Best of the Web Today - May 11, 2004
By JAMES TARANTO
Why Isn't Bush Losing?
The latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll has lots of bad news for President Bush. His approval rating is down to 46%, the lowest ever; conventional wisdom has it that an incumbent with less than a majority is in trouble. Only 37% say they're "satisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time," against 62% "dissatisfied." Fifty-six percent disapprove of the way Bush is handling the economy, and 58% disapprove of the way he's handling Iraq. Fifty-four percent think liberating Iraq was a mistake.
And yet. In a two-way presidential-preference match-up, Bush beats John Kerry, 48% to 47%--a slight (statistically insignificant) improvement from last week, when Kerry led 49% to 48%.
What is one to make of this? Clearly all the bad news out of Iraq is having an unfavorable effect on people's impressions of President Bush. So why can't Kerry seem to get ahead of him? Here's our speculation:
Bush's base is stronger. "Intensity of support among Bush voters is much stronger than support for Kerry," according to Investor's Business Daily. IBD's poll finds that "while 68% of Bush's supporters say they support him strongly, only 38% of Kerry's supporters say the same for him." (IBD's poll gives Bush a 47% to 44% lead in a two-man race.)
Kerry is a weak candidate. IBD's 38% "strong support" number shouldn't be that surprising, given that voters in primaries consistently said they were supporting Kerry on the ground that he could beat Bush, not because of his own merits. But if Dems don't like Kerry, why should we expect anyone else will, especially when we hear things like this, from the Associated Press: "The Massachusetts senator also sought to dispel the notion he was aloof, asking one television interviewer: 'Have you had a beer with me yet? I like to have fun as much as the next person, and go out and hack around and have a good time.' "
The Dems are overplaying their hand. Kerry responded to the Abu Ghraib revelations by calling for Donald Rumsfeld to resign as defense secretary. Few agree. Less than a third of Gallup's poll subjects think Rumsfeld should either quit (31%) or be fired (29%); more than 60% think he should stay in the job. Some of Kerry's fellow Democrats are saying even more outrageous things. Ted Kennedy: "On March 19, 2004, President Bush asked, 'Who would prefer that Saddam's torture chambers still be open?' Shamefully, we now learn that Saddam's torture chambers reopened under new management: U.S. management." (Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment.)
We suspect Bush's current numbers in the mid-40s represent a solid base of supporters, and thus this number is a floor. Kerry's floor is probably a bit lower, since he isn't yet well-known, much less well-liked, and he could lose some anti-Bush or antiwar voters to Ralph Nader.
That would seem to give Bush an advantage, though obviously one that Kerry could surmount. To do so, Kerry would have to convince a large number of independents and swing voters that (a) Bush is as incompetent as the Dems have been insisting for years, and (b) Kerry would do a better job.
Will Kerry be able to do this? It's not unimaginable, but the peevishness of the e-mails we get from Kerry supporters leads us to think that he hasn't exactly inspired confidence in them.
Money-Ghraibing Kerry
"This is a moment for America to try to deal with this without any partisan politics. This is not about politics. This is about our country. This is about how we're going to be stronger."--John Kerry on Abu Ghraib, quoted by CNN.com, May 8
"Over the past week we have all been shocked by the pictures from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. . . . John Kerry has called on Donald Rumsfeld to resign, and today we're asking you to support him by adding your name to the call for Rumsfeld to resign. . . . Keep the ball rolling. Donate now!"--John Kerry campaign e-mail, quoted by the Washington Times, May 7
(Hat tip: Right-Thinking.com.)
Who'll Apologize for This?
"Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq beheaded an American civilian and vowed more killings in revenge for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners," Reuters reports:
A poor quality videotape on the site showed a man dressed in orange overalls sitting bound on a white plastic chair in a bare room, then on the floor with five masked men behind him.
"My name is Nick Berg, my father's name is Michael. . . . I have a brother and sister, David and Sarah," said the bound man, adding he was from Philadelphia.
After one of the masked men read out a statement, they pushed Berg to the floor and shouted "God is greatest" above his screams as one of them sawed his head off with a large knife then held it aloft for the camera.
It's a grotesque and timely reminder of who our real enemies are. Ted Kennedy, take note.
You Don't Say--I
"Pa. Man's Beheading in Iraq Upsets Family"--headline, Associated Press, May 11
Dems to Israel: Drop Dead
From a Seattle Times report on the local convention of the Council on American Islamic Relations:
Before giving [Rep. Jim] McDermott his plaque, Samia El-Moslimany, CAIR vice chair, announced "tremendous news."
