The descent of Bush

There’s good news and bad news. Which is which depends on the side of the isle you prefer. Lets say you’re more or less sane and reasonably intelligent. Let’s say you’re a Democrat. You’ll be happy to hear that Bush’s poll ratings are still mimicking the Titanic and that his evil cohorts aren’t doing much better.

The Bad news is that the Democrats are also taking on water. According to the latest Harris Poll numbers in today’s Wall Street Journal, only a quarter of Americans polled give Democrats a positive rating in the latest poll, compared with 31% in August, while Republicans' approval ratings fell to 27% from 32%.

“Cabinet members, Congressional leaders and both parties in Congress have also seen their ratings slip, with Democrats seeing one of the biggest dips in approval, the telephone poll of 1,011 U.S. adults shows.”

If the sinking ratings mean that the public is simply sick of politics and politicians, then they may be more vulnerable to manipulation by nefarious fringe elements than before. It behooves the Democrats to offer new faces and candidates appealing to the center. The Republicans have succeeded in making some of the most well known Democrats into a pantheon of Pavlovian stimuli and the mere mention of Hillary Clinton or Al Sharpton in connection with any person or proposition is enough to make it unclean.

The single biggest issue by a wide margin, as the poll shows, is now the war in Iraq. Using Cheney as a cheerleader for the war when Cheney’s ratings are worse than Bush’s doesn’t seem productive and the hypocricy of the Vice President's tirade against dishonesty and historical revisionism can be measured on the Richter Scale, but it’s important to remember that a sinking Republican ship doesn’t float the Democrat boat.