[ Posted Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 – 17:00 UTC ]
I know I'm supposed to be talking about the off-year (or even "off-off-year") elections happening today, but I really don't think it's worth the effort. I recently heard a pundit on a talk show give the most honest answer I've ever heard to the question: "Do off-year elections reflect upon the president, or the party in power, or national trends?" The pundit answered, with a grin on his face: "Depends on who wins."
This was refreshingly honest, and pretty close to how I feel about off years. Whichever side in the political debate you hail from, if your guy wins, it is a "significant indicator of national..." blah, blah, blah. If your guy loses, it is "just an off-year election, and only reflects on that particular district."
In other words, don't try to make too much stew from one carrot.
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[ Posted Monday, November 2nd, 2009 – 16:24 UTC ]
Is the absence of a trend a trend?
Much like Sherlock Holmes' non-barking nocturnal canine, the remarkable thing about President Barack Obama's poll numbers last month was that nothing remarkable happened. Both trendlines were pretty flat for the month, which was the second month in a row of little movement. Things are not getting much better for Obama's approval rate, but then neither are they getting much worse.
This is good news, of a sort, because what preceded it was a pretty steep drop in the polls for Obama. But for two months in a row now, Obama has stopped this trend. He has, however, not reversed it yet. So, for now "no news is good news" is going to have to be good enough.
We'll dig into these numbers a bit here, and then we continue with our look back at previous presidents, and how Obama stacks up to them, by taking a look at Ronald Reagan's numbers -- which bear a striking similarity to Obama's so far.
Updated charts of Obama compared to G.W. Bush, Clinton, and G.H.W. Bush are available (as always) at my ObamaPollWatch.com site.
But enough of this shameless plugging of websites, let's get on to this month's charts:
[Click on graph to see larger-scale version.]
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[ Posted Friday, October 30th, 2009 – 15:35 UTC ]
Happy Samhain, everyone, if that isn't an inherent oxymoron.
For those of you who expected (and were, of course, waiting for with bated breath... what the Hell is bated breath, by the way?) Volume 100 of my weekly Friday Talking Points column, I will begin your Hallowe'en weekend by dashing your hopes on the rocks below (bartender!... another one of these... on the rocks, of course), and by telling you you're going to have to wait another week for this auspicious and historical event... because, of course... it is time for this column's annual celebration of all that is terrifying and horrible -- from both sides of the political chasm!
Because today we offer up (instead of the usual FTP drivel), a bone-shaking nightmare for those of the Left and those of the Right. Complete, of course (it wouldn't be a Hallowe'en column otherwise) with photos of my 2009 pumpkins, carved lovingly with a knife that was previously used to... well, perhaps it's best you not know that part....
[Cue: Shrieking teenager, heavy clanking of chains, and assorted eerie moans and groans...]
So, without further delay [Cue: Witch cackling], we open the crypt door to this year's installment of my attempt to scare the Hell out of everyone. As a special treat, we've also got all my pumpkins for the past few years at the end, to remind everyone of what terrified us all in Hallowe'ens past.
[Cue: Creaking hinges...]
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[ Posted Thursday, October 29th, 2009 – 16:37 UTC ]
The phrase "weighing in" has changed over time to mean something along the lines of "adding the weight of your opinion to the discussion." But it's really more apt to look at it from the perspective of boxing, in this case. The weighing-in before a big fight is literally where the two fighters step on the scales so everyone can see what they weigh. Now, before I get in trouble for suggesting an image of the rather diminutive Nancy Pelosi on a scale to your minds, in this metaphor the legislation which Speaker Pelosi just released is what is actually on the scale. Pelosi, in this mental image, is the promoter in the background talking up the virtues of the prizefighter on the scales.
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[ Posted Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 – 16:57 UTC ]
Tomorrow is the internet's fortieth birthday. Its creators are even throwing it a birthday party at the University of California, Los Angeles, the origin of the first message ever transmitted over what we know today as "the internet," on October 29, 1969. If you're wondering what the first message ever transmitted was -- the digital age's "Come here, Watson," statement, as it were -- it consisted of two letters: "LO." It was actually supposed to be "LOG," as in "LOG IN," but the receiving computer crashed after receiving just the first two letters -- not a very auspicious beginning, it must be admitted. Still, for poetic reasons, "LO" seems pretty apt: "Lo! The Internet was created!"
