by rwwff » Tue 04 Jul 2006, 22:51:02
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', 'B')ut remember what happened way back when with the VietNam war? Public opinion is still supposed to matter in the US. The US chickened out then and the killing fields of Cambodia were the result. I'm with Walt Whitman and all American Patriots. I've read Catton and I know what a shitstorm is coming. God Bless the USA.
Ummm, thats when the lesson was learned. Vietnam and the follow on of watergate. What brought these guys down was not their policies but their reactions to what was in the press.
The lesson learned was this. Public opinion is meaningless. It matters on one day, every other year, and the press has negligible impact on what that one day number will be. Elections matters. Polls don't.
Bush has 30% approval, and couldn't care less. He steams straight on ahead on his "mission". His press secretaries have been deliberately and brutally rude to the press from day one. His approach to things of arguable legalality isn't denial, its "you bet we did that, and here's why we think its legal." When they lose in court, they shrug their shoulders, pick another policy, and cry "talley ho!" When, as more often happens, those opposed weigh the risks of losing in the conservative supreme court and thus choose not to forcefully pursue the issue, the white house quietly smiles and executes their imperialist policy unhindered.
And before you guys on the left get to excited about those polls, I'll tell you a secret. There is a fairly sizeable group on the right, that is far to the right of Bush; and they wouldn't have approved of the president's job unless he turned Bagdad and Tehran into unihabiltable, burned out craters. That 30% doesn't equate to 30% right, 70% left. It equates to 20% far right, 30% right, 50% left; just like its been for almost a decade now. For those of us on the far right, put simply, Bush spends too much money and doesn't blow up enough stuff.
Edit: fixed loosing -> losing I Plead: Dain Bramage.