Congress's approval rating lower than Bush*'s..MSM gives their reason why

[Toots]

"People are tired of the infighting and just want everyone to get along"
Does anyone believe this is in any way why Congress is even less popular than Bush*? It certainly is not why I am unhappy with them. I want accountability and am only seeing them enabling the GOP. I voted for change and only see more of the same. I hear about GOP representatives on the talk shows every day but it is very rare that I hear of a Democratic strategist or Representative on explaining how they can make improvements. I believe Democrats need to get much more aggressive in the Public arena. They have been missing in action for a Decade or so now. That has to change.

[leftchick]

1. two things

Impeachment and Iraq. I hope Nancy is FINALLY going to read the writing on the wall for her.

[ecstatic]

2. Whoever said that knows nothing about politics or what's going on

Like you, my bitterness comes from the fact that we have a criminal RUNNING WILD in DC, and now he is all set to start YET ANOTHER WAR while this huge ongoing ATROCITY in Iraq continues. Words cannot describe my disgust.

[Toots]

3. It was Gwen Ifil on Washington Week

And I agree with you

[Benhurst]

5. Condoleezza (sic) Rice's dear friend Gwen Ifil is as big a

media whore and stooge as there is inside the Beltway.

[scarletwoman]

19. Oh yeah, Gwen Ifil, that dependable purveyor of Beltway "Conventional Wisdom".

She's an enabling hack -- what a poor excuse for a "journalist". :puke:

"Bipartisanship" is just Beltway code for "sit down, shut up, and let the fascists have their way".

sw

[radfringe]

4. What I see

is bush thumbing his nose at the laws, spitting on the constitution, and pissing on all of us

and what does Congress do about it? nada

[mmonk]

6. The bggest drop has been since May and is among democrats.

I gave my opinion on this in another thread. Dems are miscalculating the situation (maybe with the help of the media).

[still_one]

10. It is far worse than that, and beyond popularity. Democrats are putting our government at risk

If they allow the refusal of people to testify before it to be ignored under the advice of this administration, and they do NOT start impeachment proceedings, then they will be complicit in the destruction of our Constitution

This is NOT an overstatement, our Democracy is slipping away. Republicans in Congress should be equally alarmed.

Not only is Congress under attack by this administration, so is the Republic.

The policy that they don't have enough votes to impeach, doesn't cut it anymore, THEY MUST TRY, or be counted as part of the problem

This is even worse than the excuse by those who voted for the IWR, even though it violated the war powers act. THIS IS A DIRECT ATTACK ON THE CONSTITUTION, and Congress

[mmonk]

12. I know its putting the republic at deeper risk.

More and more democratic voters have caught on and are very unhappy. That's why the precipitous drop of late. Bad miscalculation by the party bosses.

[still_one]

15. This is far worse than anything I have seen. Much worse than Nixon

In fact I would argue that this is the most important issue now standing before Congress, because if this isn't dealt with, they will have condemned future generations to the republics downfall

[mmonk]

20. Yes indeed.

This is an historic fork in the road for this country.

[Toots]

14. But "All of America is the battleground" ..terrorist cells are everywhere..

We have us a "War President" and he needs to have complete control of the battle ground. America needs a "Decider" to make those calls of who is an "enemy combatant" and who isn't and be able to whisk them off the streets very quickly to protect Americans. We can't let them dilly dally around with things like Habeas Corpus or Speedy Trials. We don't even really need trials at all. Americans are demanding immediate protection from the hoards and some by the way have last names of Smith and Jones....but they have very leftist (terrorist) views so pre-emptive action is a must..Anyone that would dare question our Decider must in some way be affiliated with some of those terrorist cells. America must be kept safe....We can not afford to let some "damn piece of paper" interfere with that protection our beloved "Decider" will provide.

[yardwork]

22. I agree, which is why we need to contact the folks in Congress.

Everyone on DU - call and write your Congress critters today. Tell them how you feel.

[still_one]

25. kick and recomment /nt

[frogcycle]

7. well of course not

this is a blatant and predictable attempt to get all the sheeple to get back in line and stop making waves

the degree to which we have achieved Orwell's nightmare is astonishing. As Michael Moore so accurately put it, the media have not been doing their jobs of informing We the People of the facts, and in the process, the failures of our elected representative to do their jobs, both legislatively and in oversight capacity.

Our three-plus-one part* government has been reduced to an oligarchy with the Unitary President as the CEO.

They are so close they can taste it to a complete and irrevocable takeover. Had it not been for Nixon screwing up over Watergate they'd have made it years ago. They had to wait out the Carter years, but made great strides under Reagan. Progress was once again delayed, but not reversed] under Clinton. Deregulation laid the foundation for the rise of unfettered full-bore greed-driven capitalism, with massive consolidation reducing competition and "globalization" redefining the entire labor market.

