Here’s a really interesting piece that discusses the fact that Bush’s poll numbers, far from being bolstered by his taking time out to push the “things are going great in Iraq” story with a live presidential address last month, actually accelerated their dive for the basement: Bush’s sinking feeling (reading the full version requires getting the free one-day Salon registration, but I think this one’s worth it).

An excerpt:

What’s so unusual about the impact the speech has had is that neither Democrats nor the press jumped on Bush immediately following the address. In real time, on the night of Sept. 7, TV pundits generally gave a wobbly thumbs-up — nothing unusually harsh — while assembled politicians gave their predictable, partisan assessments. (Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., told CNN, “it was a terrific speech.”)

Instead, over the next few days there seemed to be a collective “holy shit” moment for an awful lot of Americans contemplating the cost of the war and the occupation’s duration. From Erie, Pa., to Berkeley County, W. Va., and other key swing voting districts, the reviews were in, and Bush got panned.

“It was the moment when White House spin collided with the public’s appreciation [of] reality,” says Joseph Cirincione, author or “Deadly Arsenals: Tracking Weapons of Mass Destruction.” “It tipped the scale and made people realize we were in Iraq too deep. Nothing the president said gave public hope we’d soon get out of this.”

I don’t think there’s any way out of this for Bush. He’s run up against that old “can’t fool all of the people all of the time” thing. The middle has figured out what he’s up to, and they’re just not buying anymore.

This entry was posted by jbc on Wednesday, October 8th, 2003 at 5:09 pm and is filed under george_w_bush. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.