America is a fickle bitch

Before health reform was passed: 45% Favor, 48% Oppose Obama Healthcare Plan

The second health care reform is passed: Nearly half of Americans give a thumbs-up to Congress' passage of a healthcare reform bill last weekend, with 49% calling it "a good thing."

CBS showed that health care got a 5 point bump overnight, and the numbers for Barry, the Democrats, and the Generic Republican vs. Democrat ballot have all seen rises for the liberal socialists. Amazing how America seems to like people who win and do what they say more than they like weakness. We're front running bitches like that.

So there was this speech thing last night

Last night the President gave his State of the Union and the response seem to be pretty good. The speech was so good that Chris Matthews forgot Barack Obama was black for an hour. Me? I forgot the President was half white for an hour, then I forgot I was black for a half hour, remembered that I'm lily white for the other half hour, acutely remembered the religion and ethnicity of everyone I know for an hour, and then forgot who the supporting cast in the Godfather Part II was. I still can't remember.

It was a long speech, long on optimism, quick with mocking humor, and took numerous opportunities to chastise the shitty legislature, the problems he inherited, and the fact that nobody seems to want to do anything to address them. Here are some of the more buzzworthy lines from the speech. The TB consensus favorite was this:

"At the beginning of the last decade, America had a budget surplus of over $200 billion. By the time I took office, we had a one year deficit of over $1 trillion and projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade. Most of this was the result of not paying for two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program. On top of that, the effects of the recession put a $3 trillion hole in our budget. That was before I walked in the door."

A completely true statement about the absolute horrowshow he was handed, which also triggered another running theme of the evening: human blights on the country mouthing bullshit when the cameras were on them.

But what were the themes of the evening? Jobs... and jobs, and jobs, and jobs, and jobs. Why? No one has one. Barry also took the time out to pledge and urge support for passing health care in the vague, nonspecific way that has been so infuriating during the health debate. He wants Congress to trust in the recovery path he put this country on, threatened to veto financial reform if it's the festering pile of lobbyist bullshit we all know it will be, ordered his party to get some balls, and offered up that maybe we should let gays serve in the military.

That's all good and well, but if good speeches that were very popular with the American people got things done, we'd have decent health care, smart regulatory reforms, action on climate change, decent bailouts and stimulus plans passed, and the country wouldn't be the shithole that it is. But as we've learned over the past year; talk is cheap, and so is owning a lawmaker. Well, cheap relative to the cost of what they can do for you by stalling, killing, or weakening laws. For all the good ideas, smart words, and big plans Obama has, they still have to go through the fiery crucible of stupid that is the US Senate and the lesser stupidity of the House.

So, Mr. President... yeah, good luck with all of that. I'll believe it when I see it. Still, nicely delivered and thought out. It's that implementation thing we're all still waiting on.

Quote of the day

President Obama, already turtling into that punch-drunk "I don't care what people say", "I listen to what's in my heart", "I'll let history judge me" period of the Presidency that took George W. Bush 7 years to get to.

“I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president,” he told ABC’s “World News” anchor Diane Sawyer in an exclusive interview today.
...
Seated across from Sawyer in the White House, the president added, “I don’t want to look back on my time here and say to myself all I was interested in was nurturing my own popularity.”

Well, you certainly have shown you aren't interested in doing things that are popular.

Let's see: fucked up health care to the point it might not pass now, haven't gotten around to focusing on that whole jobs thing, no attempt on serious financial reform, your economic leaders have been shown to be way too close and too eager to cut cushy deals for the financial giants that shitted the economy and help them hide from any scrutiny, you've continue much of the repellent legal shenanigans the Bush Administration engaged in, Gitmo is still open, there's those two wars still going on, and you don't seem interested in actually fighting for anything you ran on.

Will you settle for mediocre one-term president?

