ABB hysteria not vindicated by history

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Confessions of a Reformed Nader-Voter
by Doug Rossinow

To liberals who supported Nader in 2000, the case for Kerry is simple. Bush 
is a far more radical and ruinous president than almost anyone predicted in 
2000. This guy's killing us. He's bankrupted our government with tax cuts 
for the rich, justifying this with ridiculous Enron accounting. Many of his 
influential supporters hope to create a fiscal train wreck that finally, 
finally will justify ? Republican Holy of Holies! ? liquidating Social 
Security and/or Medicare.

Most spectacularly, he has plunged us into the foreign occupation of a 
hostile land, justifying it with one falsehood after another. As a response 
to the 9/11 attacks (in which, as it happens, a second cousin of mine 
died), the Iraq invasion was absurd. But Bush knew that becoming "a war 
president," as he anointed himself, was his ticket to ride. To a politician 
of his intelligence, that became obvious when he simply showed up with a 
bullhorn at Ground Zero and found himself compared to Churchill.

full: http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1026-21.htm

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The Washington Post, May 31, 2005
Bush's Political Capital Spent, Voices in Both Parties Suggest;
Poll Numbers Sag as Setbacks Mount at Home and Abroad

By Peter Baker and Jim VandeHei, Washington Post Staff Writers

Two days after winning reelection last fall, President Bush declared that 
he had earned plenty of "political capital, and now I intend to spend it." 
Six months later, according to Republicans and Democrats alike, his bank 
account has been significantly drained.

In the past week alone, the Republican-led House defied his veto threat and 
passed legislation promoting stem cell research; Senate Democrats blocked 
confirmation, at least temporarily, of his choice for U.N. ambassador; and 
a rump group of GOP senators abandoned the president in his battle to win 
floor votes for all of his judicial nominees.

With his approval ratings in public opinion polls at the lowest level of 
his presidency, Bush has been stymied so far in his campaign to restructure 
Social Security. On the international front, violence has surged again in 
Iraq in recent weeks, dispelling much of the optimism generated by the 
purple-stained-finger elections back in January, while allies such as Egypt 
and Uzbekistan have complicated his campaign to spread democracy.

The series of setbacks on the domestic front could signal that the 
president has weakened leverage over his party, a situation that could 
embolden the opposition, according to analysts and politicians from both 
sides. Bush faces the potential of a summer of discontent when his capacity 
to muscle political Washington into following his lead seems to have 
diminished and few easy victories appear on the horizon.

"He has really burned up whatever mandate he had from that last election," 
said Leon E. Panetta, who served as White House chief of staff during 
President Bill Clinton's second term. "You can't slam-dunk issues in 
Washington. You can't just say, 'This is what I want done' and by mandate 
get it done. It's a lesson everybody has to learn, and sometimes you learn 
it the hard way."

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