If by "polarizing" you mean "popular" ...

There is a meme being pushed by the GOP and the Right that President Barack Obama is "the most polarizing president" we've had in a long time.

Really?

To the polls we go ...

So, let’s add it all up.

• Over 60% of the American people currently approve of Obama – 10% more than approved of either Bush I or Bush II at this point.

• Republican Party identification has shrunk substantially and the Party’s remaining supporters have become more intensely partisan. Nonetheless, even so, over one-quarter – 27% of these hard-core Republicans still approve of Obama.

• And 57-60% - a solid, commanding majority -- of independents approve of him.

So, Let’s all send Gerson a message: “Hey, Mike, cut out the histrionics. Blow your nose, put away the silly polka-dot hanky and stop the sanctimonious blubbering about Obama causing partisan division. The Oscars are over.

America isn’t divided – it’s solidly behind Obama.

And Chuck Todd and the others over at FirstRead chime in:

Polar opposites:

A lot has been made recently about that new Pew poll showing Obama to have the largest gap in partisan approval among recent presidents in their first year in office: 88% of Democrats approve of Obama's job, while just 27% of Republicans say the same thing. But here are a couple of things to consider:

One, the Republican Party is more conservative now, and its moderates are now sitting in the independent category now (the Pew poll has Obama’s approval among independents at 57%).

Two, Obama is still approved by one in four Republicans.

When that number gets into the teens or single digits, then the "P" word -- polarization -- can fairly be used.

For example, in our January 2009 NBC/WSJ poll, right before he left office, just 6%
of Democrats approved of George W. Bush’s job.

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We're gonna need a bigger boat ...

An old friend wrote on Facebook last night that he thought the economy had hit bottom and things were going to start heading back up, up, up. I just can't be that optimistic. Primarily, because of all the Zombie Banks out there, looking alive, but very much dead (and insolvent) inside.

Here's Thomas Friedman at the NY Times:

I’m worried. We’ve just elected a talented young president with many good instincts about how to propel our country forward, extend health care to more people, make our tax code fairer and launch a green industrial revolution. But do you know what I fear? I fear that his whole first term could be eaten by Citigroup, A.I.G., Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, and the whole housing/subprime credit bubble we inflated these past 20 years.

I hope my fears are exaggerated. But ask yourself this: Why couldn’t former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson solve this problem? And why does it seem as though his successor, Tim Geithner, won’t even look us in the eye and spell out his strategy? Is it because they don’t get it? No. It is because they know — like Roy Scheider in the movie “Jaws,” when he first saw the great white shark — that “we’re gonna need a bigger boat,” and they’re too afraid to tell us just how big.

But, while I'm down on the short term economic future of the country, I am still glad to have the right man and administration in charge of this crisis and everything else.
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Cannon Fodder

Oh, how I want to blog less about politics, but when the Know Nothing Party gives you so much to work with ...

The reviews for Gov. Bobby Jindal are not good, and as I wrote last night, he said some really stupid stuff.

Here is Matthew Yglesias:

What’s with the attack on “something called ‘volcano monitoring’”? Volcano monitoring is where they monitor volcanos. So as to better understand, better predict, and better prepare for natural disasters. Is that so complicated? Are only hurricanes worth responding to?

And Atrios:

Volcanoes Are Kinda Scary
What struck me about Jindal's complaint about spending money monitoring volcanoes was that it was really the best they can come up with. As he was.

And John Cole at BalloonJuice:

"I’m not sure what is selling lower this morning- Citibank or Jindal 2012 stock, but it really is hard to state accurately just how bad it was...

However, there was something just especially awful this year, and already the comparison to Kenneth from 30 Rock is sweeping across the intertubes...

And speaking of volcanoes, Jindal’s response was just nonsense on wheels...

And for the life of me, I have no idea why Republicans hate replacing the federal fleet of cars with fuel-efficient vehicles or monitoring volcanoes to avoid disasters. It seems to me that the latter, making sure volcanoes do not blow up on your citizenry, would be something that even Ron Paul would think is a government job.

These guys have nothing. Absolutely nothing. Well, they do have Fred Hiatt’s editorial page, where Michael Gerson does the deed this morning, but other than that, the Republican party is just a pathetic joke."

And here is the real meat of the matter from David Brooks:

LEHRER: Now that, of course, was Gov. Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, making the Republican response. David, how well do you think he did?