Mr. Barry Popularity

It may not look like it, it may not feel like it, and it may not actually be true, but according to Congressional Quarterly we have just witnessed the most successful year ever for a President getting what he wants from Congress. Oh yes, higher that Bush post-9/11 with a Republican Congress, higher than the year Lyndon Johnson kidnapped the children of every House member and held them in a White House subbasement, and higher than the time Grover Cleveland used one of the first motion picture cameras in existence to secretly record the dark rituals and blood orgies that the 55th Congress thought would keep them in power forever.

How did a Marxist Kenyan manage to pull of this unprecedented success in moving this country into the death grip of socialism? By CQ and President Obama defining "success" and "getting what he wants" so broadly as to be near meaningless.

All presidents demand specific action by Congress — or at least they ask for it. But when you look at the votes of 2009 in which Obama made his preference clear, his success rate was unprecedented, according to John Cranford of Congressional Quarterly.

"His success was 96.7 percent on all the votes where we said he had a clear position in both the House and the Senate. That's an extraordinary number," Cranford says.
...
But Sarah Binder, a congressional analyst at the Brookings Institution, says there's another key reason he scored so well. She says he only took an official position on issues that were really important to him — those that he knew he had a very good chance of winning. He picked his battles carefully.

Ah, they only count battles where he expressed a clear position and, like the President, didn't grade the quality of a bill or even if it contained large parts of what he campaigned on, only that "something" was passed. And boy, did we ever see a lot of "something" get passed this year.

So in the end, it doesn't matter that Obama campaigned on a public option and that one is nowhere near a final health care bill or that the bill is a compromise loaded excrement sandwich that only barely does something positive. The President wanted something that could be called a health care bill, the Congress has just about reconciled something that fits the legal definition of a health care bill, thus it's a win. Same for bank bailouts and stimulus, something was wanted, something was passed, let's all not get too bogged down in the details or merits.

So yes, while you may have thought that you were kind of getting screwed hard as your elected betters just started willingly ceding ground on a host of issues while not learning any of the lessons of the financial apocalypse, but what you were witnessing was some sort of unprecedented win streak. Hope you enjoyed it.

According to CQ 2009 was also the most partisan year on record, with party line votes hotting an all time high. So keep that in mind: it took record partisanship from an almost impossible to squire majorities that will no longer exist past 2010 in order to churn out a few bills worth of stunning mediocrity in Congress. Doesn't that just fill you with optimism for 2011? Nothing being done is a realistic possibility.

Time for me to blow your fucking minds

Pew (pew pew) has a new poll out on Obama's popularity numbers. All in all what we come to expect, in the low fifties, more popular with women and youth, blah blah blah. But get ready for some surprising shit. Guess who Obama is really unpopular with:

With independents over the age of 50 -- just 37%.
Among whites in the South -- 33%
Among white independents -- 39%
Among white evangelicals -- 28%
Among everyone over 65 -- 44%
Among those earning more than $75,000 -- 44%

Sweet Jesus, who would have ever guessed? He's not popular with rich, old, white, male evangelicals from the South! Next you're going to tell me that he's popular with blacks and Democrats.

I'm not saying your poll is useless, Pew. It is nice to have popularity numbers as a whole. I'm just saying don't bother to tabulate certain numbers. Just put "You're kidding, right? Take a fucking guess" where the white, southern evangelical numbers should be and let your polsters skip out of work a few minutes early feeling good that they didn't waste precious time coming to an obvious conclusion.

Guh?

So, uh, President Obama just won the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the third sitting President and first in 90 years to win the award. In a surprise to everyone, Barry won the award without having that "peace" requirement that everyone else usually has on their Nobel resume. They're apparently grading on a curve.

The committee praised Obama for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples" during his nine months in office and singled out for special recognition Obama's call for a world free of nuclear weapons, which he first made in an April speech in Prague
...
In response to questions from reporters in Oslo, who noted that Obama so far has made little concrete progress in achieving his lofty agenda, committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said he hoped the prize would add momentum to Obama's efforts. At the same time, Jagland said, "We have not given the prize for what may happen in the future. We are awarding Obama for what he has done in the past year. And we are hoping this may contribute a little bit for what he is trying to do."

