When Did Bush "Jump the Shark"

[WI_DEM]

Poll question: When Did Bush "Jump the Shark"

[Hello_Kitty]

1. He jumped the shark back when he shirked his Nat'l Guard duty

He demonstrated his true character way back then IMHO. But I put Katrina because that's when his approval ratings, which had been hovering around 50%, which IS abysmal enough, took a precipitous nosedive.

[MrSlayer]

2. With us or with the general public?

With us I don't believe he ever had the chance to make the "Marachi Crunch" episode let alone get to the Shark.

With the general public I think Katrina did it. After that they were ready to listen to CIA leak stuff and all.

[degreesofgray]

3. Bush jumped the shark

long before he was selected president, sometime in Alabama when he should have been fulfilling his guard duty.

[mark11727]

4. I have to go with Hurricane Katrina...

...people really saw what happened (how the hell do you hide three states' worth of disaster areas?) and finally realized "my God, this schmuck doesn't have a freaking clue what he's doing."

Of course, we saw it coming five years ago... and no, we're not gloating about it, either.

[fujiyama]

5. He's jumped the shark several times

Relating it to the shark analogy, he's like an awful sitcom that for some reason, just keeps being renewed, in spite of awful ratings.

For me, it was the first primary debate in '99. He looked like the dumbest fuckin idiot I ever saw.

A few jumpings include:

Mission Accomplished
Bring it On
My Pet Goat

Hell I could go on. This man jumps a shark every day.

But for recent jumpings, I'd say the thing that started it all was Schiavo. Ever since then it has been down hill for him and the repukes. This coupled with DeLay's troubles, Iraq going downhill, Katrina, the Fitzgerald Investigation, no real sense of an improving economy (I live in MI and things here are not going all that great), and a general sense that things are not that great have not helped him since the 'election'.

[VolcanoJen]

8. I'm with you on Schiavo. It really was all downhil from there on.

I need to tweak my timeline, below.

[Lochloosa]

15. I agree with you. Schiavo was the key. When the people saw

how much this government wants to control their lives, they started paying attention. It took awhile, but they don't like what they see.

[NNN0LHI]

6. In August of 2001 when he got the PDB entitled...

"Bin Laden determined to attack inside the United States"

And the idiot decided to stay on vacation posing for photo ops cutting brush. Did he think bin Laden was just kidding around?

Don

[VolcanoJen]

7. Katrina.

I've been anti-Bush since January 2001. But here's my timeline as to when Bush jumped the shark this year with non-DUers. I really believe that if you look at Bush's summer, it all went to crap after Katrina.

August 2005: Iraq Veteran Paul Hackett comes thisclose to defeating Jean Schmidt in a Congressional special election, in the most conservative Republican district in Ohio. It's the best showing for a Democrat in the district since 1974, and, nationally, it serves as the first "referendum" on Bush's Iraq stance in an historically strong Republican district.

August 2005: Cindy Sheehan forms Camp Casey outside of Crawford, Texas. The media joins her camp, and Iraq makes headlines for a solid month.

Early September 2005: Hurricane Katrina destroys New Orleans, and much of the Gulf Coast. Bush is slow to respond on a federal level; his FEMA director, Michael Brown, becomes a tragic national punchline.

October 26, 2005: The 2,000 American soldier is killed in Iraq.

October 28, 2005: Scooter Libby is indicted on five counts.

[upi402]

9. All of the above...and then some

:nuke:

[Crunchy Frog]

10. He jumped the shark for me before he was even selected

but for the American people as a whole, I would have to say that it was his "handling" of the Katrina crisis. He was clearly weakening prior to that, but I think that was the one that pushed him over the edge.

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. 1967: Coathanger burns at Yale

Still, at Yale as on other campuses around the country, an era was ending and fun-loving preppies were falling out of step. In the fall of 1967, when huge numbers of college students were marching on Washington to protest the Vietnam War, Bush was quoted in the New York Times defending the branding of fraternity pledges with a hot coat hanger, saying the resulting wounds resembled "only a cigarette burn."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/campaigns/wh2000/stories/bush072799.htm

You see? Fraternity pranks are OK, because they're just like cigarette burns! I'm sure this gives you a great insight into the Bush household, where cigarette burns were just part of life's rich pageant.

[Nikki Stone 1]

20. And of course, Abu Ghraib was just a "fraternity prank"

:(

[Cooley Hurd]

12. July 6, 1946...

...the day he sloshed out of this woman's womb:

[greekspeak]

21. Seconded

[SalmonChantedEvening]

13. The Axis of Evil speech.

Once he tried to link 2 mortal enemies, Iran and Iraq, and North Korea (whose dealing in arms were primarily with Libya via our bestest anti-terrah pal Pakistan) together, he lost my suspended disbelief.

[mwb970]

14. Schiavo. (n/t)

[akarnitz]

16. "Mission Accomplished" nt

[Cats Against Frist]

23. Yeah -- that's what I was going to say. n/t

[Vinca]

17. He officially jumped the shark when he strummed the guitar as

people drowned. He's been hopping back and forth over it for years. When you hear the theme from "Jaws," you'll know he's about to give a farewell speech. I predict it will be as soon as he's tied to Abramoff and can't 9/11 his way out of it.

[BurgherHoldtheLies]

18. Schiavo (and the rest of the GOP jumped with him) nt

[MrBenchley]

19. If you mean, when did the public perception change dramatically

I think it was when he raced back from Rancho Corrupto in the dead of night to meddle in the Terri Schiavo tragedy.

Most Americans really did not give much of a rats ass...and a large number looked at the "pro-life" circus with distaste. pResident Weaksuck hadn't interrupted his vacation for the "Bin Laden determined to strike" memo, but he interrupted it to meddle in one family's tragedy. That struck so many people as wrong on so many levels...especially when he and the GOP spent the next few days strutting and crowing about having done so.

[WinkyDink]

22. Only Katrina turned the media.

THEN, they became emboldened.

[ThomWV]

24. What Does That Idiotic Sounding Phrase Mean?

I have no clue what it means.

[tinfoilinfor2005]

25. I voted Katrina

But I think Cindy weakened him before Katrina laid the final blow. Not offering ten minutes of time or a glass of ice tea to a military mom with a dead son while meeting and greeting big money donors made him look weak. And during the same six week vacation, many other mothers lost their sons. Only Katrina, another mother, ended it for him. It was a bit of poetic justice.

[lonestarnot]

26. When he was born as he should have been aborted!

[tallahasseedem]

27. On Inauguration day...

when he could barely repeat the oath without sounding like a pompous ass.

[Mutley]

28. I say on 9-11.

That was the first of his biggest and worst mistakes, and it set in motion everything else that has gone wrong since.

[burythehatchet]

29. The day he jumped through

the toxic waste site commonly known as Bar's uterus.