DAVID BROOKS: Uh, not so well... I oppose the stimulus package because I thought it was poorly drafted but to come up at this moment in history with a stale government is the problem, we can't trust the federal government,' it's just a disaster for the Republican Party. The country is in a panic now. They may not like the way the Democrats have passed the stimulus bill. But the idea that we're just going to... That government will have no role, the federal government has no role in this, that in a moment when only the federal government is big enough to actually do stuff- to just ignore all that and just say 'government is the problem, corruption, earmarks, wasteful spending,' it's just a form of nihilism. It's just not where country is it's not where the future of the country is. ... I think it's insane. I just think it's a disaster for the [Republican] Party. I just think it's unfortunate right now.

As you can imagine, if you saw and heard the speech, the reviews for President Obama are much, much kinder.
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Best line from the President's speech ...

"Dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It's not just quitting on yourself, it's quitting on your country -- and this country needs and values the talents of every American."
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It sucks to be you

I think my personal Jihad this year will be against the press, those in the media who continue to fail at their jobs and end up hurting our nation along the way. This post by DemFromCT over at DailyKos is spot on:

I know a very good journalist who reminded me that most editors think news is something that happened to them. If they got sick while in the hospital, you can bet that there'll be a series on hospital-acquired infections. If they got stuck in horrendous traffic for the umpteenth time, time for a story on commuting and infrastructure. But if things don't change, and it's the same thing this week as last week, well, that's not news.

Well, here's non-change that is news: the blowhards on cable TV, the so-called 'experts' on politics and media, don't know what the hell they're talking about. Still. And they don't speak for the public.

Also.

"Early stumbles by the Obama White House over some high-level appointments caused a firestorm in the Capitol and on cable TV this week, but most Americans dismiss them as just a normal part of staffing a new administration.

In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Wednesday, those surveyed by nearly 3-1 say their confidence in President Obama's ethical standards and his ability to manage the government and improve the economy has gone up rather than down since his inauguration last month.

"They're willing to cut him some slack," says Gary Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California at San Diego. "It's saying they're more interested in things like the economy and what's going to happen to their jobs and their incomes and their 401(k)s. This other stuff is just a distraction to them. "

As for the stimulus bill:

"The survey also shows that public opinion of the economic stimulus package working its way through Congress has not changed: 52% favor it; 38% oppose it. In late January, the figures were 52% and 37%. "

But Lindsay Graham volunteered to be on cable! And he doesn't like the Democratic stimulus bill! Cover it!

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Obama-mania

We luvs us some Obama! Is it January 20 yet?

Barack Obama has a 79% approval, 18% disapproval rating. That is huge!

Hmmm. I wonder why?

CNN's Bill Schneider, on Barack Obama's 79/18 approval/disapproval rating:

"That's the sort of rating you see when the public rallies around a leader after a national disaster. To many Americans, the Bush administration was a national disaster."

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What now?

Check out this funny video from The Onion:


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Windows to history

Newspaper headlines and front pages I.

Newspaper headlines and front pages II.

News Web site home pages from around the world.

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I'm not sure how to say this ... but

FUCK YES!

Sorry for my dirty hippie language, but I am overjoyed and relieved to wake up to the reality of ... President-Elect Barack Obama.

We stayed up late flipping between channels and surfing the net for the latest election news and opinion. Sha and I threw back a shot of cognac (thanks Alex & Natalia!) for every big announcement of a state called for Obama. We took special satisfaction in seeing two states turn blue -- Ohio and Florida. Those two states and the voting irregularities and political machinations in 2000 and 2004 were heart breakers for Democrats. But not this time. Blue covers so much more of the map than in '00 and '04. How sweet. And it was gratifying to see so many demographic groups support Obama's candidacy. More on those numbers later.

Now the hard part begins. The country is a mess, the people remain divided. But for many Americans there is renewed hope in the future and a presidency for all people. We will continue to work toward a brighter future and push our elected leaders to greater heights.

On January 20, 2009, Senator Barack Obama will be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States of America.

Hallelujah!
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Will it be morning in America?

I'm praying for Barack Obama to win the Presidency tonight.
I hope it's a blowout, a flood of hope sweeping the nation, but even if it is close, as long as he wins I will be uplifted.
After nearly eight years of the disastrous Bush/Cheney administration, the country needs positive change. The people need to believe in our government again.
I want a country that chooses hope over fear. Compassion over hate. Inclusion over exclusion. Tolerance over bigotry. Truth over subterfuge. I want people to choose security over fascism. Safety over paranoia. More equality. Less racism. Less sexism. I want people to value intelligence and articulate discourse over simplistic platitudes often designed to divide us, not unite us. On and on and on ...
If he loses, I like millions of others will be devastated. America can be greater than it is today. I don't think John McCain, Sarah Palin and the Republican Party have the ideas of the commitment to get us there.
But should the worst happen, we will find the strength to get back up and continue to fight for change. Our spirits will be low, but we will look to the future.
But, I sense that America wants change. That Americans have accepted Barack Obama as the man of high character that he is.
President Barack Obama.
Beautiful!
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One voice can change the world

Fired up! Ready to go!


