Howdy, campers...
Sorry to have been so absent the last few days, but this is a busy time around chez Xark: In addition to newspaper redesigns, system conversions, the start of football season and Katrina coverage (and no, it doesn't look like I'll be traveling west any time soon), there's also been standard features stuff (this week I'm an "expert" on symphonic music, about which I know not a thing) plus my own double-secret special project. Today is no different, but I'm going to try to jam out a quick morning post.
POLL POSITION: OK, I've really wanted to talk about this week's polls and some of the spin there, so here goes, quickly: Bush was down to 40 percent approval in yesterday's Pew tracking poll, which is just a 4 point drop from July, but it shows what we've been talking about here for weeks. Bush cannot drop below 35 percent -- a political impossibility in a country where, in 2004, 37 percent of the population believed that creationism should be taught in the public schools instead of evolution.
But the polling response that really caught my eye was yesterday's Cyberalert from Brent Bozell III's Media Research Center (where everyone, apparently, is named "Brent"), which found liberal bias in ABC's reporting on a Gallup poll. Take it away, MRC:
ABC's Charlie Gibson announced at the top of Wednesday's Good Morning America that a new Gallup poll found that 42 percent assessed Bush's response to the hurricane as bad or terrible versus 35 percent who called it good or great. Later in the day, CNN's Bill Schneider repeated that finding, but on The Situation Room Schneider relayed some telling numbers that Gibson skipped which show how the public does not agree with the news media. As to who is responsible for the problems in New Orleans, Schneider passed on the results: "The number one answer is nobody. It's an act of God. After that, 25 percent hold state and local officials responsible for the problems, 18 percent say federal agencies. Only 13 percent say President Bush is most responsible for the problems."
Time out. Anybody else notice the trick here? State and local officials are lumped together at 25 percent, and when you combine Bush's numbers with the "federal agencies," you get 31 percent. So, yes, a plurality of Americans believes that no one is to blame for the problems in New Orleans, but a majority (56 percent) blames government, and most of those respondents blame the federal government (more after the jump).
(My view: State and local officials bear primary responsibility for the failures that occurred before the storm breached the levies, but the federal government botched the response and then focused on shifting the blame instead of shouldering the responsibility. Why? Because Homeland Security is a politicized mess that has rendered FEMA even less effective than it was before, and the Bush administration views every issue as a political issue. To a hammer, everything looks like a nail.)
THAT SAID: Check out the approval trend at Gallup: Bush hit a 40-point nadir between Aug. 22-25, but had bounced back to 45 percent approval in the Aug. 28-30 sample. There was some sense on the 30th that the storm had been a bad one, but most Americans weren't aware of the disaster in New Orleans until the 30th and 31st, and the full implications are only now being realized.
It's going to be interesting to see how that tracks in subsequent samples, where I think you'll see erosion back to that 36- to 40-point position (here's a useful Katrina timeline for comparison). My impression is that we've got 35 percent of Americans who would love Bush even if he started summarily executing his political opponents on live television, plus another 10 to 15 percent who desperately want to like him because of their political and personal interests. To me, the question isn't how low Bush is going to sink, but whether he shows signs of this Aug. 28-30 recovery trend in late September/early October surveys.
If Bush isn't back up to 45 to 48 percent by November, then one may begin to assume that the latest debacle has caused many of his "want-to-likes" to change sides permanently. His 2004 swing voters deserted him earlier this summer because of Iraq, but Democrats will need more than those fickle supporters if they're going to win back the House in 2006 -- they'll need supermajorities exceeding 55 percent to beat gerrymandered GOP congressional districts.
I think that is possible, not not assured. The Democrats are still the Democrats, and Bush is a far more resilient political figure than most of us want to acknowledge.
OUTRAGE DU JOUR: So what's the Bush administration gut response to this disaster? What action on its part shows the true character of its actors? This: When faced with ugliness, their first reaction was to stage-manage it. Here's Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo, citing the Salt Lake Tribute on Sept. 6:
"But the graf at the end of the piece really puts everything in perspective, and gives some sense what the Bush administration really has in mind when it talks about a crisis. The paper reports that one team finally was sent to the region ...
"As specific orders began arriving to the firefighters in Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew's first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas.
"You can't make this stuff up."
