Bush Approval Ratings: It's All About The Gas, Dummy!

From an ABC News/Washington Post poll:

"Eighty-two percent of Americans now say the country's
seriously off on the wrong track, up 10 points in the last year to a point from
its record high in polls since 1973. And 31 percent approve of Bush's job
performance overall, while 66 percent disapprove.

The country's mood -- and the president's ratings -- are
suffering from the double whammy of an unpopular war and a faltering economy.
Consistently for the last year, nearly two-thirds of Americans have said the war
in Iraq was not worth fighting. And consumer confidence is near its lowest in
weekly ABC News polls since late 1985. "

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino responded to the poll in today's press briefing by setting the record straight, explaining the obvious reason for the record-low approval ratings:

"Well, look, we're aware of polls. They're something that I know that news
media organizations love to do, and in fact it helps -- every week you could see
a new poll from multiple organizations. So I think that what we would say to
that is that, one, we understand that the war in Iraq has brought down -- has
brought negative feelings about where the country is headed. But also, one thing
you can track over and over again through the years is high gas prices. High gas prices have a really
negative effect on the psychology of the country, as well as on the economy.
It's like a drag on the economy and a tax on the working people...

...the most important thing we can do is make sure that, first of all, Congress doesn't do any more harm to the problem and exacerbate higher gas prices."

Thank you, Ms. Perino, for helping me realize why we Americans are so disapproving of and disgusted with this President and his administration. Of course, the price of gas is more upsetting to most than the loss of nearly four thousand brave American Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan (not to mention tens of thousands of seriously injured and disabled veterans, many of whom return both physically and psychologically scarred, without adequate support from the country they served).

Americans I know get far angrier watching the digital meter zoom past $50 when they fill up their mini-vans and SUV's than they do contemplating the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians killed since our disgraceful invasion began.

And not even the loss of some of my most preciously-held civil liberties pisses me off as much as the thought of CONGRESS being allowed to screw me over and make my morning commute even more expensive!

Since there's such a simple reason for these disapproval ratings, all Bush should have to do is put his foot down and say "enough is enough" to his buddies in Big Oil who continue reaping record profits at our expense! I'm pleased to acknowledge that one of my new home state's Senators (Maria Cantwell-D, WA) has been doing what she can for the last two years to combat this problem. Of course, nothing says, "we care about the high price of gas" like the White House immediately threatening to veto the legislation she proposed a year ago that would make gas price-gouging a crime.

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