List of Missteps That Led to Poll Results

Let's have a recap of this year to see what led to this month's poll results:

Tsunami in Asia - Bush stayed on vacation; then has an multi-million shindig to celebrate beating ol' Poppy.

Social Security - Bush and co. forgot that people generally aren't as self-centered as they are. Promising retirees that gutting Social Security wouldn't affect them since it'll only be for people under 49 wasn't a home run since people who relied on Social Security could see their children and grandchildren living in poverty without SS. After all, they had a somewhat less hectic life than their offsprings and with more savings too.

Terri Schiavo - Bush interrupting vacation to sign legislature that affects ONE brain-dead person. Millions in America imagine themselves to be Terri or Terri's husband and not liking the result.

Elections in Iraq - would've worked the other way, IF hundreds of soldiers didn't die in the months after, IF gas prices went down, IF a timeline had been set for withdrawal. Instead, people are starting to wonder, were purple fingers worth it?

James Guckert aka Jeff Gannon - having a ringer in the WH Briefing Room just wasn't smart. Calling out to him by name from Bush, well, that wasn't any brighter. Especially when he was found out to be the proprietor of not just one, but three man-on-man prostitute sites.

Denver Three - Kicking out three respectable citizens from a town-hall meeting (they didn't say that it was a town-hall TYPE meeting until after this episode) for fear that they might possibly *gasp* dissent just didn't appeal to American's sense of fair play. People who heard the story started questioning the right of the Administration's use of tax dollars to discriminate.

Preventing the filibuster - Again, this directly flew in the face of American's sense of fair play. Anyone who watched Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, understands the importance of the filibuster. It is the ONLY weapon an opposition party has in this country, and to many, it was like never allowing the other team to come up to bat. That just wasn't fair.

Abu Ghraib - First off, it was torture. And it was the supposed good guys doing it. Secondly, and I think this has much more to do with enlistment, is all of a sudden, family and friends of people in the military began to see the military institutions in a different light. As in, "What the hell are you teaching my little girl to do?"

Tom Ridge admitting that evidence for some terror alerts were flimsy at best - 'nuff said.

An amateur pilot accidentally flying into the no-fly zone in D.C. and the secret police evacuating Cheney, Laura Bush AND Nancy Reagan, but no one bothered to tell Bike Boy? - This, more than anything, made people sit up and wonder to themselves exactly how important is Bike Boy to our administration?

Bush falling from his bike and crashing into a Bobby - how many of us winced while thinking this man represented us.

Bush standing beside Tony Blair after the London Bombings and sounding like an inarticulate frat boy (which he is) and then Tony Blair sounding like a real leader. Again, how many of us winced?

Bush taking a 5 week vacation - (notice that during the tsunami he was on vacation in Jan. and Terri Schiavo in March, he was on vacation. Does this man ever work?) Given this past year, I think people began to resent his taking time off work so much, especially with our young'uns at war.

Ignoring Cindy Sheehan - Oh yes, ignore that pesky mother of a dead patriot during the slowest news cycle month of the year. Though many didn't agree with Mrs. Sheehan, they still thought to leave her out in the heat of Texas by the roadside was no way to respect someone who gave a son to the country.

Katrina - this is recent enough that it needs no recounting.

Plamegate - read Firedoglake for the background on this. Too intricate for me to tackle.

Harriet Miers

And now it looks like Wilma might do a number on this administration too.

So I really don't think his poll numbers are just a reflection on the current situation or just Katrina and Iraq. I think people are now just starting to realize, all this happened JUST this past year?