Minnesota's Governor Tim Pawlenty last week joined in the growing chorus in his party singing the praises of nullification. He didn't come right out and use the word, preferring to talk of "state sovereignty" instead, but the concept is the same. This seems to be an emerging theme among the Republican Party as it lurches slowly towards the 2012 presidential campaign. The fact that the issue was largely settled by the Civil War does not seem to faze those wishing to dish up some red meat to GOP voters.

Pawlenty made the news while talking on a conference call sponsored by the Republican Governors' Association last Thursday. Asked by a caller about using the Tenth Amendment to reject any healthcare reform passed in Washington, Pawlenty (from two media reports, one in Politico and one from Minnesota Public Radio) responded with:

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This column (surprisingly, from that title) is devoted almost entirely to President Obama's speech on healthcare reform to a joint session of Congress this week. But before we get to the good and the bad in Obama's speech, we've got to at least mention the Joe Wilson fracas.

The title is actually from the lyrics of a Talking Heads song ("Walk It Down," from the Little Creatures album):

I . . . I . . . I . . . I turn up the radio
Lies, lies and propaganda
I . . . gonna tell you what I need
Life, life, without surrender

It seemed particularly appropriate this week, after a member of Congress audibly called the president a liar ("You lie!") during the president's speech.

But I have to caution you, while I was pleased to see Joe Wilson become a lightning rod for all that is wrong with the lack of decorum in politics today, I have to say that both sides have a point in the whole argument.

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We speak today not of Valerie Plame Wilson's husband Joseph, but instead a different "Joe Wilson" in the world of politics. This particular Joe is a representative from South Carolina. This Joe was rude to the president last night during his speech in the House chamber by yelling out: "You lie!" There were other similar grumblings and outright heckling from the Republican side of the aisle last night, but none of the rest were as loud and clear on the microphones as Wilson. By his volume and clarity, he elected himself poster boy for the disrespect shown by members of Congress for the president. The other voices in the crowd will likely be swept aside, as everyone in the media and in politics focuses on Joe as the designated heckler of the night.

Joe has now become a lightning rod. The House of Representatives is reportedly considering calling for a censure of Joe. But while it would be an entertaining political sideshow, there are two much more concrete consequences of Joe's heckling worth examining, which we'll get to in a bit. If the situation were reversed, of course, Republicans would be calling for the head (or at least the resignation) of any Democrat who showed such disrespect to a Republican president. Thankfully, a few Republican leaders realized very early on that this was a black eye for the party, and were not shy in saying so. Senator John McCain, for instance, did not mince words in talking about Joe's behavior: "totally disrespectful -- no place for it in that setting or any other, and he should apologize immediately." Joe himself even admitted that he apologized only after his own party's leaders told him to do so.

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President Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress on healthcare reform needed to be a game-changer of a speech. That, it seemed, was just about the only thing everyone could agree upon before the speech. Everyone -- even conservatives -- were saying Obama had to either take control of the process or watch it slip away from him. Of course, after the speech, we'll all go right back to disagreeing with each other about whether (or how much) the game was changed, and whether the changes are good things or bad. Such is the nature of politics.

It was a good speech, I have to say, upon my scant minutes of reflection (I'm typing this just after the speech ended, I should add). Obama inserted himself into the fray in a way he has quite simply not done before. One wonders where we would be now if this speech had happened in June, or even July. Obama threw out some new ideas, and gave a much stronger defense for some existing ideas than I've seen anyone yet do. Obama even spoke of the role and size of government, which was also a welcome surprise since Democrats seem to be allergic to defending their position on this issue (to their detriment, in my opinion). And the speech had a rousing finish as well.

But will it change the debate? Even as Obama was speaking, he was actually heckled, although it wasn't clear whether this was from a Republican lawmaker or the gallery above. A clearer contrast could not be made between Obama once again speaking of bipartisanship and respectful debate, and someone shouting what sounded like "Lie!" or "Liar!" at him when he said healthcare reform would not cover illegal immigrants. The grumbling audibly continued while he spoke of not changing the abortion restrictions already in place in the federal budget, and when he moved on to speak of the public option. This heckling during a speech to Congress was the perfect capstone to this summer's town hall screaming matches, in a way. Also telling, the only laugh of the evening was when Obama admitted that "significant details remain to be ironed out."

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There's a cardinal rule in American politics that anything regarded as too crazy loses the support (and attention) of the mainstream voters. And once someone or some group is relegated to this zone of lunacy in the public's perception, it's hard to get back out. Today may be a turning point for the rational middle-of-the-road in how they view the anti-Obama movement in this country. Because there simply was no Marxist revolution among schoolchildren after the president spoke to them, and it was pretty insane to believe that there ever was going to be one. Which is becoming more and more apparent.

