Wash Post publishes conservative hit piece on
Obama

post from AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth on 08 April 2009 07:52:00 AM. © AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth

Well that didn't take long. You'll recall that on Monday I wrote about how conservatives were about to take a new PEW poll and twist it against Obama, claiming that he's the most polarizing president EVER, even more so than George Bush?

Well, it's begun, courtesy of the Washington Post.

Now, you'd think the Post would have some issues with publishing, even commentary, that promotes right-wing talking points that have already been debunked. Greg Sargent over at the Post's own Plum Line investigated this newest line of attack on Monday, and got none of than PEW itself to say that the notion that their poll shows Obama to be polarizing is bunk. Here's what the head of PEW's polling unit told Greg:

The fellow who oversees Pew Research?s political polling is disputing the claim, made by some on the right today, that the much-discussed new Pew poll showing a stark partisan divide in Obama?s approval rating proves that Obama is a ?polarizing? President.

?It?s unfair to say that Obama has caused this divisiveness or to say that he is a polarizing president,? Michael Dimock, Pew?s associate director, told me in an interview just now.

But that didn't stop the Post from, only 48 hours later, bringing the lie back to life.

So now we have to, once again, dissect the same lie we already put the rest on Monday. Sigh.

In a nutshell, the new poll shows that Republicans and Democrats are divided on their approval of Obama. Even more so than Rs and Ds were over their approval of George Bush. The Post writer claims that this is because Obama is a super-duper polarizer, and overall a bad man. What the PEW people actually found was quite the opposite. The guilty party, responsible for this partisan divide, isn't Obama - it's the Republicans themselves.

What PEW found is that Democrats traditionally give a new president a pass, even when the president is from the opposing party. Republicans, however, are less charitable - they tend to be more critical, less approving, of a new Democratic president than Democrats are of a new Republican president. That's one reason that the partisan divide is greater during Obama's first few months than during Bush's - because Democrats are less partisan than Republicans.

As an aside, this is a point that the Post commentary today outright lied about. The commentary claimed that both Dems and Republicans in the past have given new presidents a fair shake. What it doesn't tell you - gee, I wonder why - is that Dems have traditionally been far more fair-shaking than Republicans in this regard, and the numbers prove it. Again, from PEW via Greg:

[PEW's] Dimock also said this phenomenon is partly caused by the recent tendency of Republicans to be less charitable towards new Presidents than Dems have been.

In contrast to the 27% of GOPers approving of Obama now, more than a third of Dems (36%) approved of George W. Bush at a comparable time in 2001. Before that, only 26% of Republicans approved of Bill Clinton at the same time in his presidency, while 41% of Dems approved of both George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan at comparable times.

In other words, it's patently false to suggest that things were even in the past but somehow uneven now. Republicans have always been more critical.

The second reason that PEW found for the divide under Obama is that Republicans have actually gotten even more partisan - less willing to give the new Democratic president a fair shake - over the past few years, so they're being even harsher on Obama than they were on Democratic presidents before him.

So, rather than this poll showing evidence that Obama is somehow different, and more polarizing, than previous Democratic presidents, what the poll actually shows is that Republicans have gotten more polarized all on their own. Obama could have been a turnip, and Republicans would have hated him more than ever.

One final point that a reader mentioned after I'd written Monday's piece, and it's a point I've raised before. The reason "Republicans" are more polarized than ever vis-a-vis Obama is because millions of Americans have fled the Republican party under George Bush, Dick Cheney, Tom Delay, and Rush Limbaugh. An increasing number of those remaining in the party, those still willing to call themselves "Republican" when the pollster comes knocking on the door, are the Limbaugh/Dobson/Palin wing of the party. In a nutshell, the angry wackos who, of course, can't stand Obama simply because Obama has a "D" after his name.

The GOP has quite literally distilled itself into a party of hate and extremism. It's the reason you now can't win a GOP primary without being an angry, intolerant, far right gun-hugging, Bible-thumping, gay-bashing nut. And it's the reason polls, up until the end of his presidency, continued to show so many "Republicans" approving of George Bush's job as president. All the rats who disapproved of Bush, who had a modicum of sense, already fled the proverbial ship.

