It's About Coalitions Not Purity, Part Twenty-One

"Bush's Popularity Soars" 
Manuel Noriega was the leader of Panama who had worked with the CIA for some time, but American leaders knew he was responsible for some of the illegal drug trafficking to the U.S. during the 1980s. After Noriega nullified the Panamanian presidential election when his attempts to "fix" the results were made public, including by election observer Jimmy Carter, President George Bush had more U.S. troops sent to the Canal Zone. The tensions increased and eventually the Panamanian government said that war therefore existed with the U.S. and Bush reacted by sending in troops, as there were thousands of Americans living in Panama. Noriega was deposed, taken into custody and sent to the U.S. for trial on numerous charges having to do with drug trafficking. At his later trial, he was found guilty and ended up being sentenced to 30 years in prison, but he was also wanted by France.

Then in the summer of 1990, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein sent troops into neighboring Kuwait. In response, all sorts of economic sanctions against Iraq were put in place by many nations, but these were just the prelude to military operations, as the U.S. and Britain dispatched large forces to the Persian Gulf area, especially to Saudi Arabia, which, along with Egypt and Syria, provided military support. When operations commenced, there was little doubt about the eventual outcome, as Iraqi forces in Kuwait were routed and fled toward their own border. The complex Middle East political situation between Muslim nations and Israel was one of the primary reasons for not going deep into Iraq and taking down Saddam Hussein. Various restrictions were placed on the Iraqi military thereafter, leaving a running sore for the region and the U.S., but getting Hussein would likely have led to a full-blown war in the Middle East. With the goal of freeing Kuwait met, the war was deemed a success and President Bush's popularity soared in all of the public opinion polls.

The shakiness of the American economy toward the end of Reagan's time in office carried over to Bush's term and the economy slowed further. Then the Gulf War sent oil and gas prices skyrocketing and the economy went into a recession. The recession, developments in Bush's dealings with Congress, strong opposition within his own political party and a third party candidate would combine to threaten Bush's reelection, although initially it was thought it would be a relatively easy campaign for President Bush in 1992, as his high popularity in polls had scared some prominent Democrats, like Mario Cuomo, from running.
  
Next, "Bush's Poll Numbers Plummet"

WORD HISTORY:
Clot (Clod)-This word goes back to Indo European "gleuh," which had the notion of "stick together, adhere," with the further sense, "form into a ball." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "klaut," with the same general meanings. This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "clott," which meant "lump, something amassed into a lump." The verb developed later (seemingly the 1300s or early 1400s) from the noun. It is really the same word as "clod" (also spelled "clodde," by some a few hundred years ago), but by the 1500s/1600s, "clod" meant only "lump of earth," whereas "clot" had come to be used more for "congealed fluid," including the medical sense for blood. There are various forms, with varied meanings, in other Germanic languages, and these are only some examples: German has "Klotz" (block or chunk of wood) and "Kloss" (dumpling or meat ball, but the word is used more in the north), Low German Saxon has "Klüüt" (which means both "dumpling" and "clod of earth"), Dutch has "kluit" (lump, clod) and "kloot" (ball bearing, globe), Danish has "klods" (lump, clod, block), Norwegian has "klode" (sphere). I didn't find forms in Swedish, Icelandic or Frisian, but that doesn't mean they don't exist, and the Old Germanic word diverged into various meanings, which I'll be covering in the near future.