The Chimp in Winter (and in Denial)

Down to 34%

President Furious McChimpy is pissed off... but not necessarily because of today's nuke testing in North Korea. No, his ire has been raised because the tradition of omerta within the Republican ranks has been broken (via the NYDailyNews):

[F]riends, aides and close political allies tell the Daily News Bush is furious with his own side for helping create a political downdraft that has blunted his momentum and endangered GOP prospects for keeping control of Congress next month.

Some of his anger is directed at former aides who helped Watergate journalist Bob Woodward paint a lurid portrait of a dysfunctional, chaotic administration in his new book, "State of Denial."

In the obsessively private Bush clan, talking out of school is the ultimate act of disloyalty, and Bush feels betrayed from within.

"He's ticked off big-time," said a well-informed source, "even if what they said was the truth."

Well, Dear Leader should be flinging the feces around the White House with extra-furious vigor after the recent spate of poll releases showing that his approval ratings, after getting a modest bump playing the 9/11 card, have started to sink again. After Newsweek pegged his numbers at a low 33%, the NYT/CBS News poll came in today at 34% (a drop of 3 points). It goes onto note:

Mr. Bush’s job approval rating has even slipped with his base: 75 percent of conservative Republicans approve of the way he has handled his job, compared with 96 percent in November 2004.

Mr. Bush clearly faces constraints as he seeks to address the public concerns about Iraq that have shrouded this midterm election: 83 percent of respondents thought that Mr. Bush was either hiding something or mostly lying when he discussed how the war in Iraq was going. Fifty-seven percent of respondents said Mr. Bush was personally aware of pre-9/11 intelligence reports that warned of possible domestic terrorist attacks using airplanes. When the same question was asked in May 2002, 41 percent said they believed Mr. Bush was aware.

And after rising to 42% in WaPo/ABC's September polling, the President took three steps back to 39% -- though the WaPo notes that the President has shored up his base support:

The president's approval rating remains higher than its low point of 33 percent in May primarily because of his success in regaining support from Republicans who had earlier expressed unhappiness with his performance. In the current poll, 82 percent of Republicans said they approve of how he is handling his job, compared to 68 percent in May.

Speaking of the base, the NYTimes has a worrying article about evangelical Republicans who say they aren't turned off from the party by the recent Foley Follies:

[I]n dozens of interviews here in southeastern Virginia, a conservative Christian stronghold that is a battleground in races for the House and Senate, many said the episode only reinforced their reasons to vote for their two Republican incumbents in neck-and-neck re-election fights, Representative Thelma Drake and Senator George Allen.

“This is Foley’s lifestyle,” said Ron Gwaltney, a home builder, as he waited with his family outside a Christian rock concert last Thursday in Norfolk. “He tried to keep it quiet from his family and his voters. He is responsible for what he did. He is paying a price for what he did. I am not sure how much farther it needs to go.”

The Democratic Party is “the party that is tolerant of, maybe more so than Republicans, that lifestyle,” Mr. Gwaltney said, referring to homosexuality.

Most of the evangelical Christians interviewed said that so far they saw Mr. Foley’s behavior as a matter of personal morality, not institutional dysfunction.

With less than a month until midterm election day, we need to keep spreading the word that Hastert's House is one constructed on shaky pilings of utter dysfunction and hypocricy, and that this isn't just the problem of one screwed-up man. Democrats need to subscribe to the maxim of Harry Potter's Mad Eye Moody: Constant vigilance!