Jagland specifically cited Obama's speech about Islam in Cairo last spring, as well as efforts to address nuclear proliferation and climate change and use established international bodies such as the United Nations to pursue his goals. The committee -- made up of luminaries selected by the Norwegian government -- noted a profound shift in American policy and said Obama had "created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play."

I say again: Guh? That's strange, I've never seen a Nobel used to try to guilt someone into not escalating an armed conflict. Or someone say they hoped the award helped his future diplomatic endeavors, as if being President of the US isn't enough, he needs to be President of the US with a gold star on his lapel to be extra effective. Still though, Barry has tried very hard at outreach towards the Muslim world what with his speech there and all, made strides and agreements over nuclear non-proliferation, hosted a G20 event, has ratcheted back the inexplicable tensions the Bush Administration had with Russia by scrapping that missile defense, held that important "beer summit", seemed to make some progress with Iran, and has changed America's diplomatic posture from one of "intense pouting" to the arcane custom we refer to as "talking". Still....seems a bit light. Oh, I forgot he's not Bush. He is definitely not Bush. That's a plus. I guess it was just a down year for big diplomacy. It's sort of like when the Spurs won the NBA title during the 1998-99 lockout year.

Of course the same old critics came out to wail and moan at the award: the Taliban and the right wing of the GOP. Actually the fringe right's crazed disdain and sneering wasn't a surprise, but the Taliban kind of was. Who knew they had a lightning fast media office? So now we get to hear a few days worth of shrieking over diplomacy being gay and appeasement instead of interminable shrieking over death panels. At least it's a change from health care crazy to foreign policy crazy with a healthy dose of Euro-bashing.

So congrats, Barry. Excuse me; Nobel Prize winning Barry. Paul Krugman will show you the secret handshake. And hey, just think: if your Nobel acceptance speech is good enough and you take one of the diplomatic tracks you've started to the finish line, they'll give you a second one! Go back to back! Three-peat! Then you can rub that shit in the noses of assholes like Linus Pauling and the Office of the UN High Commission for Refugees.

Progress report

As Mr. Barry Popularity hits day 100, there's good news abounds for him. Despite the fact that he's the black president and our banks stole our money and tainted it with swine flu, the public doesn't yet hold him solely responsible for either. In fact he's more popular than Bubba and Beavis were during their first 100 days. They love him, hate his enemies, and want the things he wants done. Kick up those feet Barry, you're bulletproof.

Despite these ups and down, the president remains quite popular. According to the poll, 61 percent approve of Obama’s job — that’s compared with George W. Bush’s 56 percent and Bill Clinton’s 52 percent at this same juncture in their presidencies.

Also, 64 percent view Obama favorably versus 23 percent who see him in a negative light — once again, higher than Bush’s and Clinton’s scores on this question.
...
Just 29 percent have a positive view of the Republican Party, while 44 percent view it negatively — the 32nd consecutive NBC/Journal poll showing it with a net-negative rating. And even though they’re no longer in office, the poll shows that George W. Bush (with a 26 percent positive rating) and Dick Cheney (18 percent) remain unpopular.

What's that saying about absence making the heart grow fonder? Absence makes the heart wish you were even more absent? Out of office for 100 days and your popularity drops 5 points. You can probably thank Cheney for that one. People don't usually like seeing the pasty face of evil offer his oblivious criticisms of the guy they're relieved is in office now. If the public come to hate GWB any more he might have to downgrade that Presidential Fancy Book Libary to a outhouse magazine rack behind SMU.

