Some Ratings are Better than Others.
Robert Dallek, professor, wonders in today’s Washington Post if we should amend the Constitution to be able to get rid of President Bush.
Polls showing President Bush’s approval ratings in the 20s and 30s and a New York Times survey last month reporting that people across the country are eager for an end to the current administration suggest that this nation has a problem it’s going to have to live with for the next 17 months — a failed presidency that won’t reestablish its credibility with a national majority.
The political argument against Bush’s continuing tenure is not frivolous. There are good reasons to see him as a failed president whose remaining time in office will be unproductive at best and destructive to the country’s well-being at worst. But given the constitutional rules by which the presidency operates, there is no serious prospect of removing him from office.
Yes. Well. Darn that Constitution, huh? Always getting in the way of what leftists like Dallek really want. And before you charge me with presumption, let’s just grant that Dallek’s point of view is hard to miss. He spends the next couple paragraphs describing the administration as “failed” and other such dire words. He’s already doomed the President to low approval ratings for the next year and a half. It’s a pretty solid deduction to say that Professor Dallek is not a conservative, or even a fence-straddling moderate. I’m also equally sure that Dallek has no intention on giving the President a chance to up his “credibility”. But what of the Congress that Dallek and his ideological comrades just elected? Dallek seems perfectly willing to depose a sitting President just because he doesn’t think the man is doing a good job but has no apparent thought for the Democrats in Congress whose approval ratings are even lower than the President’s.
Of course, it took the President several years to get to where he is now. Some of that, of course, is due to the President’s bad decisions. Much of it is due to his lack of sterling communications skills. But a big helping of those approval ratings is also due to an MSM which has been continuously and purposefully biased against the President. We remember Evan Thomas’ revelation that the MSM’s bias would hurt the President in the 2004 election to the tune of 15 points. And the media has been steadily beating on the President since he took the oath of office in 2004 (well, before that, but it’s tough to talk about a President’s bad ratings when he won re-election with the first majority in three elections and a record number of votes).
Congress, on the other hand, has pretty much gotten a pass from the MSM. I can’t recall a story wondering what happened to Nancy Pelosi’s much-ballyhooed “100 hours” promise (answer: not even one part of it happened as promised). The Democrats’ rampant corruption (John Murtha, William Jefferson, Alan Mollohan, et. al.) has gotten a pretty straight treatment, with none of the “What does this say about the Democratic majority?” questions the Republicans got nearly every week running up to the 2006 elections.
And remember, the Democrats have been in the majority for only 8 months. They’ve managed to drive Congress into a ditch in less time than it takes to have a baby. I don’t see Professor Dallek concocting a new way to throw out the bums he elected only a few months ago. Then again, it seems a hallmark of the left to look for end-runs around the Constitution only when it comes to George W. Bush.
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Category: Our New Democratic Overlords, The Long War Here At Home