Even the media seemed embarrassed by this one. Even prominent conservative columnists and Republican politicians grudgingly and sheepishly admitted that there really shouldn't have even been any "controversy" over the president telling kids to stay in school and do their homework.

But none of that stopped the anti-Obama rabble-rousers, of course. Through the lens of how they view reality, anything Obama does or says is automatically suspect (consider the source!), and probably part of his plans to turn America into a socialist Hell. The media has been giving them the spotlight and plenty of air time all summer long in town hall meetings, so they've become used to their ideas being taken seriously. But being rabidly against the president's speech to kids may have been a bridge too far for the mainstream to cross with them.

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President Barack Obama will address Congress and the nation this Wednesday night on the subject of healthcare reform. What he'll say is anyone's guess, at this point. Which (by the way) is exactly the problem he's trying to fix. Nobody's really sure what Obama will fight for, and what he will toss overboard in the name of political expediency. Even staunch Obama supporters would be hard-pressed to say, right now, what Obama will say in his speech this Wednesday. But whatever he says, one fact remains crystal-clear: Obama has got to be specific in his speech, or else the healthcare reform effort may collapse of its own weight soon after. And by being specific, Obama's got to start taking some things off the table. If Obama attempts more lofty (but detail-free) rhetoric, and does not (his other favorite metaphor for this situation) "draw bright lines in the sand," then he is going to disappoint a lot of people who voted for him because they thought he would be a good leader.

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There's a scene in an episode of the television show The West Wing where the fictional President Bartlet is meeting with a group of elementary schoolchildren. An adorable little girl gets to ask him the first question, which is: "What is your most favorite part of being president?"

Bartlet answers: "I'm doing it right now," and kisses the girl on the forehead.

Of course, Bartlet wouldn't have had to face accusations of "President gives Kiss of Death!" from lunatic opponents the next day. Because, in his fictional world, they didn't exist.

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This column is proud to admit that we've been awarded an Honest Weblog Award. We're normally in the habit of handing out awards (on Fridays) here, and this is the first actual award the column's been presented with.

So this column would like to thank its hairdresser, its agent, its publicist....

Um, well, maybe not. I don't think I'm supposed to give a speech at this point. In fact, rules come with this award. I haven't found an "official Honest Weblog Award" page yet, but I did find two slightly different versions of the rules:

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Welcome back again to our ongoing series of beginning-of-the-month looks at President Barack Obama's approval ratings in the public opinion polls. As always, I feel the need to state up front that if you're one of those people who either: (a) doesn't believe any polls, because they're all voodoo; or (b) doesn't believe polls which don't tell you what you want to hear, because they're so plainly biased; then I strongly -- strongly -- urge you to spend your precious time reading something else. Because you're just going to wind up annoyed, one way or another, by reading this. Consider yourselves warned.

So, with the standard disclaimer aside, we can delve in to Obama's poll numbers for August. The news for Obama fans continues to be bad, unfortunately. There may be a faint glimmer of a spark of hope in the numbers -- but that's about all I can promise here, sorry about that. Obama's approval numbers continued their downward trend this month, and his disapproval numbers also increased. We'll go into these numbers in detail, up front.

Afterwards, continuing our series of looking at Obama's approval numbers through the lens of previous presidents' records, we will take a look at Obama as compared to President George W. Bush. Last month we highlighted Bush's first term numbers, and this month we will do the same for Bush's second term -- which, it should be noted, is a much more agreeable enterprise for Democrats to contemplate. Now, logically, we should have looked at Bush v. Obama before we looked at Clinton v. Obama, but the data for Clinton were easier to manage, so that's just kind of the way it happened. As Groucho Marx was wont to say: "Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana." Ahem.

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So here is where we find ourselves -- in a recent CBS poll, two-thirds of the respondents said the current ideas proposed for healthcare were confusing. This is why Obama wanted just two bills to have emerged from Congress at this point -- to lessen this confusion. But this is also largely due to the Democrats utter lack of being to explain themselves coherently, it should also be pointed out.

The poll results show the breadth of this confusion, and how quickly it has set in (you can read a CBS story about the poll results, or download the PDF file with the actual questions and numbers -- it appears to be an excerpt of a longer poll, since the PDF file is only two pages long and is all about healthcare reform).

When asked whether "you have an understanding of healthcare reform ideas," only 31 percent of Americans responded "yes, I understand the reforms" while 67 percent said "no, they're confusing." When asked if "President Obama had clearly explained his plans for healthcare reform," 31 percent responded "yes," and 60 percent "no." Even among Democrats, only 52 percent answered "yes" to that last question.

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