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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Picture of the Day - 4
















(It's from 5/25/04, but I thought it was a great photo. NYTimes.)
(click on it, it gets bigger.)

posted by mikevotes at 4:25 PM

6 Comments:

  • Times/CBS Poll - 37% approval for Bush; 50%-35% Dems over GOP Generic ballot for Congress.

    The Times poll finished Tuesday, two days after the Gallup poll.

    Hotline blog wondered if the Gallup poll was a dead cat bounce for Bush - between the Rasmussen poll and the NY Times/CBS poll, it seems like it was.

    By Blogger Reality-Based Educator, at 7:34 PM  

  • It appeared to be an outlier at the time. I was afraid it was showing some trending, but you're right, it's not.

    I'm just so accustomed to the fear that his White House will pull something out, that it colors my thinking.

    I have to remember that even at 44% the disapproval number is over 50 and in that fifty, the opinions have hardened. I am really prone towards poll watching as if one poll reflects a broader truth.

    Also, If your interest is watching it today that matters, but if you're watching it as a thermostat on the election, let me point to the military's warning that Iraq is about to get still worse.

    If that happens, Bush drops back down to 34.

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 8:42 PM  

  • I'm not ready to say the upward trend for the GOP is completely over yet, but both the Times/CBS poll and the Rasmussen poll show Bush back at his pre-9/11 anniversary approval levels and Rasmussen shifted three seats from Republicans to Dems (Burns, DeWine and Cahfee.)

    Charlie Cook wrote at MSNBC/National Journal yesterday that while the CW has changed in Washington to Repubs on the Rebound, he hasn't seen any great change in the numbers. Cook thinks the dynamic remains the same - a really tough environment for the GOP and a Democratic party that hasn't sold much of the electorate yet on their viability.

    So, we need to keep watching the polls and see. The trend in the Times/CBS and Rasmussen are good for Dems, however.

    One last thing: Can Iraq news actually make it to the news these days? The WH is doing a pretty good job so far sucking all the Iraq news out of the news cycle by loading it down with other things. I get the feeling Bush may start giving a big speech and/or press conference every other day so they can dominate the cycle the way they want to with the topics they want people to hear about. And the media seem to cover whatever the WH wants them to cover.

    By Blogger Reality-Based Educator, at 9:06 PM  

  • I agree on the polling.

    I hadn't seen the new Cook assessment, I'm actually sort of surprised at Ohio. A month ago republicans were talking about that being one of their musts.

    You know I obsess about Iraq. Iraq will make the news if it breaks the norm. The Bush admin is trying to control the news cycle by filling it with speeches, but Iraq will be covered if it breaks through some arbitrary barrier. And, that Federalism legislation is still out there. That's a really big deal. There are all sorts of nasty complications if it passes.

    On the media coverage, The White House is easy news. They say what they want to say, and various people come in to comment. It doesn't really require any work. The Republicans understand the business of what passes as news far better than the Dems. They understand how to "seed" and feed storylines forcing language into the stories creating a two sided issue. Easy reporting. Reporters can get "scoops" by simply having on the Senators or admin officials who have been dispatched to them.

    Earlier on Wolf Blitzer, John Cornyn said.....

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 9:48 PM  

  • The UN says the casualties in July and August in both Baghdad and Iraq were much higher than reported - 5,106 for Bahgdad and 6,599 for Iraq as a whole. There was a 14 percent increase in wounded from July to August.The report also noted how casualties fell in some Baghdad neighborhods that had increased security but rose in places like Mosul and Diyala.

    This seems like a fairly important story, but on the Times website, it's listed third in the World section after an Iran article and an article about a fossil.

    By Blogger Reality-Based Educator, at 6:28 AM  

  • I was getting ready to write a rebuttal of sorts, but then I buzzed the AP/AFP/Reuters headlines.

    Iraq's not really there either on this quite slow news morning.

    I just don't understand Iraq as the "forgotten war."

    I can theorize that Amerians don't like "bad news" or in a really grim way that the steady drip of death has stopped becoming new(s), but I just don't know.

    Actually, the thing that amazes me more than anything else about Iraq is that 2,692 US soldiers have died in Iraq and they have gotten less coverage than miners, or missing white women.

    (Also, The "fossil story" always frustrates me. It's a part of news packaging that I never understood.)

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 7:30 AM  

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