Paul at NBS Reports on the Bush-Meter’s Drastic Jump

(By Ray D.)

The Bush-meter has undergone drastic changes of late. Within a two week period, from one article to the next, the SPIEGEL ONLINE meter, the magazine's estimate of President Bush's chances for victory, rocketed from 25% to 60%:

35 points in two weeks: Now that's a bounce!

SPON not trying to demonize Bush? A sinister grimace is transformed into a sinister grin when Bush surpasses 50%...

Here is our translation of a well-written article by Paul over at No Blood for Sauerkraut on the drastic changes registered recently on the Bush-meter. Paul starts with two paragraphs from Marc Pitzke’s article and concludes with an excellent analysis of his own. Here it is:

From SPIEGEL ONLINE: Bush-meter: End Spurt of the Cliché Machines:

In any case the Vietnam dodger Bush, who can’t even prove he served without gaps in the “Champagne unit” of the National Guard, has pulled off a work of art in establishing himself as a war hero. And it was thanks to clever choreography, brilliant timing, patriotic optics and the factually disproved propaganda of his swift-boat surrogates with whom he claims he doesn’t have the slightest connection to – other than of course a shared law firm, shared financiers and shared friends.

The true Vietnam hero Kerry, by contrast, who led his comrades home through the fire of the Vietcong, is suddenly left standing there as the “Girlie-Man,” a magnet for all the dim-witted stereotypes, that have been constantly coursing through America’s Midwest: Men play football and drink beer, women read books and drink wine, blablabla. “Castration warfare” is what New York Times columnist Frank Rich calls this tactic of the Bush team. Image consultants can take this as a good example in the future – or as a warning: One doesn’t normally take the photo press along for harmless surfing, when one knows that the opponent will shy away from nothing. Bush promptly had Kerry’s surfing outfit ridiculed as “stupid, small biker pants.”

Paul's analysis: Yes, there it is again! The Bush-meter lives! Marc Pitzke really just needed the time to arrange an explanation for the disaster. Admittedly, the explanation is still not especially plausible, but what it lacks in logical stringency is made up for easily by an excess of bitterness.

Because just as the Bush-meter earlier made the mistake of interpreting every statement critical of the government as an omen of the unavoidable downfall of the Republicans, the author lapses into an apocalyptic, end-of-world mood, just because unflattering pictures are now not only being shown of Bush, but of Kerry as well. By the way, even if things go wrong for Kerry there is sure to be a spot available for him. How would, for example, an embassy post in France be?

Pitzke appropriately completes his sudden defeatism with an embarrassing harangue against the audience the likes of which we haven't seen in a while. Because these stupid Americans don't know how to show proper respect to brilliant political strategies like the stomping of efforts to democratize the Middle East or the renewal of cooperation with the movers of worlds a la Jacques Chirac, they are just inviting us to mock them as white trash. It's nice to know that SPIEGEL is already searching for excuses for the election defeat.

The undisputed super-gag is however, without a doubt the martial tone displayed here. Accusations of dodging military service and praise for heroism under enemy fire are categories, that we actually to now only heard 20 years ago from members of the CDU "Stahlhelm" fraction, and that we thought had died out. The mood at SPIEGEL is likely not so good at the moment. One begins to automatically ask oneself whether the editor's carpet is beginning to exhibit bite marks...

"Men play football and drink beer." John Kerry indulging what Pitzke calls "dim-witted Midwestern stereotypes?"

Indeed, SPIEGEL ONLINE will begin looking for more and more excuses if Bush begins to pull away from Kerry and wins the election. They will likely seek to delegitimize the entire election process and label Americans as suckers duped by Bush's evil "attack" campaign. Pitzke has already published another article questioning the legitimacy of the entire election system itself with references to defective voting machines, teams of lawyers on both sides ready to dispute close votes state-by-state and the barring of ex-criminals from the vote in Florida.

These changes in approach at SPON have not gone undetected...we will continue to monitor things as we move towards the election.

Comments

[Don]

If 'drinking beer and playing football' are dim-witted, then most of Germany (and the US) qualify.

[Don]

Is the new bush-meter an over-reaction? I don't think so. Bush is leading in the polls between 1 and 11 points, depending upon the poll you read. Call it a - or 6 point lead on average. 60% really means 60-40. Kerry has a 40% chance to win. That is probably too high (I'd rate him at no more than 33%). But even that is not an insignificant chance to win.

Rating Bush at 60% does not mean that Bush wins 60% of the vote. If Bush really were drawing 60% support in the polls Kerry's real chances would be less than 1%. 5% is a gap which has been overcome in the past. Reagan and both Bush's overcame that kind of gap. But Kerry hasn't shown anything liek the qualities of character that Reagan and the current Bush have. And Bush isn't Mike Dukakis.....

[George M]

I heard somewhere on talk radio that 12 or more German Burgermeisters were coming to Washington to plead against base closures. Apparently their cities will be devestated by the newest rounds of force reduction pertaining to Korea and Germany. I haven't heard or seen anything in SPON or anywhere else....anybody have any follow ons to this story?

[Kees Rudolf]

So Mr. Pitzke is writing about "the factually disproved propaganda of his [Bush's]swift-boat surrogates".
I suppose the average Spiegel-reader, known for his intellectual curiosity and critical sense, will not be content to hear simply that some unfavorable story about Kerry is just propaganda, without knowing what the story actually amounts to and why exactly it shouldn't be true.
We can safely assume, therefore, that Spiegel-readers recently were exhaustively informed about what the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were actually saying about Kerry and that conclusive proof has been presented to them that those Swift Boat Veterans were merely lying and that Kerry was a real hero in Vietnam. Of course there was also recently in Der Spiegel an exhaustive review of the newly published book "Unfit for Command", with a complete point for point refutation of al the bad arguments put forward by the author, with whom BTW Bush shares of course a law firm, financiers or friends.
Der Spiegel, a really informative magazine for highly educated people.

Etwas OT, aber interessante Entwicklung: Die Dokumente, auf die sich Dan Rather (CBS) in seiner Sendung "60 Minutes" beruft und die Bushs Dienst bei der Air National Guard zum Thema haben, stellen sich mehr und mehr als Faelschungen heraus (aktuell berichten die Washington Post und ABC News darueber).

Natuerlich laesst es sich Mark Pitzke nicht nehmen, diese zusammengestrickten Aussagen, die dem damaligen Bush-Vorgesetzten Killian in der National Guard in den Mund geschoben wurden, in seinem neuesten Spiegel-Artikel "Wähle Bush - oder stirb" als bare Muenze zu nehmen.

[Downer]

Deutlicher kann's eigentlich kaum sein:

Bush Support Strong After Convention
Kerry Favorability Rating Plunges in New Survey

By Richard Morin and Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, September 10, 2004; Page A01

President Bush emerged from his New York convention with a solid lead over Democratic challenger John F. Kerry, strengthening his position on virtually every important issue in the campaign and opening up a clear advantage on many of the personal characteristics that influence voters in presidential elections, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

For the first time in a Post-ABC News poll this year, a majority of probable voters say they plan to vote for Bush. Among those most likely to vote in November, Bush holds a lead of 52 percent to 43 percent over Kerry, with independent Ralph Nader receiving 2 percent of the hypothetical vote. Among all registered voters, Bush leads Kerry 50 percent to 44 percent.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9060-2004Sep9.html

Um was wollen wir wetten, dass Pitzke den Bush-Messer am Montag von 60 Prozent auf 25 Prozent absacken lässt?