Bush certainly excels at one thing: failing. He fails better than most people. In fact, we could say he's the best failing president we've ever had. He's truly a great failer!
But don't believe me. Believe NBC and the Wall Street Journal. They just conducted a poll, and in addition to the 39 percent approval rating for George himself, the rest of the numbers are, well, failing. Here are some choice tidbits:
Just 28 percent believe the country is headed in the right direction, another all-time low in Bush’s presidency.
[snip]
It also finds that strong majorities don’t believe that the recent charges against GOP leaders Tom DeLay of Texas and Bill Frist of Tennessee are politically motivated. Sixty-five percent say that DeLay’s indictment on charges of illegally using corporate contributions for political campaigns suggests potential illegal activity.
[snip]
Meanwhile, 57 percent say Frist’s sale of stock in a company his family runs — just before the value of the stock declined — indicates potential illegal activity, compared with 28 percent who say the charge has little merit.
In addition, with 13 months until the 2006 congressional elections, 48 percent say they prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress, compared with 39 percent who want the Republicans to control Capitol Hill. In fact, that nine-point difference is the largest margin between the parties in the 11 years the NBC/Journal poll has been tracking this question.
But [pollster] Hart argues that Democrats aren’t necessarily responsible for this margin. "It is not that Democrats have done so well," he said. "It is that people are disgusted." McInturff puts it this way: "People are very turned off and unhappy with the state of play in American politics."
People also seem to be turned off and unhappy with high gas prices. According to the survey, 69 percent believe the worst is still to come with energy and fuel prices. Just 25 percent think the worst is behind us.
So it turns out that DeLay and Frist are pretty darn good failers, too! Not as good as George, of course, but, hey, he's the president! The president of failing!
Note the bit about the Democratic party. They aren't really A students -- they're just good at not failing as badly as George & Co. But if they really want to do some good for the country, they will stop not-failing and start succeeding. That would really be something to behold.