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She influenced the man he bacame

Condolences to Senator Barack Obama and his family on the loss of his grandmother.

As Joe Klein notes on Swampland, she did not make it to the mountaintop ... how sad.

Word comes that Barack Obama's grandmother has died. The timing is ridiculous. But think, for a moment, if you will of Madelyn Dunham, a white woman from Kansas, strolling the aisle of a supermarket, or having lunch in a coffee shop, with her grandson--way back at the turn of the 1970s, when such sights were uncommon, even in Hawaii.

Think about what her friends might have thought, or said, about her...situation. Think about what she poured into the child during the years when her daughter was in Indonesia and she was the closest thing to a mother that Obama had; think about the impact that she and her husband had on creating the man we've come to know, and the satisfaction she must have felt in her dying days.

Some politicians simply are larger than life. Their stories are the stuff of high drama. Over the past few days, I've been hearing about the high emotions out in the field, as volunteers flood Obama offices to help canvass--and, in some places, find they have to wait on line for a spot on a phone bank. It is almost banal at this point to say that this has been the most remarkable election I've ever seen. It's been a privilege to be a small part of it, to have had a ringside seat. And now, there is a sense that tomorrow will be the sort of day none of us ever forgets, one way or another--a day of reckoning, in the purest sense, when we will suddenly see ourselves and our country differently, for good or ill.

It will also be the first day that Barack Obama lives without the presence of the woman who was his surrogate mother. How sad for him, how remarkable that it would happen this way.

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Another wingnut smear bites the dust

Well, we can put this one to bed finally, right?

State declares Obama birth certificate genuine

State officials say there's no doubt Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. Health Department Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino said Friday she and the registrar of vital statistics, Alvin Onaka, have personally verified that the health department holds Obama's original birth certificate.

Fukino says that no state official, including Republican Gov. Linda Lingle, ever instructed that Obama's certificate be handled differently. She says state law bars release of a certified birth certificate to anyone who does not have a tangible
interest.

Some Obama critics claim he was not born in the US.

Actually, I don't think this will shut the wingnuts up. Many of them still believe he is a Muslim or not a "good" Christian.
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Not so popular anymore, is she?

We keep hearing the wingnuts spouting off about Sarah Palin being the most popular Governor in America. Well, after the people of Alaska, along with the rest of the country, have watched her in recent months more and more people don't like what they see.

Sarah, meet Janet!

Janet Napolitano is Arizona's governor, currently serving her second term. Her favorability rating of 67-29 is higher than Palin's, which is 65-35 ... Napolitano's job approval rating of 69-21 similarly beats Palin's 61-37. Palin may be giving the Rick Lowrys of the world starbursts, but Napolitano is wowing them with competent governance, and it looks like Arizonans wouldn't mind sending her to Washington instead of McCain.

Go, Janet, go!
I think Obama will not pick Napolitano for a cabinet post, because we don't want to turn the Arizona Governorship over to a Republican. But she would make a great Senator!
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Sleaziest presidential campaign ever?

This is the ugliest presidential campaign in my lifetime. What do you think?
Here is Josh Marshall:

Flashback: McCain's Sleaze-o-rama

As John McCain just gets sleazier and sleazier, let's review the hypocritical record one more time ...

Have you noticed how the McCain/Palin camps have morphed the Republican Party into the White Nationalists Party? Check out the crowds at all their events. And their new attacks on a respected Palestinian-American historian, Rashid Khalidi, are despicable. Hell, all Sarah Palin had to do Wednesday was mention the guy's name and people who knew absolutely nothing about him started booing ... they booed his name. See, he's different, he's middle-eastern, he's probably a terrorist!

All McCain and Palin have on their side is fear and ignorance.

I choose HOPE.


UPDATE: Oh my ... If you were leading a White Supremacist organization where would you go to recruit new members?
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Funny, Funny Stuff

This is a brilliant video from Ron Howard and friends:

UPDATE: I removed the embedded video because it wasn't working. So go to Funny or Die and watch this and go back to the future!
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Funny Stuff

This is so funny and ... true.

Remember the Budweiser WASSUP ads from 1999? They've been updated to reflect the current political situation in America. I found these at AmericaBlog.

First the original:



And this is the 2008 version:


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More on the Powell endorsement

From Jed:

Powell didn't just endorse Barack Obama -- he also systematically dismantled the entire rationale for John McCain's presidential campaign.

