforgivably despicable behavior in public, like the time he drunkenly cussed out and threatened a newspaper editor in front of his four-year-old son. He cruelly mocked a woman on death row in Texas who had reformed herself and was a born-again Christian before ordering her killed. He knowingly and actively lied (even under oath when he was governor and answered, abortively, a call to jury duty) about his criminal record. He lied under oath again as governor of Texas, in an affidavit (concerning an investigation into one of his cronies, a Robert L. Waltrip, owner of a chain of funeral homes). He supported and was supported by slimy businessmen of the likes of Ken Lay (his biggest contributor in Texas). And as president, he has acted arrogantly towards the world, broken many treaties, lied continuously to the American people about Iraq–Lord knows I could go on for pages.
And this is a man whose personal qualities a majority of Americans admire?
Are so many people completely and utterly blind?
More likely, they have simply put too much trust in the conservative news media, which has so shamelessly been Bush’s cheerleading section, either by being cowed into it, tricked into it, or simply flat-out wanting to.
Clearly word has to be let out so that more people are aware of the truth about this man. There is so much that is solid, detailed, evidenced fact here. So start the chain. Tell your friends. Point them to this post and the links, to the “Bush and Character” section. Feel free to take any and all of that information and reprint it if you have your own blog. Print it out and pass it around. But start getting the word out. People have to know.
Great point!
It’s notable that this “man of character” image is the same one the neocons have been putting forward in their propaganda since the election!