Reagan started cutting back on New Deal social programs, but mostly focused on getting big business firmly entrenched ready to assume control.

Clinton managed to "pull a Nixon" via monicagate, and the cabal swept their sock puppet, dried out and rebranded as an "executive" by being placed in the Texas Governor role as soon as his old man lost, into position. It required chicanery beyond just fooling the voters into believing he was anything but a chemically-dependent sociopath, but they were ready for that and pulled it off via a family affair, with brother Jeb and kindly Uncle Jim prominent players, but a nationwide cosa nostra-like machine working quite well.

Now once again they face a perturbation in their march to world dominance. Getting a war started as soon as possible was on the agenda from well before the 2000 election - in fact, from the moment the Cold War was declared over they have been anxious to create new markets for the war business. Reagan's Star Wars was one, but it got low-keyed during Clinton's tenure. Their initial plan was to ramp it back up. In the months before 9/11, all they wanted to talk about was the "missile shield" - the "need" to spend mega-billions on the highest-tech stuff possible.

Without speculating as to the level of complicity in 9/11, suffice it to say that refusal even to discuss the intelligence about terrorist threats certainly helped to "let it happen on purpose."
So that event was a big break. It provided the excuse to throw out the remaining vestiges of regulation, governance, civil liberties - hell, the entire Constitution, as quickly as possible.

They had already developed a theory that they could achieve world domination through imperialism - essentially mimicking Hitler in his march across Europe, but extrapolating it to the entire world, starting in the mideast with the seven-country strategy by striking during the 15-20 year window in which the US would be the only "superpower." Now suddenly there was a greater sense both of urgency and opportunity. What would have required some level of restraint due to likely reluctance of the American People to just rebrand themselves as brutes during that long march to world domination now could be accelerated. "We the People" could be just plain lied to and led to believe it by dangling "9/11" on a string and swinging it back and forth before our eyes.

The once "free and independent" press had been tidily taken over via all that corporate restructuring under and after Reagan, and was the designated instrument to hold that string and swing it back and forth.

"y o u ... a r e ... g e t t i n g ... s l e e p y..."
"P a r i s ... H i l t o n..."
"n i n e ... e l e v e n..."
"f o r g e t ... a b o u t ... y o u r ...p r o b l e m s..."
"A n n a ... N i c o l e ...S m i t h ..."
"y o u ... d o n ' t ... c a r e ... t h a t ... y o u r ...j o b ... w a s ... o u t s o u r c e d..."
"y o u ... a r e ... v e r y ... s l e e p y..."
"i t ... i s ... g o o d ... t h a t ... y o u ... c a n ' t ... g e t ... h e a l t h c a r e ..."
"w h o ... n e e d s ... w i l d l i f e ...... a n y w a y ?..."


Congress was tidily sewed up under their control, and it happily quit conducting oversight hearings, just basically became a placeholder, except when they wanted a regulation rolled back. People were getting rich without having to work much - they had a three-day workweek, plenty of K Street dollars flowing in, and the people seemed complacent as hell, even coming so close to reelecting them that it took even less chicanery to seal the deal for another four years. Life was good, and the end was in sight.

Now that the long-sleeping Congress is stirring a bit, showing signs of starting to resume its role, they are trying to tell the sheeple

"y o u ... d o n ' t ... l i k e ... d i s s e n t..."
"y o u ... w a n t ... y o u r ... b l a n k i e ... b a c k..."

Oh, and don't forget:

"U n c l e ... F r e d ... w i l l ... k i s s ... t h e ... b o o ... b o o ... a n d ... m a k e ... i t ... a l l
b e t t e r ...
"J u s t ...l i k e ... U n c l e ... R o n n i e...



*the "free and independent press" being the fourth, the "Fourth Estate"

[still_one]

8. The media is trying to make people think that congress and the executive branch are comparable

IT ISN'T

They are trying to infer that this shows that bush is more popular, HE ISN'T

Congress IS NOT homogeneous, contrary to what the MSM may realize, there are republicans in congress also, and relative to the Senate it is about 50/50

On an historical basis, Congress most of the time has polled lower than the executive branch.

