Month: August 2010
Slide On, Steve
We can sympathize with Stephen Slater.
Air travel will get to you, sooner or later.
It takes chutzpah and aplomb
To shout out the F-bomb
And still come off as a hero, not a hater.
GOP ‘Party of No’ Gambit Backfires — Voter Approval of Republicans at an All-Time Low
From the moment Pres. Obama took office, Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and the rest of the GOP leadership in Congress have engaged in a high-risk, gridlock-on-steroids strategy — a level of obstructionism that is unparalleled in U.S. history, particularly including a record-breaking number of filibusters in the Senate.
How bad is it for congressional Republicans? They’re even lagging behind Sarah Palin, whose approval rate is just 29 percent.
Their “party of no” strategy has been effective in two ways. First, they have used obstructionism to weaken legislation to protect the profits of their corporate donors. They have done this by sucker-punching the president and the Democrats on every major bill — first by threatening to vote no unless the particulars of the legislation were changed to benefit corporations and then by voting resoundingly against the bill anyway, despite getting everything they demanded.
That second part — the lockstep voting, gridlock-on-steroids tactic — was intended to slow things down unnecessarily as a way to frustrate voters who, more than anything, wanted to see progress in solving the multiple crises the country is facing. This was an especially neat trick because attentive voters were surely aware that the crises were caused by these same Republican senators and House members rubberstamping the Bush anti-regulatory, anti middle-class agenda when they controlled Congress the last time.
Frustrating voters with gridlock is a tried-and-true tactic the party out of power can use to drive up the negatives of the party in power. It has always worked as a zero-sum game in our calcified two-party system. When voters’ approval of one party goes down, approval of the other party goes up.
But it hasn’t worked out that way this time. While the Republicans’ “party of no” strategy has been effective in poisoning the well — the Democrats’ negatives are way up — according to the new NBC/Wall St. Journal poll, the GOP’s uber-obstructionism appears to have backfired. Big time:
Verbatim
Our place, in terms of being considered one of the most corrupt states in terms of politics, is pretty secure. It’s almost like we’ve kind of relegated New Jersey to second place, and Louisiana’s kind of like on injured reserve or something.
— Former Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar (R), quoted by the AP, on being the last elected governor in the state not to face criminal charges.
Olbermann Schools the White House on the Difference Between Liberals and Republicans
In the segment before this commentary on MSNBC’s “Countdown” last night, Keith Olbermann made a point of saying that he personally likes Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman and that he believe Gibbs does a good job, so his commentary here is not meant as a personal retaliation against Gibbs’ senseless and badly timed attack on the “professional left” yesterday.
Instead, what Olbermann delivers here is a thoughtful, measured rebuttal to the idea that left-wing media — like the opinion shows on MSNBC and liberal radio talk shows and websites — is just an analog to Fox News and right-wing radio and blogs.
Census Refunds $1.6 Bil
$1.6 Billion
— The amount the U.S. Census Bureau will be returning to the federal budget. The agency needed less funding than anticipated since 72 percent of Americans returned the Census form with no follow-up required.
Majority of Liberals Still Like Obama
In a preview to a survey that will be released this week, Public Policy Polling’s Tom Jensen apologizes for writing a “liberals like Obama” every couple of months, but notes that there always seems to be a need to remind people that the president’s support on the left remains strong:
On the national poll we’ll release this week 85 percent of liberals approve of the job Obama is doing to 12 percent disapproving; 88 percent support his health care plan looking back with only 7 percent opposed.
Not only are those numbers good, but they’re steady. Obama’s favor with liberals hasn’t been on the decline. In May his approval with liberals was 87/10. In February it was 81/15. In November it was 87/4. Even as his ratings have declined overall he’s stayed in that sort of mid-80s range with liberal voters.
The volume of the voices of liberals who don’t like Obama is much greater than the volume of their numbers, which probably means Robert Gibbs shouldn’t let the select few get him so irritated.
The Clintonian Argot
When Chelsea asked for parental permission
To marry Marc on a happy occasion,
Hillary said,” Now, darling Chelsea,
“Did you have sex with Mezvinsky?”
Chelsea replied, “Not by Daddy’s definition!”