Nice to see the GOP's strategy of "oppose everything in the craziest and most ignorant way possible" has done wonders for their future electoral hopes. Maybe another round of tea parties, cries of socialism, and a move to make Michelle Bachmann, El Rushbo, and whoever says the craziest thing he heard about Obama at the weekly GOP Waffle Breakfast the permanent leaders of your party will help bump those numbers into the low thirties. Word of warning: Barry's about another popularity bump from being able to coldcock you in public for laughs and suggest infecting you with swine flu to help develop cures for sick pigs.

Pollings

Never let it be said that our capacity for self-delusion isn't our greatest national resource. Because either we're taking a look at increasing job losses and economy shrinkage and flashing the double thumbs up or we're going to find out two decades from now that scientists have conclusively proven we got dumber as a species at about this point. Maybe I'm being too harsh, the poll clearly doesn't have a data point entry for people who simply shrugged their shoulders and simply said "It can't possibly get worse than this....right?" I'm betting the Times counted those as"economy is getting better."

Among other findings of this poll, Mr. Barry's popularity is thus far unkillable, possibly requiring dark magics, mystical weapons, and another few months of these economic conditions to fully start knocking it down. On the other hand the poll has found time to put another bullet in the head of Republican leadership, I mean "leadership", which at this point must have a skull consisting of only empty shell casings and hollow point fragments. Republicans clock in at a 25 year low, marking them as sligthy more popular than "leaving your kids with a notorious child molesting cannibal" and slightly less popular than "13 course tasting menu at restaurant that fishes drowned animals out of a sewage treatment plant."

So let's all hope optimism that things will get better is the same as things actually getting better. Because while we have lots of evidence of one, it's that second rascal we're having a hard time getting a bead on.

Barry, Barry, Barry...

What are you doing, man? A taped message directed at 70 million Iranians urging a "new day" of peace and respectful discourse? How dare you take a direct, conciliatory tone with those, and I use the term loosely, people.

Are you blind to how effective three decades of isolation and dick-waving have been in our ongoing effort to make Iran's government more transparent and engaged in the international community?

You even had the thing subtitled in Farsi and released on Nowru, the Persian equivalent of New Year's, MLB opening day, and the vernal equinox all rolled into one!

Clearly, you need to study up on your history, Barry. Backing a military coup, providing military support to enemies foreign and domestic, shooting down their civilian aircraft, rattling the saber every time one of their leaders so much as opens his mouth -- that's how you deal with Iran. Zero tolerance. How do we know this? Because, clearly, it's worked so well in the past.

Appeaser.

Progress report

Poll: Obama's rating at all-time high

In the survey, 68 percent have a favorable opinion of the president, including 47 percent whose opinion is "very positive" — both all-time highs for Obama in the poll. Moreover, 67 percent say they feel more hopeful about his leadership and 60 percent approve of his job in the White House.

Yet the percentage of Americans who are confident that Obama has the right goals and policies for the country — 54 percent — is slightly smaller, suggesting that the president is more popular than his policies are. An example: 57 percent tend to support the stimulus, compared with 34 percent who tend to oppose it.

Still, these attitudes about Obama have helped fuel a big jump in the percentage of Americans who believe the U.S. is headed in the right direction, according to the poll. In January’s NBC/Journal poll, 26 percent said the country was on the right track; now 41 percent think that.

Now while such terms as "all-time high' are rendered meaningless by the fact that he's been in office for a little over a month, it is a reminder that people like the guy, like the way he's handled things, and like what he's trying to do. Not so much for the Republicans though. They're clocking in a a 26% rating, making them slightly more popular than a new polio outbreak. Democrats as a whole are clocking in at 49%, making them almost.....liked. It's probably Barry glow, or just the sheer unlikeability of Republican leadership could make fascist anarchists seem credible. Dems also paste Republicans 48-20 on who is better suited to fix the economy, though both are crushed 67-25-7 when "moderately intelligent chimps" are also a choice.

Furthermore Barry is dodging blame as well, leaving it all for our disgraced ex-chieftain Mr. Bush to soak in like the horrid sponge he is. Bush is blamed by 56% of the country for "almost all" of the partisanship in Washington, Republicans as a whole getting 41%, and Barry getting 11%. I'm sure this has nothing to do with the "all NO all the time" full court press of the GOP.