However, even though I think THIS poll is just a MSM propaganda piece to elevate their boy bush, I have no doubt that most DEMOCRATS are quite frustrated with their own party for not being aggressive enough as you have said

The straw that WILL break the camels back is the administraton claiming executive privledge in order to prevent the Pat Tillman files released to Congress. Not only that is outrageous, but the refusal of miers and others to testify before Congress

What the executive branch is effectively telling congress is that they are accountable to no one, and Congress has no power over them. If Congress allows this to stand in the next two weeks, and does not issue a contempt citation, against those who are refusing to testify, and the administration for telling people NOT to testify, then Congress MUST IMPEACH, or Congress has just allowed our country to be destroyed

[yardwork]

23. Yes.

[EFerrari]

9. People are upset because their lives are difficult and

the presstitutes want to pin on congressional Democrats, which is easy to do because they don't speak with one,clear voice as the Decider does.

[still_one]

11. The Congress is under attack by the executive branch. Witness are being told NOT to testify

by the executive branch before Congress. This is an extremely dangerous precident, and if this stands in its current state, and Congress does NOT start impeachment proceedings, then they are violating their oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

[EFerrari]

13. Oh, you are right. We are in crisis and the Democrats are going

to have to deal with it.

[still_one]

17. They had better, and so should the republicans, because our very Constitution is in jepordy

due to this administrations actions

[EFerrari]

24. I just thought of something. Is it possible that at least one reason

that the Democrats are avoiding impeachment is because Clinton is running and she doesn't want a hundred media outlets rehashing the Clinton impeachment?

[still_one]

26. I don't think so. I think they are concerned that impeachment would hurt them in the polls

and they would like to just skate along until 2008.

The problem is that their very institution, the Constitution, and rule of law are under attack, and ignoring that would have far more ominous consequences

I suspect that if Congress starts making motions toward impeachment and Contempt of Congress, that the administration WILL cave in, and let the witness testify before Congress. They believe they can get away with this, because in almost every other case Congress did blink.

I hope Congress realizes the seriousness of this, and doesn't let it stand. At the very minimum if the leaders in both houses, try to skate along, it is up to the people to have them replaced with someone else who will do the job. What I am saying is that if reed and pelosi do not act on this, then the Democrats in the House and Senate MUST choose new leaders for those bodies, because they are not protecting the Constitution.

This isn't even about Clinton in my view, this is about WE THE PEOPLE

[EFerrari]

30. Sure. I was just thinking that this would be a very specific mechanism

for lowered polls.

Oh, geeze.

[Bitwit1234]

16. Do you see or read anything from the republican owned and herded press.

Heck no...the republicans are blocking the bills, and if they happen to get thru bush vetoes them. SO WHAT THE HELL ARE THE DEMOCRATS TO DO.

The rules in the Senate are different than the House. And that is wrong. If they had the chance to vote up or down they might pass the bill. AND WHEN BUSH VETOES THEY SHOULD MAKE A BIG DEAL OUT OF IT. The should tell where he signed spending bills that gave away money for pet projects while cutting funds for social programs. Did the MSM say anything about that, hell no.
That is the main problem the press the press, and the cable and network news.

[still_one]

21. Congress had better wake up, both Democrats and Republicans and realize that

this administration is not only attacking their institution, but also our Constitution. They are telling witnessess NOT to testify before Congress. They are telling government agencies NOT to release documents requested by Congress on Pat Tillman, not part of the executive branch

Enough is enough

Perhaps lugar and warner, who are going against bush with the Iraq polcy will join the Democrats in this outrage against the people of the United States by the administration?

[JacquesMolay]

18. They got elected to end the war.

The polls show that. They're not going to end the war, and they're going to pay for that in the court of public opinion.

[emulatorloo]

29. So Pressure your REPUG congress/senators to do the right thing -- they are blocking everything

Dems introduce legislation, REpug introduce Karl Rove's latest talking points.

The Dem majority is razor thin and the REpugs are TOTALLY COORDINATED to make sure that

-- nothing significant gets done
-- Bush is protected at ALL COSTS

They do this thru talking points, silly paliamentary challenges, votes.

The Dems are not the ones to blame here. These Republicans put Bush/GOP over country every time.

[book_worm]

27. Congress, as a whole, almost always have lower approval ratings than even

an unpopular president. Why? because you don't have anybody to rally around. If the question was how is Nancy Pelosi doing her job--I think her approval rating would be higher than Bush's because Dems would rally around her, on the whole. Same for Reid. But congress as an institution is always unpopular, though if you ask people about their individual congress person they are usually much more positive.

[emulatorloo]

28. watch CSPAN-- Dems put forth legistlation, REPUGS put forth TALKING POINTS

The Dem majority is razor thin and the REpugs are TOTALLY COORDINATED to make sure that

-- nothing significant gets done
-- Bush is protected at ALL COSTS

They do this thru talking points, silly paliamentary challenges, votes.

The Dems are not the ones to blame here. These Republicans put Bush/GOP over country every time.