By Paul Steinhauser
CNN Deputy Political Director
(CNN) — A new national poll suggests that three out of four Americans feel President Bush’s departure from office is coming not a moment too soon.
Twenty-eight percent of those polled say President Bush is the worst president in U.S. history.
Seventy-five percent of those questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Friday said they’re glad Bush is going; 23 percent indicated they’ll miss him.
“Earlier this year, Bush scored some of the lowest presidential approval ratings we’ve seen in half a century, so it’s understandable that the public is eager for a new president to step in,” said Keating Holland, CNN polling director.
CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider added, “As President Bush prepares to leave office, the American public has a parting thought: Good riddance. At least that’s the way three-quarters feel.”
The portion who say they won’t miss Bush is 24 percentage points higher than the 51 percent who said they wouldn’t miss President Bill Clinton when he left office in January 2001. Forty-five percent of those questioned at that time said they would miss Clinton.
The poll indicates that Bush compares poorly with his presidential predecessors, with 28 percent saying that he’s the worst ever. Forty percent rate Bush’s presidency as poor, and 31 percent say he’s been a good president.
Only a third of those polled said they want Bush to remain active in public life after he leaves the White House. That 33 percent figure is 22 points lower than those in 2001 who wanted Bill Clinton to retain a public role.
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“It’s been like a failed marriage,” Schneider said.
“Things started out well. When President Bush first took office in 2001, more than 60 percent saw him as strong and decisive. That impression was confirmed after the September 11th attacks. The public still saw Bush as strong and decisive when he took office a second time in 2005.
“But no more. The public has completely lost confidence in this president,” Schneider said.
Bush has dropped on a number of measures, but possibly the biggest is that only 20 percent say he inspires confidence, Holland said.
“That’s an important figure when the country is facing its biggest economic crisis in a generation,” he added.
When running for the White House in the 2000 presidential campaign, Bush promised to be a uniter and not a divider. But 82 percent of poll respondents felt that Bush did not unite the country, compared with 17 percent who said he did.
“The vast majority of Americans believe he betrayed his promise to unite the country,” Schneider said. “He took a country that was divided under President Clinton and he divided it worse.”
Only 27 percent of those questioned in the poll approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president; 72 percent disapprove.
“President Bush’s job approval rating has been at or below freezing since the beginning of the year,” Schneider said. “The current 27 percent approval rating is one of the lowest ratings for any president, ever.”
The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll was conducted December 19-21, with 1,013 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey’s sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
more Bush lies,,,,
impeach!
More Bush lies,LOL
IMPEACH!
OMG! Is this the same M. Connell?
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:50:55 EDT Subject: Report of Rove threats against witness Michael Connell Dear Attorney General Mukasey: We have been confidentially informed by a source we believe to be credible that Karl Rove has threatened Michael Connell, a principal witness we have identified in our King Lincoln case in federal court in Columbus, Ohio, that if he does not agree to “take the fall” for election fraud in Ohio, his wife Heather will be prosecuted for supposed lobby law violations. This appears to be in response to our designation of Rove as the principal perpetrator in the Ohio Corrupt Practices Act/RICO claim with respect to which we issued document hold notices last Thursday to you and to the US Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform. See: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6189 and http://www.archive.org/details/ElectionFraudInOhioCourtCase. I have informed court chambers and am in the process of informing the Ohio Attorney General’s and US Attorney’s offices in Columbus for the purpose, among other things, of seeking protection for Mr. Connell and his family from this reported attempt to intimidate a witness. Concurrently herewith, I am informing Mr. Conyers and Mr. Kucinich in connection with their Congressional oversight responsibilities related to these matters. Because of the serious engagement in this matter that began in 2000 of the Ohio Statehouse Press Corps, 60 Minutes, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, C-Span and Jim VandeHei, and the public’s right to know of gross attempts to subvert the rule of law, I am forwarding this information to them, as well. Cliff Arnebeck, Attorney 614-224-8771 Cell 614-361-9434 cc: Robert Fitrakis, Esq. Henry Eckhart, Esq
And than I see this on HuffPo!
At 3:31 PM Friday, December 19, Michael L. Connell, a top Internet consultant for the Republican National Committee and for the Bush and McCain presidential campaigns, left Washington from the small airport in College Park, Md. Alone at the helm of a single engine Piper Saratoga, Connell’s flight plan anticipated arrival at his hometown Akron-Canton Airport in a little over two hours, at 5:43 PM.
Instead, about three miles short of the Akron-Canton Airport, Connell’s plane crashed to the ground in an upscale section of Lake Township, killing Connell instantly. “I was standing in the kitchen and I looked out the window and all I saw was fire,” Taylor Fano told The Akron Beacon Journal. “It took out the flagpole and the cement blocks surrounding the flagpole . . . . It skidded across the driveway and right in-between a line of pine trees and a small fence around an in-ground pool.”
