And speaking of people with mental disorders, Mona Charen wrote a piece proclaiming that President Bush has gotten his groove back (in that he gave a couple of speeches in which he didn’t talk about putting food on your children, but instead focused on his speciality: terra).
She adds that if he can keep this up, he could raise his approval rating to a sum that could be expressed using positive numbers for a change:
There is every reason to suppose that if President Bush can hold on to the momentum he is currently establishing, his approval ratings should markedly improve. Here are just a few reasons: 1) Terror. The exposure and disruption of the London plot reminds Americans that our enemies are ceaselessly planning atrocities and that strong leadership in the war on terror remains the first priority for government.
Yup, terror is good for the President – not that you should thereby assume that this plot in London was over-hyped or anything. No siree!
2) The revelation that Richard Armitage leaked Valerie Plame’s name has blown to smithereens the Democrat/MSM fable about a White House conspiracy to “out” her in retaliation for her husband’s activism.
And that report about Karl Rove calling reporters to say that innocent CIA officer Valerie Plame was “fair game”? Well, that was blown to smithereens too, by osmosis.
Wilson stands revealed as a liar. There was no crime. Judith Miller spent weeks in jail, and Lewis Libby faces trial — all because the media hyped the false allegations of a publicity-seeking liar. The president should mention this in his next speech.
Yes, the President should say, “Judith Miller had no choice but to stonewall a criminal investigation, because that darned media hype made her do it. Lewis Libby was forced to lie to investigators because of the evils of media hype. They can not be faulted in any way for their actions, in that if the investigation hadn’t started, they wouldn’t have been guilty of these particular crimes. I’m pretty sure that media hype and/or federal investigations were also responsible for the crimes of Ken Lay, Tom Delay, and Warren Jeffs. So, if you are ever accused of anything, blame it on media hype – and if you get away with it, remember that your old friend George Bush, from the Party of Personal Responsiblity, is the one who tipped you off to this great defense.”
3) Gas prices are coming down […]
4) The economy is doing extremely well […]
6) The hurricane season was unexpectedly mild.
Personally, whenever I see that gas now costs me only $2.68 a gallon (instead of the $1.75 a gallon it was right before the invasion of Iraq); whenever I learn that only 4.8% of the population is out of work; and whenever fewer people than there might have been are devavasted by hurricanes and the resulting poor disaster management, I always start to think, “Say, that ol’ George Bush is a darned good President. And he’s kinda cute too.”
5) The homicide rate in Baghdad is declining. In July, the Los Angeles Times reports, 1,800 bodies were delivered to the morgue. In August, after 8,000 U.S. and 3,000 Iraqi forces swept through the city attempting to quell sectarian violence, only a quarter of that number were killed.
Wow, so George’s policies must be working!
But wait, here’s some info that may be of interest to Mona:
The NYT, WP, and LAT stuff word that the Baghdad’s morgue preliminary estimate of the violent deaths in August was off by almost 1,000 people. U.S. and Iraqi officials had cited the figure as evidence that their security operations were working. The preliminary number set the number of violent deaths in Baghdad at 550, but yesterday authorities said the number was actually 1,536.
Oops!
However, Slate adds:
Regardless, the number is still less than the 1,855 deaths reported in July. The WP helpfully mentions that many of those who die violently in Baghdad do not end up in the morgue and are not included in the figure.
So, the President is indeed quelling a civil war (just not as well as was first claimed), meaning that he’s doing a great job of presidentin’. Just don’t look over here!
Military officials lie to keep Iraq body count low
U.S. officials, seeking a way to measure the results of a program aimed at decreasing violence in Baghdad, aren’t counting scores of dead killed in car bombings and mortar attacks as victims of the country’s sectarian violence.
In a distinction previously undisclosed, U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Johnson said Friday that the United States is including in its tabulations of sectarian violence only deaths of individuals killed in drive-by shootings or by torture and execution.
That has allowed U.S. officials to boast that the number of deaths from sectarian violence in Baghdad declined by more than 52 percent in August over July.
But it eliminates from tabulation huge numbers of people whose deaths are certainly part of the ongoing conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Not included, for example, are scores of people who died in a highly coordinated bombing that leveled an entire apartment building in eastern Baghdad, a stronghold of rebel Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
But hey, what does the truth matter as long as Bush’s approval ratings go up?
7) The Democrats remain the party of weakness and appeasement. Harvard hosts the ex-president of Iran. Jimmy Carter hugs Hezbollah. Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean says of the Iraq War: “The idea that we’re going to win this war is an idea that, unfortunately, it’s just plain wrong.” Al Gore thinks global warming is a much more serious threat than al Qaeda. ABC is airing a mini-series that blasts the Clinton administration for malfeasance in pursuing Osama bin Laden. Things could be a whole lot worse for President Bush and the Republicans.
Yes, instead of Bush and the Republicans, we could be ruled by the current President of Iran and his party (which is probably even wackier than the GOP). And we could have all been destroyed by global warming after CBS aired the mini-series which blasted Ronald Reagan for malfeasance in (not) pursuing a cure for AIDS.
So yeah, we should all just thank our lucky stars that we merely have an incompetent megomaniac like Bush in charge, instead of a holocaust-denying meglomaniac like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And we should be glad, GLAD that the Republicans remain the party of self-interest, graft, and stupidity, because change is always scary. If you keep these things in mind, the President’s ratings are sure to rise, just like Mona said.
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