She told the crowd that the King County Democratic Party, meeting earlier in the day elsewhere within the Convention Center, had voted into its platform a commitment to "withhold U.S. tax dollars from Israel while it is in violation of international law."
"This is a memorable day," said El-Moslimany.
The anti-Israel statement was one of 235 amendments to the party's platform, according to Greg Rodriguez, King County party chairman. Reached at home last night, Rodriguez could not recall the exact wording, but said, "I would imagine that probably did get in."
In October we speculated that anti-Semitism would increasingly find a home in the Democratic Party. We would have preferred to be proved wrong.
Palestinian Standards of Decency
The terror group Hamas staged a guerrilla attack today, blowing up an Israeli armored personnel carrier and killing six soldiers. Then things got ghoulish:
Hamas militants later displayed pieces of metal and bits of flesh collected from the scene of the blast, laying them out on the ground. In another scene, a Hamas gunman on a motorcycle held up a bloodied burlap bag with body parts.
All the outrage over the abuses at Abu Ghraib is heartening, in that it shows the world has not given up altogether on the idea of imposing some standards of decency. Now if only we would give up the idea that nothing more than barbarism is to be expected of Arabs and Muslims.
That's Some Percussion Section
"A Renowned Israeli Musician Condemns the Israeli Occupation and Detonates His Prize to the Palestinian People"--headline, Palestinian Authority press release, May 11
John Carroll, Pseudojournalist?
Yesterday we noted that John Carroll, editor of the Los Angeles Times, had delivered a speech on "ethics" in which he attacked "pseudojournalists" at Fox News for supposedly misinforming their audience about Iraq. As evidence he cited a study by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes that found Fox viewers were more likely to hold certain "misconceptions" about Iraq.
It turns out that PIPA issued the following clarification of its study on Oct. 17, two weeks after the study's release:
The purpose of the study was to analyze the role of misperceptions in policy attitudes about the Iraq war. The findings were not meant to and cannot be used as a basis for making broad judgments about the general accuracy of the reporting of various networks or the general accuracy of the beliefs of those who get their news from those networks. Only a substantially more comprehensive study could undertake such broad research questions.
In his speech seven months later, Carroll ignored this warning. Is he a real journalist?
Homer Nods
We erred yesterday in trusting an Agence France-Presse report claiming that the last suicide attack within Israel occurred last October. In fact, there have been four since, according to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs:
Dec. 25, 2003 - Four Israelis were killed and over 20 wounded in a suicide bombing at a bus stop at the Geha Junction, east of Tel Aviv, near Petah Tikva.
Jan. 29, 2004 - Eleven people were killed and over 50 wounded, 13 of them seriously, in a suicide bombing of an Egged bus no. 19 at the corner of Gaza and Arlozorov streets in Jerusalem.
Feb. 22, 2004 - Eight people were killed and over 60 wounded, 11 of them school pupils, in a suicide bombing on Jerusalem bus no. 14A near the Liberty Bell Park.
Mar 14, 2004 - Ten people were killed and 16 wounded in a double suicide bombing at Ashdod Port.
Another item yesterday cited a misleading statement in a report on U.S. prison abuses by the New York Times' Fox Butterfield. Butterfield wrote that Texas prisons "were under a federal consent decree during much of the time President Bush was governor because of crowding and violence by guards against inmates." What he didn't say, and this Austin Review article points out, is that the decree took effect in 1980--some 15 years before Bush became governor.
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You Don't Say--II
"Area Graduates Become Alumni"--headline, Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer, May 10
What Would Pregnant Orangutans Do Without Experts?
"Experts at St. Louis Zoo Wonder Which Male Orangutan Got Female Pregnant"--headline, Canadian Press, May 10
Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, Ka-Thud!
It's funeral season in Alaska. "As the spring thaw softens ground that has been frozen hard as granite by the long Alaska winter, cemeteries start burying people who died during the past seven months," the Associated Press reports:
Since October, when digging became next to impossible, many of Alaska's dead have been in storage. Now, families are finally able to inter their loved ones in a somber Far North rite of spring.
"It's around Memorial Day when we go down 6 feet," said David Erickson, cemetery manager of Northern Lights Mortuary and Memorial Park in Fairbanks. "We'll start earlier for infants and urns."
And not a moment too soon. The Rev. Scott Fisher tells the AP that the actual burial is psychologically important: "The sound of the earth on the casket--ka-thud--breaks through some of the shock and the grief." |
