Bush Slips on Food Blog

As I look back over the events of 2005, I can’t help but think I’ve contributed to the decline in President Bush’s job approval ratings simply by beginning this blog. Talk about the power of the Internets.
I mean, look! Back in February, the guy’s numbers were in the low 50s. But I’M MAD AND I EAT debuted in May of this year, and by June I had him down to 47 percent.
I wonder if it was the arrival of my dual-fuel convection oven that got the ball rolling downhill. I know that was the first post I made here.
In June I put a Howard Dean button on my blog – my first experiment with html tricks, and I still don’t know what I did that day or I might have made the button a permanent part of my sidebar. Anyway, that’s when I got Bush’s numbers below 50 percent for the first time. (Was there any food involved that month? Oh, yes. Lots of green, summery things, like this soup. Look! I already knew how to make links by then. And what’s with the snarky remark about the Preznit at the bottom of that post?)
July found me harvesting the earliest crop of patio-grown tomatoes ever, and also making summery dill pickles. You’d think I’d have been in complete bliss, but no – I always find something to carp about. By the end of the month, I had Bush down to 44 percent, his lowest yet.
Eating in August was, in complete sincerity, one of the best things I’ve ever done. That’s when Cranky and I participated the the Eat Local Challenge. It really changed the way I eat (and shop). However, American military casualties spiked that month in Iraq, and Cindy Sheehan made the scene. I was feeling mellow, though, and refrained from totally jumping on the Preznit’s head, even when he gave me the opportunity.
Until Hurricane Katrina hit, and I lost my patience. Blammo! His numbers were now around 40 percent.
And there they stayed through September, while I got deeply involved with tomatoes and sort of slacked off on the Bush-bashing. I did manage to get one zinger in (and there were tomatoes involved).
In October, lots of political intrigue lended seasoning to an otherwise lazy fall month: The Harriet Miers nomination to the Supreme Court fizzled; Cheney’s chief of staff Scooter Libby resigned after an investigation turned up enough dirt to indict him on several counts of badness, Rove got a little twitchy. I couldn’t stop talking about tomatoes, but I fired off some digs here and there. And Bush slid below the 40 percent approval rating, to 39.
I was still wallowing in local food during November, visiting farmers’ markets whenever possible. Prince Charles and his bride, Camilla, caught wind of my new lifestyle and paid me a visit at the Point Reyes Station market. Meanwhile Americans grew increasingly unhappy with the quagmire in Iraq, and for the first time a majority said they didn’t believe or trust the Preznit. Approval rating? 37 percent.
Bush got a little bump in December, up to 42 or possibly even 45 percent, merely because some Iraqis managed to make it to the polls and vote in their parliamentary elections. It was a good month for feasting, but there was always that little burning feeling in my throat. Then when news broke of domestic spying, authorized by Bush, his numbers once again slid to 40. Talk of impeachment kicked into high gear, and I put up a blog banner using the I-word (I took it down for the holidays; it will return). That’s appetizing.
I’ll try to do even better next year.