The Bully Pulpit

Interesting poll was put out yesterday by the Associated Press, one that warms my heart a little that maybe this nation is paying attention after all:

NEW YORK (AP) -- Most people still think the country is headed in the wrong direction but a new poll says there are more optimists than before and President Barack Obama's numbers are also on the upswing.

An Associated Press-GfK poll says 56 percent of those surveyed in the past week approve of Obama's job performance, up from 50 percent in September. It's the first time since he took office in January that his rating has gone up.

And those who disapprove of Obama are down to 39 percent, down from 49 percent last month.

While a majority of those surveyed remain pessimistic about the direction of the country, the poll found 41 percent now believe the U.S. is headed in the right direction, compared with 37 percent in September.

Of course, that being a FOX affiliate, you still haven't read the good news:

The latest Associated Press-GfK poll has found that opposition to Obama’s health care remake dropped dramatically in just a matter of weeks. Still, Americans remain divided over complex legislation that Democrats are advancing in Congress.

The public is split 40-40 on supporting or opposing the health care legislation, the poll found. An even split is welcome news for Democrats, a sharp improvement from September, when 49 percent of Americans said they opposed the congressional proposals and just 34 percent supported them.

Anger about health care boiled over during August. Lawmakers returning home for town hall meetings faced outcries that the government was trying to take over the system, ushering in higher costs, lower quality — even rationing and euthanasia.

The key, of course, is that last paragraph.

During the month of August and early September, the astroturfed "Tea Bagger Party" movement made significant inroads in the public dialogue about healthcare by making asses of themselves publicly.

Utilizing the rusty saw "the squeaky wheel gets the grease," these whiny cogs stalked and harassed public officials and raped the public dialogue.

This created an atmosphere where people were not only afraid to speak out in opposition to this brutal patriarchal behavior, but to even agree to abide with it, much like a kidnap victim eventually admires her captors.

No longer, and while I suspected this might turn around, the fact is, it happened so suddenly and with so little reaction from the Obama administration that I began to be concerned if in fact he was getting the point.

I guess he did. Strategically, he must have felt that no one was going to pay attention to him when they were going to the beach or the mountains, but that once he could command a prime time fall television audience, he'd begin to win back the folks who in their hearts want to see the country do better by doing good.

The key to this turnaround has been a full-court press to persuade older Americans that Medicare will not be endangered, and that an extension of Medicare-like coverage to all Americans would not be a bad thing.

Amen.

Too, there's an energy aspect to this strategy: rage usually burns out quickly, leaving a deep-seated sense of embarrassment. Here, I think, is the underpinning to the turnaround in Obama's polling numbers, which sunk as low as Bush's in August 2001.

People just got tired of being angry. Anger is fear and fear is exhausting, and people want Obama to do well (despite the reprehensible and disgraceful cheer that arose when Chicago was eliminated by the IOC).

Too, I think middle Americans watched Glenn Beck all but spew venom with respect to Obama, watched as Tea Baggers all but lynched Obama in effigy (haven't seen that yet, so some credit has to be given the racist contingent), and watched the silliness over Obama's slightest move to relax, and just remembered the Moron-In-Chief who preceded him and said, "Hmmmmm, this is not the side I want to be on."

Kudos, Mr. President. You've done well.

Archaeology

The Great Wall. The Pyramids. The Louvre.

In a thousand years or so, archaeologists will dig up the remnants of the great culture that was the Third Milennium, and wonder, "What the hell were they thinking?"

We've learned to accept a certain amount of...kitsch...in our city centers, I suppose. There's a McDonald's across the street from the Empire State Building, as an example, and a block-long shopping center catty-corner to that, with rotating retailers like Victoria's Secret and other mall-centric operations, leading up to Macy's in Herald Square.

Nothing wrong with that. But Pizza Hut and KFC next to the Great Pyramid? That's going to cause some consternation, to be sure.

McDonald's is IN the Louvre, and in a fit of majestic irony, under the Museum of Communism in Prague. Starbucks next to the Great Wall, and I'm not sure if the irony or the coffee is more bitter.

The best of American culture has become so pervasive that historians will debate whether KFC predated Cheops, or if Starbucks was around in the Mongol uprising.

America was always great at absorbing culture and cuisine. Think about it: those great "American" foods-- the hamburger, the hot dog, pizza-- are all European.

And now we've digested them, repackaged and repurposed them, and sent them on their merry way to infest and infect the rest of the world, so much so that I expect we'll start seeing terror attacks involving fast food restaurants more frequently.

We have in our history symbolized great excess and a squandering of wealth, but now we squander majesty and heritage, as well.

That can't be a good thing.

OMG! Just. Go. Away!

I'm really getting tired of the collusionary efforts among the mainstream media to sell us pablum and crap WE DON'T NEED TO SEE!

In fact, as a first step in the twelve step program to wean Americans off shit they don't need to focus on, I'm not going to quote a goddamned thing from that link, and will merely tell you it has to do with a certain reality show that is on the ropes because the couple is getting divorced.

And the only reason I even reveal that much is to compare the country's fascination with a couple of losers to the "pout"rage the right wing showed because Barack Obama flew into Copenhagen for four hours to try to salvage the Chicago Olympic bid.

Seriously, some of the twisted-panties crowd on the right were taking umbrage...said umbrage is now all gone...at how Obama was taking his eye off the economy, off the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other matters of state in order to focus for the briefest of moments on the spectacle of jobs for Chicago.

And yet, here? Nothing. No one would dare criticize the American public for being moronic enough to forget their deliquent mortgages, their lack of health insurance or their jobs dangling by threads all for the sake of feeling superior to people who are one step up from Special Olympians of emotionality.