So, yes, the far right of the Republican party loathes Obama. Unfortunately, they're no longer the far right of the party. They are the party.

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Early Morning Swim

post from Firedoglake on 08 April 2009 07:44:55 AM. © Firedoglake

Teaparty freefall!Those troops look like they really hate Obama. Porkulus! Generational theft! Uhoh -- a Democrat said something nice about Castro. More Somali piracy. Getting worse in Abruzzo, still. I do wish Reaganites would STFU.Harold and Kumar goes[...]

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Ha'aretz: Obama Telling Congress "I'm Talking on
Netanyahu"

post from TPMCafe on 08 April 2009 07:23:00 AM. © TPMCafe

This is incredible.

President Obama is telling Democrats on Capitol Hill that, if Netanyahu continues in his opposition to negotiations, he is going to take him on.

It is essential that he do this because Prime Ministers of Israel tend to run to Congress if the US President deviates from, what the Prime Minister perceives as 100% support.

Netanyahu has done that in the past. During the Clinton years, he was an ex officio member of the Republican caucus, openly cavorting with Speaker Gingrich and dissing President Clinton. Clinton still prevailed because most Congressional Democrats stood with their President and push never came to shove.

Obama will likely prevail too but who knows? On Israel issues, Democrats are at least as lockstep behind the occupation as Republicans. Some of the most out- there House liberals (from New York, California, Maryland and Florida) are Likud on Israel at the same time that they were strong opponents of the Iraq war. Some of them are as rightwing as Netanyahu. Or, to be more precise, pretend to be.

That is why Obama needs to tell them. Hey, I know you don't want to get the lobby mad. I understand all about fundraising, But what I'm doing is best for the United States and Israel. And, guys, I'm your President, I expect your support and I'm taking names.

Here is another article from Ha'aretz in which various Congressional liberals sound off for Netanyahu. It is this type of thing Obama needs to respond to.

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Ha'aretz: Obama Telling Congress "I'm Taking on
Netanyahu"

post from TPMCafe on 08 April 2009 07:23:00 AM. © TPMCafe

This is incredible.

President Obama is telling Democrats on Capitol Hill that, if Netanyahu continues in his opposition to negotiations, he is going to take him on.

It is essential that he do this because Prime Ministers of Israel tend to run to Congress if the US President deviates from, what the Prime Minister perceives as 100% support.

Here is another article from Ha'aretz in which various Congressional liberals sound off for Netanyahu. It is this type of thing Obama needs to respond to.

EXTRA!!!! From "The Neocon Times" (i.e., the Wash Post), the great Elliot Abrams in support of more settlement building. This is the guy who used his position at the White House to subvert the policies of Rice, Powell and even Bush in favor of Netanyahu's and Sharon's. A great American, loyal and true.

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A Good Night for Topeka, a Bad Night for AFP

post from Kansas Jackass on 08 April 2009 07:19:00 AM. © Kansas Jackass

I don't really have any desire to post here about city and county level elections- we've just got[...]

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Wednesday Morning Science Supplement

post from Docudharma - Front Page on 08 April 2009 07:05:32 AM. © Docudharma - Front Page

Wednesday Science Supplement is an Open ThreadFrom Yahoo News Science1 Wall Street rocket scientists crash to Earthby Sebastian Smith, AFPTue Apr 7, 11:58 am ETNEW YORK (AFP) - There's a reason Wall Street resembles a rocket experiment gone wrong: rocket[...]

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What Happened Yesterday

post from Talking Points Memo on 08 April 2009 07:00:00 AM. © Talking Points Memo

[...]

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esterday_48.php

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Presented By:

[...]

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Politics Asia

Political parties are amazingly blind at times. Case in point: India's Congress party for putting forth a candidate who is accused of facilitating the 1984 Anti-Sikh riots which killed hundreds of people.

Booted in: agony of 1984
New Delhi, April 7: The question that the Congress has been trying to duck hit it in the face today when a journalist lobbed a shoe at home minister P. Chidambaram.
"I protest," said Jarnail Singh, 34, standing up from his front row seat at a news conference, as he sent his white-and-blue trainer flying.
The missile missed the minister but hit its target: by late evening, Congress leaders admitted that the candidature of Jagdish Tytler, an accused in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, was being reviewed.

