Aces Full of Links

Yes, probably all of the above to some extent. Sigh.

• Does it never occur to him to even ask?

Your theory has a basic flaw. Allow me to use a story to illustrate:

Many years ago, Bob was outside of Harvard U. waiting for me to either get out of class or out of work (not important), and a student asked him if he would be interested in taking a survey.

Uncharacteristically, Bob said yes.

The first question was (and I'm sure Bob will chime in if any of this is amiss), "Do you belong to a religion?"

Bob answered "no."

The poor student went on to ask several qualifying questions about the religion to which Bob belonged, and Bob finally had to explain to the student that he had failed to account for the possibility of "no" being an answer.

How does this relate to your theory? You have presumed the President actually cares enough to ask “Why is my popularity so low?”

I'm sure he doesn't.

That's pretty much correct. The student was an asian student who didn't have a great grasp on the English language. She apparently couldn't comprehend someone not having a religion and I assumed she would eventually get to questions that pertained to non-religious people. After 4-5 minutes of grilling me about how often I went to church, prayed, etc. she thanked me and went away and I sat there dumbfounded that all she had to do was ask the 1st question and stop.

James,

They blame the media, George Soros, moveon.org, Cindy Sheehan, and, I dunno, maybe Patsy Ramsey. (Note that topical inclusion)

It's pretty clear that they've already adopted that "Ahhhh, but history will be so much kinder to you" approach. (a la Harry Truman)

Once we've had a generation or two to sort through media lies -- and behold the Shining City on the Hill of Baghdad democracy -- then we'll all come around and say, "Damn, that W was right up there with George Washington"

You people haven't been around the Born-Agains much, have you?! They're going to blame the DEVIL! The devil must certainly be moderating this question. Any time you ask an uncomfortable question they'll say that it's the devil talking!

I tend to agree with Patti. Why should he care that nobody likes him? He's pretty well set in material ways for the rest of his life and his advisors have convinced him that history will remember him as one of the greatest Presidents ever.

BTW - I actually had someone blame Clinton in a conversation the other day.

Bri -- me too! That fun conversation I had the other night, the guy said, "we'll know the facts in 30 years," I think a hat-tip to the idea that history will remember Bush kindly, and then he started in about Clinton's policies.

But, on a I'd-better-laugh-or-else-I'll-cry note, Bush is very confused about why Iraqis don't like us more. I almost commented about it on my blog, but it's so dumbelievable I didn't know what to say. I can't find the article, now, or I'd link to it here. I thought I saw it in the NYT, but it could've been something random. Bush sat and thoughtfully listened to people explaining why the Iraqis aren't delighted by our presence in their country. He wants them to express a little more gratitude. I mean, when did he figure this out? And how did Cheney et al keep him from figuring it out for so long??