Northern Valley Beacon

The CBS poll published today shows a continuing decline in poll numbers for President Bush. Below are the approval ratings. While he has only a 37 percent overall approval rating, the Republicans still approve of him by a huge majority, while the Democrats disapprove of him by even a larger majority. And Independents give him a pretty sound disapproval rating.

Approve
All 37%
Reps. 79%
Dems. 14%
Inds. 29%

Disapprove
All 58%
Reps. 13%
Dems. 84%
Inds. 64%

The current polls do not reflect attitudes on issues. They reflect attitudes about attitudes. It is getting increasingly difficult to find any justification for the war on Iraq other than the saving of the Bush presidency. A large majority have realized the crass falsehoods told to the public about getting into the war.

No progressives in America think that terrorism does not need to be confronted and dealt with. That is one of the crass falsehoods: that people who oppose the war are "soft" on terrorism. It is also an incredibly stupid falsehood. A huge majority of people no longer believe it.

But what is worse has been the outpouring of support for our troops that celebrates them for the near-2000 who have died and the tens of thousands who have been wounded. There is no doubt that they are serving their country heroically. The question is whether their country is serving them by celebrating their sacrifice to a failing presidency and a phony justification for wasting their lives.

More and more people, according to the polls and the focus groups, feel that their country duped them and they are paying for it with their sons, daughters, and spouses. The divide between red and blue states is not one of issues. It is a divide between people who like an Orwellian government that says it protects them and tells them what to think and people who think government is ultimately responsible to them and the major part of that responsibility is truthfulness and honesty.

Red America and blue America are as far apart politically as China and Scandinavia. As more people recognize the Orwellian aspects of deceit and thought control under the Bush administration, they are growing less tolerant of the premises of red state governance.

The question is whether we can afford to wait a year for the 2006 elections to register the discontent through the ballot box. An increasing number of people do not think the country can survive that long. There is no way that blue thinkers are going to submit to red totalitarianism.

The big question facing America is not how to deal with terrorism. It is how to deal with the insane bumblers running the country before we can vote them out of office.