Idaho issues Cease and Desist order... against Congress

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Re: Idaho issues Cease and Desist order... against Congress

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Sareth wrote:Just wrote a long, massive post highlighting my issues... and it took so long the computer logged me out before I hit submit. Whole post went poof.
Damn, I hate that. Particularly on some of the political blogs, where, if you misspell your name or password, they not only flash you the big warning sign, they also back you up a page and your text disappears. I fell into the habit of always doing a quick Control-C whenever I try to post.
Sareth wrote:Raymond LaHood was a school teacher before he entered politics. And yet he now is in charge of the Department of Transportation. He is expected to be able to ensure the safe and smooth flow of traffic on the interstates, highways, waterways, railways, and airways of this nation, even though his entire experience with such is booking flights to D.C. Nothing wrong with school teachers, but I wouldn't expect one to suddenly run a railroad.
My comment to my wife on Ray LaHood's appointment was that, if Obama wants to know how something is going to "play in Peoria" all he has to do is ask his TransSec. LaHood is from Peoria and has represented it in congress for 12 years.

Ray LaHood's district is a big swath of western Illinois, thousands of square miles of the world's most productive farmland and a network of small industrial cities. Politicians from that part of the country have taken a keen interest in the national transportation network since back in the days of the Whig Party. LaHood is not considered one of the outstanding members of congress, but he knows his job and has spent a good deal of time on the transportation committee. That makes him, by traditional standards, an excellent choice for Secretary of Commerce.

I expect this set of qualification might seem odd to most Americans, as we’ve all been taught that “politics” is a nasty, pointless game and “politicians” are contemptible creatures who don’t do anything useful. In the real world, “politics” is the system of communication and decision making we use to run our society and “politicians” are the skilled personnel who create and run our governing infrastructure.

The situation is a little clearer in parliamentary governments like that in Great Britain. In the British government, all of the cabinet positions are held by members of parliament with technocratic support provided by the civil service and the military. Anyone who wants to be political powerful in that kind of system has to be capable of running one or more departments of the government.

In the United States, the original concept was that government would be kept very small. The laws would be created in the congress where senior members would be the storehouse of knowledge and skill used to run the country. The president would run the government day to day, setting policy in conjunction with the congress, and would only need a few skilled “secretaries” to assist him in his duties.

Over the last two centuries, of course, the American executive branch has grown in size and the president’s “secretaries” are now assumed to be of a higher social class and level of expertise than all but a few powerful congressmen and senators. In spite of this, the members of congress are still creating legislation and debating policy, and any member with a modicum of experience in legislative office is a potential cabinet member. LaHood's appointment went over well with the political establishment in Washington, with very little grousing, so apparently they think he can handle the job.
History celebrates the battlefields whereon we meet our death, but scorns to speak of the plowed fields whereby we thrive; it knows the names of kings’ bastards but cannot tell us the origin of wheat. This is the way of human folly. --- Henry Fabre
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Re: Idaho issues Cease and Desist order... against Congress

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mindstalk wrote:teleprompter: the version I heard was that it was the Irish PM who did get his speech in time, and started reading Obama's speech for 20 seconds before catching on. Then, when Obama spoke up again, he "thanked himself" as a joke.
Yep. Confirmed by the Washington Independent newspaper:

Did the president really become so TelePrompTer dependent that he accidentally thanked himself after a speech? No. Harnden has the pool report from Obama’s appearance with Irish Taioseach Brian Cowen.
"Then it was Cowen’s turn, and he was in for a surprise. ‘We begin by welcoming today a strong friend of the United States,’ he said–then stopped in surprise as he realized he was reading President Obama’s speech off the teleprompter. ‘Why don’t these things work for me?’ he asked, as the crowd roared. ‘Thank you for having us. Who said these things were idiot-proof?’ Then he got his bearings and gave the same talk that he delivered in the East Room. When he ended, at 8:12, Obama stepped to the microphone and said, ‘First, I’d like to say thank you to President Obama…(much laughter). Happy Saint Patrick’s Day, everybody.’ Then we were escorted out."
It was a joke that bloggers mutated into a “gaffe.” IHatetheMedia.com even wrote a FOIA request asking the White House to “free the tape.” If it is “freed,” of course, it’ll reveal that the bloggers at IHatetheMedia don’t know how to read or do reporting.

Checked around on the blogs, and it was just as I suspected: another juvenile Right Wing whisper campaign. Steven Benen, from the mainstream Washington Monthly blog, sums it up . . .
STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES.... Over the last couple of years, it seemed like Barack Obama's conservative detractors had thrown just about every criticism imaginable at the guy. If recent commentary on far-right blogs is any indication, they've come up with a new one: they're convinced the president isn't very bright.
Just to be clear, they're talking about the current president.
Now, this always seemed like one of the few attacks the right would go out of its way to avoid. For one thing, they defended George W. Bush, despite his, shall we say, intellectual limitations. For another, I had assumed even die-hard Republicans would grudgingly acknowledge Obama's intelligence, much the same way a liberal lawyer might reluctantly respect Justice John Roberts' intellect, even while disagreeing with him on everything.
Apparently, though, that's not the case, and quite a few of the leading far-right bloggers have convinced themselves that the president, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, is a dim bulb. Take this item, for example, published yesterday by Powerline's John Hinderaker:

"Everyone knows that Barack Obama is lost without his teleprompter, but his latest blunder, courtesy of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, via the Corner, suggests that the teleprompter may not be enough unless it includes phonetic spellings. [Obama apparently mispronounced the name of the company "Orion"]
"So evidently we have to add astronomy to history and economics as subjects of which Obama is remarkably ignorant. I'm beginning to fear that our President has below-average knowledge of the world. Not for a President, but for a middle-aged American."

