President Obama Is Up To 66% Approval

As of today President Obama’s approval rating is at 66%, that is the highest it’s been since February 27th (when it was at 67%.)

The right wing meme that Obama is losing popularity has become increasingly comical. It’s clear that all of the right wing’s baseless attacks (and there have been many) on the President are backfiring. Not only are they having no negative effect on Obama’s popularity but they are also making Republicans even less popular.

The GOP may want to think about saving their attacks when there is something reasonable to attack the President on. Right now they seem foolish because Obama is doing such a great job as President thus far and their attacks are so clearly unsubstantiated.

Bush Admin. = Torture

Of course another big factor is all of the information coming out about torture during the Bush administration. Not only is this reminding Americans of the “bad old days” of Bush/Cheney and making Obama look even better in comparison but the Republicans are responding to it in such an unfortunate way.

They are trying to make the case that somehow prosecuting members of the Bush. admin for instituting a policy of torture (something that make them war criminals by international law) is a political move. By making that case they are branding the Republican party as the party of torture. This is not about politics, it’s about right and wrong and the Bush admin. was very very wrong. Criminally wrong, in fact.

And how is it that prosecuting a President for years over receiving consensual oral sex is all about the “rule of law” but prosecuting an administration for war crimes is just politics? Republicans of 1998 meet the Republicans of 2009. Is a blow job really more important to these people than the fact that a civilized nation does not torture?

We should not torture for any reason, ever. The fact that torture does not work for eliciting real information certainly makes it even more insane and when you consider the fact that this kind of torture (like water boarding) had been used by our enemies over the years to elicit false confessions the whole situation gets even worse.

It appears that the Bush admin’s policy of torture was not designed to get real information out of prisoners but instead designed to get false confessions of a some kind of link between Iraq & 9/11 (we now know there was absolutely no link at all.)

Take a moment to let that seep in. As Paul Krugman says, there’s a word for what the Bush admin did: “Evil.”

This is not a political issue. It’s not a disagreement over policy. It’s a clear case of right & wrong. Of lawful and unlawful. And what the Bush admin. did was not merely wrong, it was evil and it was certainly unlawful as well. Dick Cheney & Karl Rove shouldn’t be on television telling more lies to the American people, they should be in prison where war criminals belong.