BILL O'REILLY: "I WAS WRONG (to support BUSH)."
Stunning development. Bush's support is vanishing.....
O'Reilly adds name to growing list of Bush skeptics on the Right.... George Will, Andrew Sullivan, Peggy Noonan, Robert Novak, Joe Scarborough all abandon hope for President. Bush Lies just got to be too much for everyone.
reuters.com
Bush's Political Base Seems Restive, Anxious
Tue February 10, 2004
By Alan Elsner
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Some of George W. Bush's conservative political supporters are increasingly restive and anxious about the president's economic policies as well as his attempts to justify the war against Iraq.
Popular conservative television news anchor Bill O'Reilly, usually an outspoken Bush loyalist, said on Tuesday he was now skeptical about the Bush administration and apologized to viewers for supporting prewar claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
"I was wrong. I am not pleased about it at all and I think all Americans should be concerned about this," O'Reilly said in an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America."
Pollster John Zogby said Bush was on the defensive with some polls showing him slightly behind Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, his probable Democratic opponent in the Nov. 2 presidential election.
"The president is on the ropes right now. The question is, how will he adjust? Right now, the issues are not in his favor. Many Americans still think the economy is poor and his rationale for the Iraq war seems a little thin," he said.
"Bush's greatest asset was his unimpeachable integrity in the eyes of most Americans. But with no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, that integrity has been chipped away and right now some large lumps are falling off it," Zogby said.
Bush's White House interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday was designed to calm some of these doubts. But while some pundits gave Bush good marks for his performance, some prominent conservatives were not impressed.
'TIRED AND UNSURE'
Peggy Noonan, a speechwriter for former President Ronald Reagan and for Bush's father and an outspoken conservative commentator, said: "The president seemed tired, unsure and often bumbling. His answers were repetitive, and when he tried to clarify them he tended to make them worse. He seemed in some way disconnected from the event."
Conservative columnists George Will and Robert Novak and former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough, now a cable TV commentator, have also recently criticized Bush's fiscal programs and his attempts to explain them.
Such doubts, if they persist, could spell trouble for Bush's re-election campaign.......
In the past month, Bush's State of the Union Address and his initiative to send manned spacecraft to Mars failed to generate much enthusiasm. Conservatives and liberals both criticized his budget for failing to seriously confront the country's growing deficit problem.
On Monday, Bush delivered an economic report to Congress promising to create 2.6 million jobs this year. Last year's economic report predicted that 1.7 million jobs would be created. Instead, there was a net loss of 53,000.
The grassroots anti-war group Moveon.org, partially funded by billionaire George Soros, launched a campaign to have Congress censure Bush. It had no chance of success but promised to keep the issue of why he took the country to war against Iraq in the political forefront.
"Congress has the power to censure the president -- to formally reprimand him for betraying the nation's trust. If ever there was a time for this, it's now," the group said in a statement posted on its Web site.
Democrats hope they can plant seeds of doubt now. "If you can create a drumbeat of criticism in February, it's easier to make the case when it really counts in September and October," said Democratic consultant Jennifer Laszlo.
But Brown University political scientist Darrell West said he expected Bush to recover. "It's damaging when your friends criticize you in public, but by November they will all be supporting Bush," he said. [[O'REALLY?? I don't think so!]] |
