Proving the people's capriciousness

Polls. They're bad. They elevate the opinion of every Tom, Dick and Harry to that of all-knowing deity. Does it matter if the seventy nine year old lady in the grocery store line doesn't agree with the Iraq invasion? How about the dude who works the Quizno's sandwich line?

While it would be oh-so-democratic (I use the term in it's Greek sense), to say that all opinions matter equally, when we really think about it, aren't we glad they don't?

Here's some numbers that may enlighten those who think the guy cleaning toilets at the mall knows as much about foreign policy as Condi Rice:

Bush's approval rating after 9/11: 90% (only 5% disapproved)

Bush's approval rating in the spring of 2003 just after Saddam was removed from power: A bit above 70%. It hovers around 30% now. Man it's fun to be the life of the party by throwing the Bush joke out there, isn't it? Chicks dig it.

Percent that approved of Bush's handling of terror just before around the time the war began: 90%.

Current approval of Bush's handling of terror: 39%.

And of course there was the bipartisan endorsement of the Iraq war. Just look at the voting records of Hillary, Kerry and Gore.

So don't try to escape, fellow American. Don't try to hide and tell everyone what YOU would do if YOU were president. We already know what you would have done--the numbers showed that you would have done just as Bush did--rid the word of its worst tyrant. Don't tell me the president doesn't listen to the people's will (i.e. polls). Maybe he listens to your will too much.

Maybe we should take these polls and flush them down the proverbial crapper and let electoral democracy do its thing.