One can only hope Paul Krugman is right:
Mr. Bush has already pushed through an expensive new Medicare benefit — without any visible source of financing. Reports say that tonight he'll propose additional, and even more expensive, new initiatives, like partial Social Security privatization — which all by itself would require at least $1 trillion in extra funds over the next decade. Where is all this money going to come from?
Judging from the latest CBS/New York Times Poll, these promises of something for nothing aren't likely to convince many people. It's not just that the bounce from Saddam's capture has already gone away. Unfavorable views of Mr. Bush as a person have reached record levels for his presidency. It seems fair to say that many Americans, like most of the rest of the world, simply don't trust him anymore.
This is the first president I can remember whose approval inside the United States contrasts starkly with his approval outside the United States. It's fair to say "many" Americans distrust Bush, but not "enough" of them. Inside the US it seems like half of the people actually trust Bush, which is astounding and betrays an intense myopia characteristic of a drug addict.
Outside the US, Bush is almost universally despised. Even so-called allies are just going along with his ruse for the sake of doing business with the US. But the point is I have never seen such a disparity, and I think it's entirely the fault of American media, who have whored themselves out to the Bush Administration because Bush promised to relax media merger and consolidation standards.
How else does one explain that, despite the fact that Bush took a record-setting economy into the shitter, 39% of Americans still have confidence in his ability to run the economy? 39%!! Do you have to be living in a shanty town before you concede that Bush is an imbecile and has ruined your economy? That number should be no higher than 10% or 20%. 59% of Americans polled believed that Bush cares either "a lot" or "some" about "people like [them]." Here you have the most cynical presidency in the history of the nation, handing out payoffs to corporate cronies without discretion or apology, and awarding tax cuts to the richest people in the country, and average folks see him as "like them" because he performs photo ops in jeans and cowboy apparel?
I hope more Americans see what the rest of the world sees in Bush before this election, instead of being content with his bullshit simply because they think "God is in the White House."
12:37:21 PM 
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