You Say Quail, I Say Whittington, Let's Blow the Whole Head Off

In the latest CBS poll, which the wingnuts probably discount anyway as that's Dan Rather's network, President Bush's approval rating is down to 34%. That has to be a good sign, that 2/3 of the country is seing through all the BS. Why there hasn't been a run at the pitchfork and torch store is another question, but we are a lazy, complacent, awed by Dancing with the Stars kind of people (when being Nick Lachey's brother makes you a "star" we're setting the bar way too low even for escapist entertainment). Revolution will have to wait.

In the meantime, it's hard not to wonder about Reuters' reporting of the poll, especially when they get to lines like, "In addition, 62 percent of Americans said they think U.S. efforts to bring stability and order to Iraq were going badly compared with 36 percent who said things were going well. In recent days, the Bush administration has faced increasing sectarian violence and fears of civil war..."

Excuse me? The Bush administration has faced nothing in Iraq. Our poor soldiers doing their jobs have. The Iraqis, who didn't necessarily get a vote in whether it was good to be occupied, have. The Bush administration gets to sit on its collective chickenhawk ass in Washington and eat and drink well and have no thoughts of getting blown up or their family members getting kidnapped.

Unless, of course, Reuters was trying to predict a civil war in the United States.

Then the report gets to Double-barrel Dick:

One surprising bright spot for the administration in the polls was that Americans appeared ready to move on after Vice President Dick Cheney's hunting accident. Seventy-six percent said it was understandable that the accident could happen.

However media coverage of the accident may have made the public's generally negative view of Cheney a bit more so, CBS said. The poll found that 46 percent hold a negative view of Cheney and 18 percent hold a favorable view, down from a 23 percent favorable rating in January.

Hmm, Cheney's hunting accident? That's just like saying what happened on April 15, 1912 was the iceberg's ship collision. The odd wording aside, it also seems that if 76% thought it was "understandable" a man with a deadly weapon confused an old man with a quail, the next question in the poll should have been: Do you hunt? If so, how many beers does it take to widen your understanding of the word "accident"? At the least we have to assume the 18% of the people who still approve of Cheney must be drunk themselves.