WP: Bush Escapes Capital to Stump in the South

[kskiska]

As His Approval Rating Dips, Some Draw Parallels With Scrutiny Clinton Faced

VAN BUREN, Ark., May 11 -- While Congress held another hearing about the abuse of detainees in Iraq and negotiated to view explicit photos and videos, President Bush flew into the South on Tuesday to joke with a mayor about filling potholes and to lavish praise on a junior high school with strong test scores.

Bush spoke in a gymnasium so steamy that the locals fanned themselves with checkbooks, snapshots and paper cups all through his talk. The floor was slick with dripped sweat. The president joshed about his "hot air" as he defended his No Child Left Behind education program from Democratic charges that it is underfunded and penalizes schools heavy on students with special needs.

After his speech, a heavily perspiring Bush shed his coat and worked the crowd at Butterfield Junior High School for 14 minutes, longer than usual -- as though the homeward-bound Air Force One did not have its usual magnetic tug on him. Bush looked grateful for an excuse to get out of Washington, just as he said he was relieved to be away from the capital last week for a campaign bus trip through the Midwest, as the prison scandal was erupting.

But heavy media and congressional attention to the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison is drowning out the desired messages of the White House and the Bush-Cheney campaign. Bush's approval rating has dipped to territory that some of his closest advisers consider dangerous.

Bush and his staff face a predicament that in some ways parallels that of former president Bill Clinton during the imbroglio over Monica S. Lewinsky that led to Clinton's impeachment. They are trying to get on with the business of government by pushing preordained messages when official Washington and much of the nation is focused on something else.

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18981-2004May11.html

[harrison]

1. God, for the days when all we had to worry about was whether

the President was getting himself a discreet blowjob.

[MikeG]

2. Where is the stump in the South that he escaped to?

[Gildor Inglorion]

3. *hehehe* Probably to a "stump broke" heifer....

something most all southern boys grow up knowing about.

[PartyPooper]

4. Dipping digits draw dipshit dimson outa' Dodge.

So, what else is new?

:eyes:

[hadrons]

5. Dumbya's just checking out the cannon fodder for next year ....

someone got to protect the oil wells, err freedoms in Iraq

[despairing optimist]

6. His approval rating "dips"?

What does it take to cause an avalanche?!

[murielm99]

7. Welcome to DU, ceejayay.

[rebellious woman]

8. Jefferson Davis ,President of the Southern Confederacy. aka "w"

[catzies]

9. Second campaign stop this week talking about potholes...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1585144

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

10. "...fanned themselves with checkbooks..."

Control the language.

[MotorCityMan]

12. Yes, I noticed that sentence, too

"Fanned themselves with checkbooks..." How very Republican...

[Richardo]

11. The Junior High gym can't afford air conditioning? That's NCLB!

I'm glad he had to sweat through the whole thing.

[KansDem]

13. This must be purely a money-raising trip...

Since when does an incumbent, conservative, Christian Republican President have to campaign in the South??? Either this is nothing more than a fund-raising trip, or Shrub is in worse shape than reported in the whore media...

For a God-appointed NeoCon to have to shore up his base at this late date is not a good sign for the NeoFascists.

on edit: ...or it's to get Bush out of DC during the current crisis and that's all it is...