Indeed, I'd rather the Special Olympics got even half the attention that these two publicity-hungry jackals get!

What is wrong with these people? How can anyone watch this train wreck of a show about a couple who voluntarily decided to drop two litters, and now have to deal with them?

Mind you, this is a show in prime time, which means there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of parents, neglecting the raising of their own kids to be mindlessly entertained by clown car television.

Now Jon and Kate are divorced, a bit quickly in my book given the number of kids involved, and things have gone from embarassing to disgraceful.

Look, there are hundreds or maybe thousands of families who are in similar situations: multiple children, divorce, and struggling to put even $200 in the bank, much less $200,000. Where are their stories? Will Jon and Kate donate the money they've earned to some fund to help the poor families that they are, in absentia, exploiting?

But soft, no, we must pick on the President for trying to improve the nation as we pick at the bones and carcass of a family that had no right being invited into our living rooms in the first place.

I don't mind that TLC has seen fit to take off its mask of being "The Learning Channel" and started showing the most hideous television programs about families and family life ever. But God forbid TLC spend one minute talking about the costs of being un- or underinsured on a family. God forbid they should follow the struggles of a family in a realistic situation: the loss of a job, a catastrophic illness, a divorce, bankruptcy.

You want reality? There's reality! How does a family cope when the breadwinner has a heart attack and can't survive on disability? We did it, when my dad had his heart attack, and I cut back on my college educmacaychun in order to bring some money into the house. And I know I was not alone in this.

And what is this need Americans have to feel so superior to other Americans? We all do it, right, left, South, North, Texans especially! WTF up with that, huh?

We're all in this together, and we can't move a ship of state forward if we're all pulling in different directions.

Ain't That America?

Or are we living in the time of the plague?

Detroit: Too broke to bury their dead

We can bail out General Motors and big banks, but let a poor person die and we stack 'em like cordwood.

We could have had healthcare for the poor. That might have prevented a lot of this. But no, the economic royalists MUST have their say and way.

Nopbody Asked Me, But...

(ed. note: Yea, I know, I misspelled "Nobody" but I can't change it or else the link gets hosed. I blame the wine.)

1) In not unexpected news, serial misogynist David Letterman admitted to banging his staff like a cheap drum. All puns intended.

2) I think it's safe to say that Micro$oft has lost its way. When will Gates step back in?

3) The Nobel Prizes will be awarded next week. Will Bob Dylan win in literature? I think he's a slam dunk, but then this is Scandinavia...

4) If this poll had been posted about the last President, you can bet there would have been mass round-ups of the voters and internment in prison camps, overseen by Michelle Malkin.

5) Finally, a financial story one can sink one's teeth into, complete with shady bankers, conspiracies involving high government officials and yes, sex. Well, not sex, actually...

6) This fucking idiot helped the dollar fall on the foreign exchange markets yesterday with her inane...ok, insane questioning of Ben Bernanke...about ACORN! Way to stay classy, Mickie!

7) My teeth grind from the stupidity.

8) This is the first piece of computer hardware to excite me since the original iPhone. Rumours are rumours, but this one seems more and more realistic.

9) So, imagine riding your bicycle for 25 hours. From 10 AM Saturday to 10AM Sunday. In a frog costume. In Utah. I'm sorry...which part of that seemed surreal to you? (MissC, feel free...)

10) Darth Vader has a breakdown on the M1.

More Puny Poutrage

Glenn Beck ought to try poutine. It might make his memory better:

Last night Fox News continued its disregard for the facts in an attempt to smear the Administration's efforts to win the Olympics for the United States. In the past, hosting the Olympics has been a source of pride and unity for the country, but once again Fox News' Glenn Beck program has shown that nothing is worthy of respect if it can be used as part of a partisan attack to boost ratings.

At the White House blog, there is a list of misstatements and outright lies Beck told just Tuesday night.

Let me add one more: Beck, aided and feloniously abetted by the rest of the rubber-lipped goon squad (e.g. Michelle Malkin, among others), has been outraged that Barack Obama would go to Copenhagen to make the case for the Olympics to come to Chicago, his home town.

Yet, strangely silent he was when George W. Bush was vacationing in Crawford, TX (I hesitate to say he was ranching) in August 2005 when Katrina hit and 250,000 people were stranded for days without adequate food, water, or shelter.

Even more strange, he had nothing to say about Bush's extended vacation in the summer of 2001, when he was shown a PDB warning that Al Qaeda was imminently to attack Americans on American soil, likely using commercial aircraft.

Indeed, he came to church on Bush in the last few months of the Bush term, finally speaking out against the massive bank bailout...which he supported just days earlier!

The sense I get from the right wing this month is, they've lost the battle on healthcare reform, lost the battle on economic stimulus, lost the battle on government aid for banks and the auto industry, and are faced with having to find some way to attack what appears to be a rock-solid wall around the Obama castle.

By flinging mud, or worse.

And when you fling mud, two things happen to a large wall:

1) Nothing.

2) It back-splatters back all over you.

The past few years have seen the decline of the heavyweights of right-wing punditry: Rush Limbaugh was shown to be a power-craved madman who would tear apart the GOP for his own ego. He was quickly muted. Ann Coulter was shown to be a whiny-voiced harridan who would attack anyone for a buck. She was quickly muted. Michelle Malkin was shown to be a hypocritical fussbudget with a counter-top obsession and a need to punish innocent children. She was quickly muted.

Into the void has stepped Glenn Beck. He will undoubtedly meet the same fate.