[mikeike]

By now most people who read liberal blogs are aware that George W. Bush signed a law in Texas that expressly gave hospitals the right to remove life support if the patient could not pay and there was no hope of revival, regardless of the patient's family's wishes. It is called the Texas Futile Care Law. Under this law, a baby was removed from life support against his mother's wishes in Texas just this week. A 68 year old man was given a temporary reprieve by the Texas courts just yesterday.

[-V-]

Looks like Bush Inc. miscalculated on this one.

AP. Public approval for Bush slipped from 52 percent in a CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll over the weekend to 45 percent in that same poll released Thursday. A CBS News poll released earlier in the week found Bush's approval slipping six points to 43 percent.

The Gallup poll found Bush losing support among men, self-described conservatives and churchgoers while the CBS poll found a drop among men and Republicans.

The polls come after Congress and the president intervened in the case of Terri Schiavo, a 41-year-old woman whose feeding tube had been removed. The federal intervention was widely unpopular, even with conservatives and evangelicals.

[mikeike]

The question is will he bounce back?. He's been down before. I don't like saying this, but he's a pretty effective politician. Something we on the left should be aware of.

[mlytle]

I believe the thing that will really sink George Bush and the Republicans will be the economy. General Motors is nearly bankrupt (and may declare so before the year is out) and Fannae Mae is in deep trouble. Although these events can't be specifically ties to Republican policies alone, it will happen on their watch....

[JamesP]

Now that it is sinking in that Bush, Inc has been granted the monumental honor of leading our country for a total of 8 years, achieving the absolute pinnacle of political success (notwhithstanding their numerous and enormous blunders), even many of those that voted for him are swinging a bit negative.

Those tax-cut loving, but otherwise decent and reasonably intelligent people who were loathe to criticize Bush while there was an election pending are now free to do so. After all, they've won and kept out the hippie, socialist liberals (Kerry & Co), but now they've got Jethro (GWB), Darth Vader (Cheney) and a markedly radical agenda, tinged with religious fundamentalism, to contend with.

I suspect that he'll see few very high approval ratings from here on, but it hardly matters. They will cement a fundamental tilt to the right in our laws, courts, media and economy that will take many, many years to undo.

The Bush position on the Schiavo case pleases the religious-right base. Bombing dark-skinned foreign civilians based on erroneous assumptions is Ok with both God and their pastor. Allowing even a severly brain damaged white woman to die of natural causes is the work of the devil.

[gratelady1]

The one thing that will stand out about the current administration is that they held all the cards (congress, senate, pres) and with all that power, the fact that they are so helpless to accomplish anything with it, will be their legacy- note they could do anything to improve THIS country- if they thought they could profit from it but they have not done a thing.

[mikeike]

The polls show him at his lowest approval rating since he has been in office. But I don’t think that would faze him. However if he continues to take on lost causes like SS. In time they {Congress} may not take him seriously. No president wants that. With the price of oil where is there maybe a slow down in the economy. Whether the Democrats can capitalize on that remains to be seen. And how long will the oil price remain high? As we all now know Carl Rove planned Bush’s election for four years. Democrats are simply not that well organized. With a lot of effort they might get there. But will the effort be made?

[gratelady1]

You know i strongly believe that if you cant beat them- join them, use and abuse them and then throw them out when your done- in that sense it would be interesting to somehow suggest to Mr. Rove that there is a new progressive party he can manipulate and use to his demonic whims- in which case if he bit, it would be interesting if we would let him do for the progressive party, what he did for the now defunct repubs.