Whatever you think of Colin Powell, in the context of our national discourse, the endorsement of a Republican military figure like Powell is a severe blow to McCain's smear campaign.

Among the key points Powell made against McCain's campaign:

•On the Ayers smears: He thoroughly repudiated McCain's "Obama associates with terrorists" smear job.

•On the religion smears: He not only affirmed the fact that Barack Obama is Christian, but he also rejected the idea that it would be a problem if he weren't, defending religious freedom in passionate terms.

•On the "anti-American" smears: He even targeted Michele Bachmann's divisive rant claiming that there are "anti-American" Members of Congress

•On McCain's judgment and readiness: He destroyed the notion that McCain has either the judgment or policy acumen to serve as president, citing McCain's selection of Sarah Palin and his unsteady response to the economic crisis

•On Republican extremism: He slammed the GOP's rightward tilt, specifically noting that it would be unacceptable to nominate two more hard-right justices to the Supreme Court.

Powell didn't just decimate the McCain campaign rationale, however. Powell also offered up an endorsement of Barack Obama in the strongest possible terms, saying that Obama would be an "exceptional president" and that he had the capacity to be "transformational."

The amazing part of all this is that Powell still considers himself a Republican. While there will never be an excuse for his role in supporting the Iraq war, one thing does seem clear: Powell's endorsement today will be a boost for Barack Obama's campaign, and therefore a good thing for this country.

Powell endorses Obama

Are newspaper endorsements important? Who knows.

Is Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama important?

It will probably have more impact on the campaign and media narrative over the next few days than anything else.

It isn't just that Powell endorsed, it's how strongly he articulated his support for and trust in Obama, and how disappointed he is in and concerned about the negative tone and dishonesty of the Republican campaign at this important time in our history.

Q: Sir, what role did McCain's negativity play in your decision?

POWELL: It troubled me. You know, we have two wars. We have economic problems. We have health problems. We have education problems. We have infrastructure problems. We have problems around the world with our allies. And so those are the problems the American people wanted to hear about, not about Mr. Ayers, not about who is a Muslim and who's not a Muslim. Those kinds of images going out on al Jazeera are killing us around the world. And we have got to say to the world it doesn't make any difference who you are or what you are. If you're an American you're an American. And this business of, for example, a congressman from Minnesota who's going around saying let's examine all congressmen to see who is pro-America or not pro-America.

We have got to stop this kind of nonsense and pull ourselves together and remember that our great strength is in our unity and in our diversity.

And so that really was driving me. And to focus on people like Mr. Ayers, these trivial issues for the purpose of suggesting that somehow Mr. Obama would have some kind of terrorists' inclinations, I thought that was over the top. It was beyond just good political fighting back and forth. I think it went beyond. And then to sort of throw in this subtle Muslim connection. You know, he's a Muslim and a terrorist. And it was taking root. And we can't judge our people and we can't hold our elections on that kind of basis.

And so yes, that kind of negativity troubles me and the constant shifting of the argument. I was troubled a couple of weeks ago when in the middle of the crisis the campaign said we're going to go negative and they announced it. We're going to go negative and attack his character through Bill Ayers. And now I guess the message this week is we're going to call him a socialist. Mr. Obama is now a socialist because he dares to suggest that maybe we ought to look at the tax structure that we have. Taxes are always a redistribution of money.

Most of the taxes that are redistributed go back to those who pay it in roads and airports and hospitals and schools. And taxes are necessary for the common good. And there's nothing wrong with examining what our tax structure is or who should be paying more, who should be paying less. And for us to say that makes you a socialist I think is an unfortunate characterization that isn't accurate. And I don't want my taxes raised. I don't want anybody else's taxes raised. But I also want to see our infrastructure fixed. I don't want to have a $12 trillion national debt and I don't want to see an annual deficit that's over $500 billion heading toward a trillion. So how do we deal with all of this?

Here are a couple of statements by Colin Powell:

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It's good that their racism is out in the open

I continue to be amazed at how many people are willing to express their outright racism in public during this presidential campaign. For awhile there, people kept most of their bigotry and hatred hidden from public view. Now, they are wearing it proudly, like a badge of honor. And we're not talking about actions or statements with fuzzy or debatable interpretations, we are talking about outright racism and racial bigotry. The examples are everwhere to see -- in churches, among co-workers, within families, and in front yards.

I am actually thrilled as much as I am disgusted, because to eradicate racism you have to expose it. And when people write, say or do things that are bigoted and racist it is best if they do it out in the open. Now we know who they truly are.

Here is a perfect example. Watch this! This man hang an Obama ghost figure by a noose in effigy (and places a Star of David on its head?) and stated that it is because Obama is black?


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