He also isn't getting blamed for the economic crisis and people won't start blaming him in large numbers (over a third) for at least a year or two! 84% say he inherited the crisis, leaving us to wonder what country those other 16% live in where this problem came into existence on January 20th. This must be the section that earnestly believes Rush and Hannity when they blame Obama for all stock market drops.

All in all good news for the Barrytrain. Now let's see if we can use that popularity to get something other than massive bailouts for corporations and various attempts to stuff money into a leaking dam.

Broken In Brief: Jindal apparently unaware he is completely full of shit

Above: Jindal shakes hands with his head speechwriter

BATON ROUGE--In delivering the GOP response to President Obama's first address to a joint session of Congress last night, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal stressed his party's commitment to a new era of personal responsibility, limited government, and a seeming inability to acknowledge blatant contradictions at the core of his political philosophy.

Jindal opened his response by recounting his immigrant parents' ceaseless optimism and belief that "Americans can do anything," before accusing the institutional manifestation of their collective will of being unable to do anything.

Slipping into the boilerplate Republican argument that government has never accomplished any public good in all of recorded history, ever, Jindal assailed the President's assertion that the country can be righted by collective action directed at the nation's biggest problems. The governor then proclaimed, "Americans can do anything. When we pull together, there's no challenge we can't overcome."

Jindal continued, "Nothing is out of our reach, so long as we work together from a safe distance and refrain from providing federal funding for publican education, scientific research, or infrastructure improvement. To engage in such pluralism would undermine the very individualistic ethos upon which this country's founding fathers, in a historic moment of unity, compromise, and self-sacrifice, first launched this great Ship of State."

This reporter was unable to pose follow-up questions, as he was still striking himself between the eyes with a cudgel at press time.

The non-state of the union

Barry gave his pseudo SotU last night and there was much rejoicing. He confused America by appearing calm, collected, rational and he baffled us by talking to us as if we were adults and explained his plans and reasoning to us in much the same way. After eight years of "They hate your freedom. We are awesome" goo goo gaga childspeak it was at time horrifying and confusing. If he talks to us like we're adults, then don't we have to act like adults? Terrible. Barry talked about the economy, jobs, energy, bipartisanship, greed, torture, health care, and about messing with Joe Biden. There were 37 standing ovations and 65 applause breaks. Additionally someone installed an electric shocker on Nancy Pelosi's seat, causing her to jolt up excitedly after every sentence the President completed. 30,000 volts in the anus makes you excited about change.

The early review are in and Obama won the speech overwhelmingly or something. People liked it as both Democrats, Independants, and Republicans gave him high marks for the speech, the issues it addressed, and applying electrical shocks to Congressional members. Barry apparently killed it on taxes, Iraq, and the deficit. While some are even saying that the pre and post polling saw a 14 point jump in his popularity. Which is all meaningless as I can't remember there ever being a SotU that people came away hating. Talk is cheap, let's see if he can actually live up to the words. Furthermore this will hardly make a difference with Republicans he has to win over in the House or Senate, as the polling was not done of people from the 1950's.

Then there was Louisiana Governor and part-time exorcist Bobby Jindal's response. In his defense these are usually terrible.....and his was as well. He decided to take the opposite path Obama did, talking to us as if we were five year olds. Slow five year olds who couldn't realize that his speech was the same one Republicans have been giving since time immemorial. Government is the problem, we trust the people, tax cuts, Reagan, boo liberalism, volcano monitoring is for suckers, government is the problem. Maybe not the volcano thing. He also somehow tried to use Hurricane Katrina against the black Democrat President. Points for effort. He also talked like Kenneth from 30 Rock. When the words 'amateurish', 'laughable', and 'awkward' are thrown around, you know you've just springboarded to the top of the GOP's 2012 list. Someone's going to have to out hokey, out religious, and out folksy Sarah Palin and Bobby Jindal thinks he's the man to do it. Godspeed.

