Losing the War on Terrorism - Our Incompetent Commander-in-Chief

Peering ahead into what will certainly be a lively New Year: One aspect of the President's generally poor polling numbers -- which bumped up modestly thanks to a holiday propaganda onslaught about democracy, progress, and victory in Iraq (and, in the first poll to arrive in January, are already sinking again) -- remains striking. What "approval" George Bush now retains seems to rest largely on a single strand of popular feeling: the belief in the President's special aptitude for conducting his global war on terror and keeping Americans safe. Even taking a mid-December ABC/Washington Post poll (scroll down) that had anomalously high positives for the President, in no other area -- health care (37%), Iraq (46%), the economy (47%) and "ethics" (48%) -- did his approval ratings hit the 50% mark. On "terrorism," however, he was at 56%. In other polls, where the rest of those mediocre numbers aren't even matched, his "handling" of terrorism still continues to hover just above or close to 50%. For example, the latest Time magazine poll (scroll down) in early December, had the President's approval rating on terrorism at 49%. Last spring, however, the same poll had it reaching a high for the year of 63%; and let's not forget that, in early 2002, it rested at about 90%. Recent polls also seem to indicate that Americans are coming to believe either political party could handle terrorism equally well.

This is perilous territory for the President to be entering. If, as Michael Klare, author of the ever more indispensable book, Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependence on Imported Petroleum, indicates below, Americans truly come to believe that Bush has botched his war on terrorism at every level and has made Americans less secure in the world, then this year and the coming elections could prove uncomfortable indeed for the President and his associates.

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