The polls have spoken.
Topic: Bush Administraiton

The FT reports a new poll conducted by Public Agenda, a nonprofit research group, to be released next month in Foreign Policy, says six in ten Americans believe the US “may not be meeting its goals in Iraq, and they hold the Bush Administration responsible."

The war is “the foreign policy issue that most clearly appears to have reached a tipping point,” says Daniel Yankelovich, the pollster and chairman of Public Agenda. “If the war in Iraq lingers, the stand off with Tehran lasts, and relations with Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Syria remain troubled, the next reading of [the index] could well reveal that the public now feels has crystallized into a demand for change in US foreign policy.”

Of course, as one would expect, the poll also found that among democrats, 77% were worried about the mounting casualties compared to only 33% of republicans, who apparently don’t care, as long as it’s not one of their kids getting killed.

Yankelovich attributes this lopsided result to the “concentration of white religious Protestants in the republican party.” [Howard Dean was right!] ‘After George Bush characterized the perpetrators as evil, his leadership began to look like a moral mission. His response resonated with the public at large, but particularly with its most religious segments.’ Or was that zealots?

Another example of our failed foreign policy and our new bastards in Mauritania:

Our foreign policy does seem to have some inconsistencies these days. Whereas we condemned the overthrow of Maaouya Ould Sid’Ahmed Taya, our old bastard, by a coup last month, we’re now in talks with the new bastards, because State Department spokesman Adam Erili says, “The guys running the country right now are the guys we are dealing with.”

We’ve suspended our $500 million project to train and equip the Mauritanian military, but the FT says, “The gesture is seen as symbolic, as the government is made up of former officials under Mr. Taya, including the foreign minister who established ties with Israel in 1999.”

In other words, we can do business with these guys. So much for our outrage over the overthrow of the constitutional order! Is this what Condi means by supporting “democracy” over stability?

The real reason the Bush administration isn’t so keen to go too hard on this new “government” is because of our anti-terror campaign in the Saharan area, oh yeah, and oil. The FT says, “ Analysts say US interests in sparsely populated Mauritania, which links the Arab Maghreb world to sub-Saharan west Africa, is partly motivated by strategic interests in the Gulf of Guinea, which is expected to supply about 25% of US oil imports in a decade.”

Some think our policies in this area are radicalizing the local population by providing money and high tech equipment and weapons which the autocratic governments we prop up then use crush their “Islamic” elements under the name of the war on terro.

Jeremy Keenan, an expert on Saharan affairs says,” The net effect is that the Sahara is a tinderbox, with new cross-cutting alliances being forged from Chad to the Atlantic, on the back of anti-American sentiment.”

More on religious zealots:

Camp Casey, Cindy Sheehan’s encampment outside of Bush’s ranch, was attacked by one of W.’s neighbors yesterday. Larry Northern was arrested for driving his pickup truck over the little white crosses baring the names of fallen soldiers that Sheehan had put up along the road to the ranch. Sheehan says he also fired a shotgun across the road from the camp. Now, that’s the way to honor our heroes!

Sheehan says she’ll be moving her show to the property of Fred Mattlage where there’s more parking and is a mile closer to Bush’s Ranch. You just knew the lunatics were going to start coming out of the woodwork sooner or later. It is Texas, for Christ sake!

I’m still trying to figure out which state is the most idiotic. Who will win: Florida or Texas?

Right now, they’re running neck and neck. Texas Rep. John Culbertson is calling for Americans from all over the US top come to Texas to join his proposed "Border Protection Corps," with their guns Unless you don’t have a gun, in which case one will be provided.), to protect our borders, where apparently there’s all out war going on.

He is particularly pissed off at Bush for not defending the country from terrorists who, according to him, are coming into the country every day disguised as Mexicans! I say the next step is to round up all the Mexicans just in case!

Culbertson is not the only republican frustrated with the White House and its lack of action. A lot of republican congressmen are mad at Bush for doing nothing about this infiltration of Arab-Mexicans. Bush has got a problem, though, because the party is trying to lure Latino voters away from the democrats, but they can’t do that while these lunatics are trying to seal off the border with armed vigilantes.

The Dumbshine state: Upcoming campaigns point to a big win for Florida.

Cruella De Vil, (A.k.a. Katherine Harris) is apparently determined to challenge Bill Nelson in 2006 for his senate seat. Harris says Nelson is a member of the “hard left” and has one of the most liberal voting records in congress. Yeah right, he’s a real Ted Kennedy! More like a typical Florida cracker who never saw a defense appropriation he didn’t like. Harris describes herself as “conservative but progressive” and “pro-business, pro-economy and pro-business.” Boy, she’s all over the place.

Recent polls show she’d lose to Nelson 38% to 50%. That’s even with Nelson’s 46% approval rating. Rest assured if she really does get the nomination, which the Republican Party is trying to prevent, there would be truck-loads of democratic money flowing into Florida to defeat her.

Also, running for governor is Charlie Crist, Florida's Attorney General, who is a born again, dyed in the wool, religious-nut. Now, if either one of these losers gets elected Florida will defiantly win the dumbest state award, hands down!

More on Able Danger.

We are just going round and round on this one. Now, Curt Weldon’s Navy officer has come out of the closet. Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, is insisting that the Able Danger team was told by pentagon lawyers not to tell the FBI about the information they had gleaned from “data mining” about the 9/11 hijackers in 2000. “It was because the chain of command saying we’re not going to pass on information ---if something wrong, we’ll get blamed,” Shaffer says. Interestingly, the DOD hasn’t disputed what he’s saying. At this point, the 9/11 commission hasn’t commented on Shaffer’s latest move to identify himself in public. Stay tuned.

[Note: I conflated the Russian mini-sub crisis with the joint Chinese-Russian military exercises, which actually begin today. The sub had nothing to do with the exercises. Boy, check out Putin in the sailor's outfit. W. isn't the only one who wants to play big bully dress up.]