Just sweet nothings today. For example, George Bush is not loved by most Americans, at least according to a recent poll:
What's even more shocking is that just days earlier, riding the crest of supposedly good news surrounding the election in Iraq, Bush -- as measured by the very same CNN/USA Today/Gallup polling unit -- posted his best approval ratings in 13 months. For the survey conducted Feb. 4-6, his approval rating shot up to 57 percent; heights Bush hadn't reached since January 2004, and hadn't consistently hit, month-after-month, since the spring of 2003.
Yet the most recent results show Bush's approval ratings cratering eight points to 49 percent and his disapproval ratings spiking 8 points to 48 percent. That's a 16-point swing in less than one week. What happened? It's possible the realization about the vote in Iraq began to set in among voters who grasped that with the overwhelming Shiite coalition victory there's now a distinct possibility of an Iran-friendly Islamic state being established in Baghdad. Hardly the reason why U.S. troops were deployed. Domestically, the hot issue behind Bush's decline was likely Social Security reform, which the president sold hard during his Feb. 2 State of the Union address. Despite that primetime push, and a subsequent White House road show designed to build support, a plurality of Americans, by a margin of 48 to 42 percent, still disapprove of Bush's handling on the issue. That, according to CNN/USA Today/Gallup.
Talk about ambivalent lovers! First the Americans elected him over a perfectly sane human being, then they still find fault with him. Co-dependency, anyone?
Then there is apparently Jeff Gannon, the male hooker. Which is nowhere as upsetting as the political hookery he engaged in. Even here the rightwing frames are going to win and we will end up talking about how the bloggers destroyed him by talking about his private life. Unless you raise your clear voice at every opportunity and pipe out that Echidne said to focus on his unethical behavior as a "journalist" and the administration hitman, and to forget about the pruriently fascinating sexual stuff.
Then there is me. I once got a cactus as a Valentine's Day present from an admirer who didn't find me very approachable (his socks smelled). I watered the poor cactus until it broke into two pieces, all rotten. Which is to explain why I don't write lots of very nice stuff about love today; I'm not very skilled in the field. Goddesses aren't.