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[ Posted Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 – 16:35 UTC ]
The problem with having exactly the number of votes that you absolutely need in the Senate is that all it takes is one defector in order to upset the whole apple cart. This was true when the Senate was 50/50 (remember Jim Jeffords' aisle-jumping?), and is even more true now with a fragile supermajority of 60 senators who usually vote with the Democratic Party. Instead of "all for one, one for all" it quickly devolves into rampant prima-donna-ism, as senators realize that it all comes down to their lone vote. We've seen some of this play out already on the healthcare reform debate, but there's going to be more of it to come in the weeks ahead, so we should all get used to it for awhile.
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[ Posted Monday, October 26th, 2009 – 17:21 UTC ]
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid today announced that the public option (Charles Schumer's "opt out" plan, in particular) will be contained in the bill he moves to the Senate floor. This is an absolute shock to the media, since they have been obsessing over only one bill out of a total of five that congressional committees have passed to date -- the one produced by Max Baucus' Senate Finance Committee. Baucus' bill (which took the longest to appear) is the only one of these five bills without a public option. But, in apparent widespread confusion as to how Congress actually works, the media has been pushing the "public option is dead" theme for so long, it's no wonder they're so astonished at today's news. Because it proves (yet again, I might add) that the media's credibility is really what should have been pronounced dead months ago, and not the public option.
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[ Posted Friday, October 23rd, 2009 – 18:08 UTC ]
When a stage magician makes a flourish, causing a puff of smoke and a flash of light to appear, there's a reason for it. It is called "misdirection." It is meant to dazzle the audience with a shiny object, so that they don't notice what is going on elsewhere on the stage, or perhaps even in the magician's other hand. It is an effective technique, so effective that it is the basis for most stage magic tricks. And there's a huge story that's sucking up a lot of oxygen from the inside-the-Beltway media scene right now that seems to be tailor-made misdirection which has been tossed into the media shark tank in order to stir up a feeding frenzy.
I speak, of course, of whether NBC's Chuck Todd will (or will not) shave off his goatee.
No, of course, I'm kidding. The real head-scratcher for serious media-watchers right now is what the "war" between the White House and Fox News was meant to distract us from this week. The "war" itself is laughable, for a number of reasons. The first is that all presidents do this to one extent or another. Press access is not a constitutional right or anything, meaning that the White House is free to invite anyone it wants into the press room, and exclude anyone it wants. Secondly, it's not "unprecedented" in any way, shape, or form. White Houses criticize the press all the time, and sometimes kick them off official planes, or completely deny them access in retaliation for stories they've run. It happens all the time, from both Republican and Democratic presidents. Anyone who thinks differently just doesn't have all that good a memory.
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[ Posted Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 – 15:18 UTC ]
No solid news is coming out of the negotiations over healthcare reform between Majority Leader Harry Reid and his two committee chairs, or from Speaker Nancy Pelosi's similar efforts in the House. Which doesn't stop us from talking about it, of course, because the absence of hard news directly causes a flurry of rumors as to what is "really going on." These rumors are flying so fast and thick from inside the Beltway that suburbanites in Maryland and Virginia have been dive-bombed by them repeatedly, and have taken to cowering and ducking whenever they must walk outside. Or so it's been rumored....
Kidding aside, though, I'm going to latch onto one of these rumors and see how it could fly or get shot down, because it seems to be a Thursday type of story. If you disdain unsourced rumors masquerading as news, then I would advise you to just stop reading now, and maybe go do a sudoku or crossword puzzle for ten minutes instead.
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[ Posted Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 – 16:31 UTC ]
It's crunch time, people.
For those not versed in the way Washington works (and the glacial pace of Congress), the last couple of months may have been a little frustrating. The marathon effort to reform our nation's healthcare system began in early spring, continued throughout the summer, and is now entering its last laps. Some people thought this was going to be a sprint and thus had unrealistic expectations for the schedule it was going to follow (this includes, I might add, President Obama -- who initially called for an insanely-optimistic timetable from Congress). As the process has ground slowly forward, frustration and despondency about the pace of Washington was to be expected at times from reform advocates. The relentless drumbeat from the media saying "healthcare reform is dead," or even "this or that aspect of healthcare reform is dead;" coupled with the over-the-top media coverage of this summer's town hall hotheads has surely taken its toll, one would think.
One would be wrong about that. Yesterday, over 300,000 people picked up the phone and called Congress demanding healthcare reform this year. This effort largely passed unnoticed by the media, of course. But the phones ringing off the hook certainly did not go unnoticed by Congress.
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