Reopening of case against Jagdish Tytler

Roh Joins Presidents Who Failed the Public
Former president Roh Moo-hyun posted an apology to the public on his website on Tuesday and said Chung Sang-moon, a former Cheong Wa Dae secretary, is being questioned on charges of taking money from Taekwang Industry CEO Park Yeon-cha. "The accusation should be directed at us, not Chung," he said. "My family made the request, received money and used it. We did so because we still had outstanding debts." Roh explained that by "family" he meant his wife, former first lady Kwon Yang-sook, and that she had received the money from Park, a political supporter, through Chung. Roh also claims that a US$5 million payment Park had made to Yeon Chul-ho, the husband of Roh's niece, was a business investment.

Beginning with the first open and free election in 1987 to the present those elected to the Presidency have arrived with great fanfare and even higher expectations. Within months of their taking office the South Korean public turns against them. None have left office with any kind of public support in public opinion polls. President Lee Myung-bak is a perfect example of this. Sworn into office in February of 2008 and quite popular by April he was as popular as Richard Nixon because of two events. His announcement to allow the import of American beef and Munhwa Broadcasting showing a documentary on Mad Cow Disease which turn out to be a complete fabrication.

UDD mass protest begins
Tens of thousands of protesters rallied in Bangkok on Wednesday in their biggest bid yet to force Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva from office, as the government braced for possible violence.
Police said about 30,000 red-clad supporters of self-exiled former premier Thaksin Shinawatra had gathered outside the main government offices in the capital, where demonstrators have been staging a sit-in for the past two weeks.
The protest comes a day after red-shirts attacked Mr Abhisit's motorcade following a cabinet meeting in Pattaya, smashing one of the windows of his car in a major escalation of tensions.
Protest leaders said they expected thousands more supporters to come from around the country on Wednesday for what they have deemed "D-Day" in their efforts to push Mr Abhisit to dissolve his four-month-old government and hold elections.
Mr Abhisit warned crowd dispersal may be necessary if the rally spins out of control.
''If it develops into mayhem, we may have to do that,'' the prime minister said in an interview on Wednesday morning.
''But there will be no use of force.''

In December of last the Yellow Shirts supporters of Thailand's traditional power base occupied the Prime Ministers Office and the Bangkok airport until Thai courts ruled that allies of Thaksin Shinawatra were ineligible to hold office. Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinwatra's supporters are the urban and rural poor whom the Yellow Shirts believe have no right to choose that countries leaders do to their lack of education and economic status.

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Norm Coleman's never-ending death row appeal

post from AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth on 08 April 2009 06:50:00 AM. © AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth

Then what is Coleman doing? He's doing the GOP's bidding. It's no coincidence that Ben Ginsberg, a top (and nasty) Republican political operative here in DC, is Coleman's lawyer.

The national Republican party sees never-ending appeals in this case as a win-win. In the end, there are two outcomes, both of which help the national GOP. 1) Coleman wins on appeal (by a fluke, but an infinitesimally small chance of victory is better than no chance of victory, which is what Coleman would have if he finally conceded). 2) Coleman drags this case out for years, and not only is Al Franken not seated, which is a form of personal victory if Coleman is really taking the race that personally, but more importantly for the Republicans, Obama is denied another Democratic vote in the Senate - a vote that would put the Dems perilously close to a filibuster-proof 60 votes in the Senate.

Ever since Bush v. Gore, the Republicans started shifting their election strategy from winning enough votes to winning in the courts. The Coleman strategy dangerously take this one step further. Even if they can't outright win in the courts, they'll deny their opponent victory for years in never-ending judicial appeals. It's Norm Coleman's version of the never-ending death row appeal.

What's worse - if the Republicans are willing to do this in a Senate race, it's only a matter of time before they refuse to seat a Democratic president. And judging by the non-response from Democrats on this issue, don't be surprised if the Republicans get bolder and bolder in the future. And they might just get away with it.

The latest on Norm's folly here.