without 9/11, bush's approval rating would be 20%

You nailed many issues. Bush is a week minded hypocrit. this is the man who was a drunk and a drug addict, yet when he gets to be president, he makes laws that would have prevented him from being president. (of course, he knows that he can afford a lawyer, and the poor can't, so his laws are just meant to arrest the poor)
He complains about special treatment for minorities in getting scholarships, but thinks it's fine for him to get into yale because his dad went there and he is rich and white. So it's bad if minorities get favors and they must do it on merit, but he should not have to do it on merit, just connections.
The problem arises in the non-voter. I used to think this group was very lazy. I have since found out that many of them understand what's going on (political Science graduates and intellects), and are so sickened by it that they tune it out. Kind of like having an abusive spouse and realizing you can't do anything about it, and if you fight, you get beat worse.
I have also talked to my Republican friends, and they say the same things your's do. That George must know more than we do because he's a good honest religous man. I remind them, so was Hitler, and saddam claims to be religous. Unfortunatly, I was raised in a religous Republican background so I can relate to the brainwashing they have been exposed to. Every week in church there was someone that spoke not only of faith, but blind faith. Now that I think for myself and with an open mind, this blind faith thing is the most scary, dangerous theory to be utilized in a democracy and against everything that our forefathers fought and died to prevent. Now, instead of fighting blind faith, our soldiers are in Iraq dying because of their blind faith.
Republicans, ask yourself, if George told you to drink poison, would you? Oh, yes you would, you are doing the same thing now.
Pay attention, please