That's "Mr. Badass Motherfucker" to you

Unless you happened to purchase the audio book version of Barack Obama's "Dreams From My Father," you'd have no way of knowing that the President recorded it himself. You'd also have no way of knowing that when impersonating his high school friend, Ray, Barry lays down some rather inspired obscenities.

Now, thanks to the brilliant work of Mike Milliard at The Phoenix, we are able to hear this nation's 44th president serve up five courses of piping hot invective. A few quick examples:

“You know that guy ain’t shit. Sorry-ass motherfucker ain’t got nothing on me.” (MP3)

“There are white folks, and then there are ignorant motherfuckers like you.” (MP3)

“You ain’t my bitch, nigga! Buy your own damn fries!” (MP3)

Be sure to read the entire piece HERE. As Milliard rightly asserts, if Mr. Obama rolled out a few of these choice phrases right about now, he might not be getting his ass handed to him by the Republican congressional minority.

What happened today

44

"Sorry 'bout all that misery. Remember, my new house has guards, a moat, and an electric fence. Come and get some if you've got the stones liberals."

Is everything fixed yet? No? Goddammit. Well, at least we got our balls to the wall pomp and a face full of circumstance as Mr. Barry Popularity was allegedly enshrined as our 44th President (more on that later) and the Bush Administration finally ground to a halt. Everyone was there, from your favorite celebrities like Don King and Magic Johnson, Dennis Kucinich and Byron Dorgan, to nearly two million citizens with a high tolerance for freezing temperatures and soul legends wearing head bows that can be seen from outer space. Also there were all the living ex-Presidents and Vice-Presidents, as well as our current VP, one white cat short of full Bond villain resplendence. But what else happened?

• Gay hating evangelical phony Rick Warren made the election and invocation of the first black President in our nation's history somehow come across like an increasingly bizarre pitch to sell you a used Datsun that he swears a little old lady only used once a week to drive to his mega-church.
• Reverend Lowery on the other hand, knows a little something about a benediction, showmanship, color related rhyming, and a little thing called sincerity.
• Obama was actually sworn in today on the Lincoln Bible. Which, oddly enough, is a Koran.
  
• The White House Website got a little makeover. In case you don't want to bother to look, it's essentially Obama's campaign website with the color white replacing blue. Same font and everything. There's even a blog and they even have a fake news brief up about Washington changing.
• Chief Justice John Roberts fucked up the Inaugural Oath. Coincidentally he messed it up in such a way that it was actually the oath you have to take to become Postmaster General. Tragically Obama isn't really President now, but he does have some great ideas on shipping charges and stamps. Remember to put this in your "Crazy Right Wing Crank" file when Rush and Hannity try to claim this somehow invalidates Obama's Presidency along with the birth certificate thing, the Muslim thing, the black thing, and the Democrat thing. Historical fun fact: you don't actually need to take the oath, Obama officially became President the second the clock hit noon.
• The stock market continued to fall into the toilet. This was the first day of trading since Citibank and Bank of America announced their massive losses on Friday. Either that was the cause or everyone on the stock market floor heard a loud noise, got spooked, and decided to sell.
• Sen. Kennedy evidently had a seizure at the luncheon and had to be taken to a hospital. Sen. Byrd also had to be taken out of the luncheon due to his state after seeing his friend collapse. Both are fine and according to Chris Dodd, Kennedy was bitching about having to go to the hospital. In all likelihood both were probably just tired of hearing yet another speech from yet another President about how things were going to change, the American people were behind his agenda, and everyone needed to come together. It was all a ruse and they're both drinking in a bar right now, on their tenth round, bullshitting about whatever it is people who have been in the Senate for 1000 years bullshit about.

He's never last-picked

Gallup's Daily Obama Favorability Poll. I think we like him.