The Scrabble Factor

Jeez, I wrote this six months ago and forgot to post it. It's not that great, and it has been overcome by events, but it was, at the time, a decent theory. The Scrabble Factor.....

The latest CBS News poll shows President Bush at his lowest approval rating of his 5 years in office - 34 percent. 59 percent disapprove of how he is handling his job. This rating could dip even lower as the release of the video tapes indicating he was briefed on the potential of the breach of the New Orleans levees come into the public view. The political pundits will blame these and other factors - such as the Dubai port deal, the medicare policy mess, the recent violence bordering on civil war in Iraq, as contributing to his low poll numbers.

All those things are contributory, obviously. But assuming the American people as a whole pay close enough attention to radically change their opinion of this guy after re-electing him 18 months ago is absurd. Because if the American people cared about truth, integrity and sound policy, they would never have re-elected this fuck. Sound bites and spin drive public opinion. So why isn't it working any more? The themes are still there, but we're not buying it anymore. What gives?

Here's my theory. Bush was refreshingly anti-Clinton. Clinton was the know-it-all suck up in school that you wanted to kick the shit out of. He was also the filthy cheat that pulled dirty tricks on you to win over friends and get his way. But he was brilliant, and he was charismatic. He could make you feel special while he was fucking you over. Bush came off as no-nonsense, grounded, and someone who really didn't seem like he gave a shit about winning. When he was installed as President, a lot of people simply relaxed. He can't do no harm, he's smart enought to be elected President, it'll be ok.

Unfortunately for Bush, it's important to Americans that someone smarter than themselves is running the show. And they were nervous about Bush from the get-go, that's how come they almost elected Al Gore and John Kerry president. Gore was like your pain in the ass aunt who whines about wasting water and green beans, and Kerry was like the scary talking trees in the Wizard of Oz. Bush should have lost to BOTH of them, but he didn't, because we'd rather have a cowboy than a talking tree or a paranoid aunt. But he almost lost to them becuase they were both clearly smarter than he was. But Bush was judged "smart enough" by the american people.

Then 9/11 happened, and he got a really long pass. But slowly but surely, the American people see how this dude is doing his job, and can relate it to simple games of smarts and strategy, and realize they might be able to kick this dude's ass in trivial pursuit.

For the simple folk, they see that it's costing us well over $100 billion dollars a year to prosecute the war in Iraq. They've started to realize that they could probably trick this fucker into buying Baltic and Mediterranean Avenue for thousands of dollars. For the more intelligent Risk players, they see that this dipshit would bulk up in the middle east, which is a losing strategy unless you can roll lucky.

Poker players see how he backed down on the Harriet Meyers nomination. I've got a falwell straight, i guess you say, and he folds every time. Spades players start to realize they'd clean his clock as he assumes he can win a trick by force of will and American Values, rather than a high spade.

But what's driven him so low, I believe, is the scrabble factor. Everyone in this country has been forced to play Scrabble at least once. And if you're good at it, you love it, and if you suck at it, you hate it. And if you suck at it, you vow never to play it again. Millions of americans, who have vowed to never play scrabble again, want to play again. Because they have heard the president speak. They are certain they can beat him. They know there's only one "r" in strategy. They know they can challenge "nuculer". The President doesn't.