You have so heard of the Augean Stables rant by then VP-elect Biden, and so has everyone else.

Unfortunately, this rant is more commonly known as the 'Obama will face a crisis within his first six months as President - mark my words' rant, thanks to all of our friends in the media/blogosphere/punditocracy.

This was the October 2008 speech in which Biden addressed a select gathering of Obama's biggest donors and supporters who are leaders in their own right with influence in their respective communities.

The message of the night was one based on loyalty and support. Biden was warning those community leaders that the next President is going to inherit an extremely difficult set of challenges - a monumental mess on a scale of magnitude comparable to the Augean Stables, no less! (A classical reference wholly lost on the media, I might add) And, tough decisions are going to have to be made - decisions that Biden said may not appear, at first glance, to be either the right decisions or very popular. But, he told the audience, those decisions would be sound decisions. In fact, he warned Obama's supporters that popular decisions would probably not be sound ones. Biden was, in essence, urging and pleading with the audience to not only stand with the President during such times but to be vocal and public about their support for him when the iron hits the fire.

Senator and VP-elect Biden's message was both profound and powerful and, in the final analysis, a remarkable validation of Barack Obama and of the exceptional President that he would be.

In other words, Biden has your back, Barack! Sadly, based on his own comments following the press coverage of these remarks, the President-elect appeared not to know this. I trust that President Obama does understand this now and knows that VP Biden is his wisest and most loyal defender and protector...next to the First Lady, herself!

It was obvious, from the barrage of their misguided reporting, that Biden's critics throughout the media/blogosphere/punditocracy had not even bothered to listen to his full remarks. But, truth be known, they wouldn't have understood them anyway.

Sam Minter has posted a much more full account of his thoughts. What I excerpted above was from emails he had sent me, and I really didn't have his permission to post them at the time of my deadline, so I just used a bit of them (and hoped he wouldn't mind). I later confirmed his approval, and his posting has pretty much the entire email thread he sent me. He graciously left out my emails, which were full of stupid questions on my part (like: is it even possible to make this chart??).

But for anyone who made it to the end of this article, I strongly encourage checking Minter's post out.

-CW

Augean stables rant? I hadn't heard of that one. I assume it has something to do with metaphorically shoveling horse manure? Do tell!

Michale -

Ah, c'mon! Spoilsport! I haven't talked about polls since the election, and even held off when people were frothing at the mouth over the first two weeks of polling in the Obama administration.

I just like making charts, if the actual truth be known. Charts are cool!

Heh.

-CW

Regardless of that, the simple fact is, it's all down hill for the Obama administration from here on out.

Most here know my opinion of polls. For those who don't allow me to elucidate...

Polls are useless. They are only good to show the biases of the poll takers and have no real bearing in reality. Anyone who uses a poll solely to make a point is intellectually dishonest or just plain lazy.

As an aside, CW's use of polls was to make a point about polls. In that regard, it's perfectly acceptable and the previous statement does not apply. :D

But seriously, I find this faith in polls just another example of political bigotry. The polls are sacrosanct and "dead on ballz accurate" (it's an industry term) when they say things that people WANT to hear.. But when the polls point to something that said persons don't like?? Then they are nothing, worthless and biased...

No one should use a poll as ANY part of an argument unless A> THEY themselves went out and talked to the thousands of people and B> completely disclose their exact reasoning behind the people that were chosen to be polled and they questions/answers that these polled people were asked.

Without such knowledge **ALL** polls are "nothing, worthless and biased" regardless of whether they say things I want to hear or not.

Michale.....

This is what I was thinking to myself in the second paragraph of your post. Obama made voting "cool" for a vast number of American youth, and "cool" again for millions of Americans who'd dropped out of politics altogether.

Here's my hope: that the GOP goes on fooling itself,seeing what it wants to see. That Obama can get those millions of Americans back to the polls in 2010 and 2012 to really, really crush the GOP. Because until Republicans get hammered for running on their "values," the crazies will still be in charge of the party.

It looks to me, as an avid fan of your polls and charts, like you may be on to something big here. I hope you're right and that this will all translate into a big boost in political capital for Obama...or else, Biden may have to revive his famous, or...infamous 'Augean Stables' rant somewhere again...maybe even go national with it! Do you think the media would cover it...who knows...they certainly wouldn't understand it, that's for sure. But, I digress...

Anyway, I'll bet that, between a revival of the 'Augean Stables' rant, or two, and a few more town hall meetings like the one Obama held in your state today, those polls and charts are going to be looking pretty sweet from here on in.