New Mexico Politics with Joe Monahan

New Mexico is going Kerry, if a new interactive poll from the Zogby group has it right. The poll, conducted May 18 thru the 23, shows the Prez losing his grip fast on our swing state. Kerry pulls 48.4% to Bush’s 43.3. Independent Ralph Nader grabs 2.9% and just a slim 5.4% are undecided. The margin of error in the poll is pegged at 4.6%. …

Among men the Prez garners 55% of the vote, but only 32% of the females. Kerry gets a whopping 62% of the women, but falls to 35% of the men.

Here’s pollster Zogby’s analysis of the Prez race here with Kerry leading by about five points:

”While President Bush predictably lags here in the state’s big cities, the good news for his re-election campaign is that there aren’t many of them. Instead, this southwestern state shoehorned between the vacation mecca of Arizona and the president’s home state of Texas is dotted with small towns and rural life, which treat him better, the poll shows. While Democrat John Kerry leads in the big cities, 54% to 33%, Mr. Bush leads in small cities, 50% to 45%, and by an even greater margin, 56% to 40%, in rural New Mexico.”

Bush trips over Abu Ghraib pronunciation Reuters.com

Two rehearsals for his prime-time speech were not enough to keep U.S. President George W. Bush from mangling the name of the Abu Ghraib prison that brought shame to the U.S. mission in Iraq.

During the half-hour televised address, Bush mispronounced Abu Ghraib each of the three times he mentioned it while announcing U.S. plans to tear down the infamous jail and replace it with a new facility.

The prison, the scene of torture under Saddam Hussein and the setting for the Iraqi prison abuse scandal under the U.S. military, has a name that English speakers usually pronounce as ”abu-grabe.”

But the Republican president, long known for verbal and grammatical lapses, stumbled on the first try, calling it ”abugah-rayp”. The second version came out ”abu-garon”, the third attempt sounded like ”abu-garah”.

White House aides, who described the speech as an important address on the future of Iraq, said Bush practised twice on Monday before boarding his helicopter for his trip to the speaking venue at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Bush’s Remarks on Iraq at the Army War College (washingtonpost.com)

I’ve come here tonight to report to all Americans, and to the Iraqi people, on the strategy our nation is pursuing in Iraq and the specific steps we’re taking to achieve our goals.

Five Points of Reality That Bush Overlooked (washingtonpost.com)By Jim Hoagland

Dear Mr. President:

I write as someone who has supported regime change in Iraq far longer than you or your aides. I have given your policies the benefit of the doubt….

[Your recent speech shows] a willingness to see the world as you would like it to be rather than as it is, and a readiness to hope that the gap goes unnoticed or unexamined. With all respect, sir, that is not leadership. …

This steadily wavering image is at the core of the decline in your approval ratings. Americans stop supporting wars not because of body counts alone but because they become convinced their leaders do not know what they are doing. They then stop supporting the leaders. …

Most important, move away from the obsession with secrecy that is a cancer at the center of your administration.

washingtonpost.com: Bush Approval Ratings

CBS News | Poll: Iraq Taking Toll On Bush | May 24, 2004 23:51:30

The President’s approval rating has dropped to a new low of 41 percent, and more than six in ten say the country is heading in the wrong direction. …

DIRECTION OF THE COUNTRY
Right direction
30%

Wrong track
65%

The last time the percentage that said the country was on the wrong track was as high as it is now was in November 1994, as Republicans swept into control of both houses of Congress for the first time in decades. …

WAS U.S. INVOLVEMENT IN IRAQ A MISTAKE?
Yes 50%
No 46%

Lots more figures in this poll (see link above; link below it to a separate Washington Post poll). mjh

Washington Post/ABC News poll

Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?

Approve STRONGLY 31%
Approve SOMEWHAT 17%
Disapprove SOMEWHAT 14%
Disapprove STRONGLY 36%
DK/No opinion 3%

Report: al-Qaida Ranks Swelling Worldwide By BARRY RENFREW

[International Institute of Strategic Studies said in its annual survey of world affairs] that the two military centerpieces of the U.S.-led war on terror — the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — may have boosted al-Qaida.

Driving the terror network out of Afghanistan in late 2001 appears to have benefited the group, which dispersed to many countries, making it almost invisible and hard to combat, the story said.

And the Iraq conflict ”has arguably focused the energies and resources of al-Qaida and its followers while diluting those of the global counterterrorism coalition that appeared so formidable” after the Afghan intervention, the survey said.

The U.S. occupation of Iraq brought al-Qaida recruits from across Islamic nations, the study said. Up to 1,000 foreign Islamic fighters have infiltrated Iraqi territory, where they are cooperating with Iraqi insurgents, the survey said. …

The London-based institute is considered the most important security think tank outside the United States. Its findings on al-Qaida’s expanding structure and growing support by allied terrorist networks around the world track with similar assessments from governments and other experts.

Are you safer than you were 4 years ago? Of course not! Given unprecedented power and money, Bush has made things far worse. You want 4 more years of this? mjh

Question: who has more responsibility for the horrors of Abu Ghraib? Duhbya Bush or Gloria Steinem? mjh

Nightmare of Iraq prison abuse is rooted in coed basic training by Cal Thomas

From the ”don’t ask, don’t tell” policy pertaining to homosexuals in the military, to the politically correct assignment of women at the most sensitive levels, politicians, military and civilian commanders pretend that the powerful sex drive can be controlled and made irrelevant in the pursuit of military objectives. …

Congress and the Pentagon need to do something about coed basic training and the assignment of women to certain jobs that put them and what should be the military’s primary goals at risk. If they do, they are likely to find a connection between the disciplinary breakdown at the jail of ill repute in Iraq and the sexual politics of people who think the military is just one more sociological playground which can be changed into something it isn’t.

I knew gays and feminists were to blame for 9-11. Now, thanks to the deep thinking of Calcified Cal, we know Abu Ghraib is also their fault.

Suddenly, I’m reminded of the General Turgidson in Dr Strangelove, with his obsession over the purity of his personal bodily fluids. Cal Thomas’s column must actually be written by Al Franken — surely a conservative can’t be such an idiot. mjh

I got these images as an email attachment from a friend and decided to turn them into a rotating display.mjh

Bush Bumper Stickers

Add this code to your own page:
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(just select the blue text and copy and paste into your own webpage or blog) or link directly to these scrolling bumper stickers.

Bush Bumper Stickers, part of my Rooftop Revolt — Overthrow Bush