Well, you could, but the Bush administration insists on writing its own satire -- and treating everything like a public relations issue. This time I think we're on to them -- and the MSM is no longer afraid to point it out. From the Washington Post:
REUTERS, SEPT. 8 -- When U.S. officials asked the news media not to take pictures of those killed by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, they were censoring a key part of the disaster story, free- speech watchdogs said yesterday.
The move by the Federal Emergency Management Agency is in line with the Bush administration's ban on images of flag-draped U.S. military coffins returning from the Iraq war, media monitors charged in separate telephone interviews.
Michael Rivero's conspiracy and anti-Bush site www.WhatReallyHappened.com put up a page full of photos of the dead in New Orleans yesterday, ("The Images FEMA Does Not Want You To See") and it was ugly stuff. But you can't see it today -- instead, you get this message: "MY APOLOGIES, BUT I HAVE HAD TO PULL THESE PICTURES. AN UNKOWN PARTY IS BOMBARDING THIS PAGE WITH PACKETS AND THE SERVER IS BEING SWAMPED."
But I'm sure that's just a coincidence. The government would never hire info warriors to attack websites that put out stuff it wants hushed up. Right?
HUT-HUT: The Wando JV opened its regular season with two consecutive home games, defeating Battery Creek 33-15 and then completely falling apart last night against Summerville, 48-7. This is the kind of night that it was: After cutting the Summerville lead to 21-7 in the second quarter and getting a defensive stop, Wando fumbled. The Green Wave defender was returning it, but then HE fumbled... right into the hands of another Summerville player, who ran the ball in for the score.
Luke played well in both games, but didn't get onto the field until the outcome had been decided. The team will be on the road for the next month, including trips to Hilton Head and Beaufort.
In Manly Football League action, my Charleston Snobs lead the Brunswick Sherlocks 14-0 thanks to Tom Brady and Deion Branch. The contest won't be decided until the MNF game between the Colts and Ravens.
AND IN DISASTER NEWS: The latest track for Ophelia places in right in our laps here in Charleston by Tuesday.
Speaking personally, if I'm gonna get whacked by a hurricane, I want to get whacked by a "Xena," or a "Rocky," maybe even an "Otto." But Ophelia? That would be like having Aunt Bea beat you up and steal your lunch money.
'YOU'RE DOING A HECK OF A JOB, BROWNIE': This just in: Apparently the President has changed his mind about the job Brownie was doing over at FEMA. He's out. Stand by for the next spin cycle...
I mean, take a look at this guy. It's hard to hate Michael Brown, what with that characteristic Bambi-caught-in-the-oncoming-headlights face of his. The schmuck never had a chance ... but then again, he never had the character or intelligence to recognize that, either.
So screw 'em.
More on the Sept. 5-6 CNN/USA Today/Gallop Katrina poll:
Opinions varied widely, however, on the response of federal, state and local officials regarding Katrina. Forty-two percent of respondents characterized President Bush's response to the disaster as "bad" or "terrible," while 35 percent said it was "good" or "great."
Federal government agencies' response was described as "bad" or "terrible" by 42 percent, and "good" or "great" by 35 percent. State and local officials' response was described as "bad" or "terrible" by 35 percent and "good" or "great" by 37 percent.
No matter how the MRC wants to spin those numbers, that's pretty damned bad if you're the president. To me, this says that the only people who love him are the national equivalent of his nook-lar family, while 77 percent of Americans think the government response was bad or terrible. More blame the federal government than blame the state and local governments. Taking into account Bush's anemic approval ratings and the not-so-subtle on-air revolt last week at FOX News, and even the MRC boys must know that they're grasping at sand.
This is the Waterloo (there's a pun in their somewhere) of the Bush "decertification strategy" in public relations being played out before our eyes. People have seen the failure of the emergency response on TV. Perhaps more importantly, they've heard about the failures through their local newspapers (and while surveys indicate that people distrust "the Media," they tend to feel differently about their local media), as local cops and Red Cross volunteers and church groups call home to tell horror stories of federal bureaucratic blundering.
Put more simply, political issues can be spun because it's always "he-said-she-said." But the federal failure in the Katrina crisis has left Scott McClellan with nothing left to say but this: "Who are you going to believe? Me, or your lying eyes?"
Comments