Tuesday, September 12, 2006

They drank the koolade

I couldn't resist taking a peek at the Rasmussen Report this afternoon to see if Bush got any post-9/11 anniversary bounce. The administration certainly spun it as hard as they could, propagandizing the airwaves and pounding a steady 2-week-long "9/11 9/11 Saddam Al Qaeda BOO!" drumbeat into the public consciousness. Today's Rasmussen Report on Bush's job approval rating, updated at noon eastern time, says:

September 10: Approve- 42% Disapprove- 56%

September 11 Approve- 41% Disapprove- 57%

September 12 Approve- 44% Disapprove- 54%

According to Rasmussen, this is the highest approval rating Bush has gotten in months.

It's amazing. I genuinely expected to see no change at all, or even a slight drop. I was sure that Americans would react negatively to such overt manipulation. Not only that, but the administration's sudden revisiting of a known falsehood in the "9/ll-Iraq" dichotomy was apparently not seen as the insult to the country's collective intelligence that it was. Amazing. Seriously, how bad does this administration have to treat its citizens before they start reacting appropriately?