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the accident and has not yet filed a report, but there was no immediate evidence of wrong-doing or sabotage.
Many in the blogosphere have called for further investigation of the crash, suggesting that Connell was about to provide crucial information in the case of alleged vote fraud in the 2004 Ohio presidential contest, and that that information would implicate Karl Rove and others in the Bush administration. [see update below]
Just last month, Connell was deposed in the ongoing case, King Lincoln Bronzeville Neighborhood Association v. Blackwell. According to accounts of the November 3rd deposition, Connell denied any knowledge of attempts to fraudulently manipulate 2004 Ohio vote counts.
There is, however, a more immediate and relevant question: How much will Connell’s death, even if the accident was entirely without malfeasance, impede congressional committee investigations into the more controversial activities of the Bush administration over the past eight years – including the ongoing investigation into thousands of missing White House-RNC emails sent and received by some 22 White House political aides, including Rove. These emails are believed likely to shed light on the political firings of U.S. Attorneys, and to show if the White House had any role in controversial decisions to prosecute former Alabama Democratic Governor Don Siegelman.
After first emerging as a web consultant during the 1998 gubernatorial campaign of Jeb Bush, Connell quickly became a key member of the Republican brain trust and quickly became part of a small network of political consultants and lobbyists favored by Rove. He advised both Bush-Cheney campaigns, and was a regular consultant to the RNC and other GOP committees.
Connell, and his firms – New Media Communications, Govtech and Connell Donatelli Inc. – were part of a universe that included such other GOP operatives as Tony Feather and Jeff Larson of FLS Connect, Tom Synhorst of the DCI Group, and Jeff Averbeck of Smartech. Their companies have received millions of dollars from the Bush-Cheney campaign committees of 2000 and 2004 from the three major – national, congressional and senatorial – Republican Party committees; from such conservative interest groups as the National Rifle Association and Citizens Against Government Waste; from a host of corporations and trade associations seeking to remain in the administration’s good graces; and from dozens and dozens of Republican House and Senate campaigns.
Story continues below
Two of Connell’s firms received at least $8.78 million from the RNC from 2004 to 2008 and from the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign. FLS got $39.5 million between 2004 and 2008 from the RNC alone, and Smartech got $9.74 million from the RNC over the same period, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
These revenue reports only touch the surface. Before his death, Connell’s New Media listed 90 clients on its web site from the Alabama Republican Party to the Business Roundtable to the Free Enterprise Fund, to the Republican Jewish Coalition to USAID. The scope of Connell’s client list is a reflection of the Midas touch of the Bush administration in signaling to prospective clients which firms were in good stead.
As it stands now, whatever Connell knew about the activities of Karl Rove and other Republican operatives will go with him to his grave at St. Hilary Catholic Church in Fairlawn, Ohio. His family released a statement on the New Media web site declaring, “Mike was a devoted husband and father, who, with his wife of 18 years, raised a family of four wonderful children. Mike was also a committed man of faith, who regularly worshipped with his family at St. Hillary’s and who lived his faith through mission work to help the poor and less fortunate at home and around the world. Finally, Mike was an engaged citizen, who was actively involved at all levels of our political system.”
In a telephone interview, Connell’s wife Heather adamantly declared “he was a good man. He did nothing wrong. He wasn’t about to talk, because there was nothing to talk about. Nobody did anything wrong. We won the elction fair and square. Deal with it.” Asked if he ever spoke about the disputed emails, Heather Connell said “I have no clue about that. I just know it’s not him.”
A close friend who worked extensively with Connell in Republican politics said, however, that he believes Connell “was more involved in that than a lot of people were let to believe.” This associate of Connell’s, who first brought the accident to the attention of the Huffington Post, said Connell, who was deeply religious and firmly pro-life, may have been “developing second thoughts” after years of being convinced that “working for the Republican cause was doing God’s work.”
UPDATE:
An earlier version of this story claimed: “Connell’s death provoked a groundswell of commentary among conspiracy theorists on the web, including Larisa Alexandrovna, Raw Story, Velvet Revolution, ePluribus Media, and TheZoo.”
To be fair: Larisa Alexandrovna acknowledged that suspicions that Connell’s death was the result of sabotage were unproven, and she urged that empirical evidence be pursued. Her articles and those that she cites legitimately raised questions that in many cases are worthy of pursuit (See Alexandrovna’s letter concerning this story here.) I regret using “conspiracy theorists” to describe Larisa Alexandrovna, Raw Story, and the others.
This is getting covered up! I saw no mention of this on the news. I saw nothing in the papers. It has to be a cover up!
Or the dude just didn’t land his plane. Yeah, gravity happens from time to time….