Just in case there's any doubt, there was no indication that Hinderaker was kidding or being deliberately ironic. (With conservative blogs, it's often hard to tell.)
This is, of course, coming from the same blogger who was not only impressed by Sarah Palin's intellectual prowess, but also once lauded George W. Bush as "a man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius."
A.L. concluded, "The alternative universe that these folks manage to create for themselves is really quite something to behold.... What's really sad is that Hinderaker is not alone in this belief. If you read the right wing blogs, it's just an accepted fact that Obama is a moron. It's as if they think that if they say it over and over again, it will somehow catch on with the public at large. "
If that's the goal, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that it fails. Call it a hunch.
This is standard Rovian tactics, although it is so ludicrous that it may actually have been tossed up by some random Right Wing bloggers. Traditional dirty politics is to attack the enemies weak points: if he didn't vote for the latest weapon system, claim he's weak on defense; if he voted to hold the line on school budgets, claim he doesn't care about our children's future. Rove realized that, with proper media control and an utter lack of ethical standards, he could attack people on their strong points. So, Al Gore was, as a senator and vice-president, considered a squarish policy wonk and goody-two shoes, so get all your connections to spread the meme that he's a "serial fabricator" and "flakey environmental extremist." Max Cleland was a double-amputee Vietnam vet, so attack him as a coward who doesn't want to defend America. John Kerry was an authentic war hero, so start a campaign claiming his metals were fakes, he really didn't do anything brave, and he shot a kid in the back who was running away from a firefight.

The tactic has been so successful over the last ten years it even has a name: "swift-boating." It works pretty well if you've got a lot of followers radical and spiteful enough to push the smear all over the media map, and if the supposedly neutral press are cowed enough, corrupt enough, or gullible enough to burn up their limited air time pushing your smears instead of, for instance, the actual truth.

So, the new meme is that a Harvard law review editor and University of Chicago law professor who has impressed millions all over the world with his intelligence, knowledge, and eloquence is secretly too stupid to talk without a teleprompter.

God save America, for we might be too bent these days to save ourselves.
History celebrates the battlefields whereon we meet our death, but scorns to speak of the plowed fields whereby we thrive; it knows the names of kings’ bastards but cannot tell us the origin of wheat. This is the way of human folly. --- Henry Fabre
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Re: Idaho issues Cease and Desist order... against Congress

Post by Sareth »

Good to know. Thanks for setting things straight!
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Re: Idaho issues Cease and Desist order... against Congress

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Addenda: Ed Henry of CNN made a fool of himself at the President's press conference Tuesday, asking a long-winded, pointlessly loaded question about AIG and then repeating the loaded part again after Obama brushed him off. Pretty much everyone on the planet except Ed Henry thought Obama slapped him down beautifully after the follow-up. However, Henry is too stupid to leave well enough alone and shows how "fair and balanced" CNN's reporters are . . .
CNN's Ed Henry calls on Obama to use TelePrompter more

CNN's Ed Henry, who was thoroughly owned by the President during Tuesday night's debate, today called on White House staffers to keep President Obama out of unscripted situations that might once again result in the CNN reporter's utter humiliation.

"Certainly, the TelePrompter is a crutch," Henry said, "but until Tuesday night, I didn't know how much I liked crutches."

"I don't ever want to see that man go off script again," the visibly shaken Henry added.
History celebrates the battlefields whereon we meet our death, but scorns to speak of the plowed fields whereby we thrive; it knows the names of kings’ bastards but cannot tell us the origin of wheat. This is the way of human folly. --- Henry Fabre
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Re: Idaho issues Cease and Desist order... against Congress

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The New York Times is seeing some wisdom in Sareth's argument.
Lately I’ve been consuming as much conservative media as possible (interspersed with shots of Pepto-Bismol) to get a better sense of the mind and mood of the right. My read: They’re apocalyptic. They feel isolated, angry, betrayed and besieged. And some of their “leaders” seem to be trying to mold them into militias.

At first, it was entertaining — just harmless, hotheaded expostulation. Of course, there were the garbled facts, twisted logic and veiled hate speech. But what did I expect, fair and balanced? It was like walking through an ideological house of mirrors. The distortions can be mildly amusing at first, but if I stay too long it makes me sick.

But, it’s not all just harmless talk. For some, their disaffection has hardened into something more dark and dangerous. They’re talking about a revolution.

Some simply lace their unscrupulous screeds with loaded language about the fall of the Republic. We have to “rise up” and “take back our country.” Others have been much more explicit.

For example, Chuck Norris, the preeminent black belt and prospective Red Shirt, wrote earlier this month on the conservative blog WorldNetDaily: “How much more will Americans take? When will enough be enough? And, when that time comes, will our leaders finally listen or will history need to record a second American Revolution?”

Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, imagining herself as some sort of Delacroixian Liberty from the Land of the Lakes, urged her fellow Minnesotans to be “armed and dangerous,” ready to bust caps over cap-and-trade, I presume.

And between his tears, Glenn Beck, the self-professed “rodeo clown,” keeps warning of an impending insurrection by saying that he believes that we are heading for “depression” and “revolution” and then gaming out that revolution on his show last month. “Think the unthinkable” he said. Indeed.
The Liberal Blogosphere is also on the case, particularly with respect to Michele Bachmann, who keeps tossing quotes like the above into her speeches. It remains to be seen what will come of it all. Bachmann, in particular, appears to be violating codes of conduct for elected officials and may be violating a law or two. American politicians are NOT supposed to be encouraging voters to shoot their opponents!

There was a surge of growls along this line back in the 90s. It ended abruptly when Timothy McVeigh bombed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and murdered 168 people. Actions have consequences, Mr Beck, Ms Bachmann. If you preach hatred, paranoia, and violence to millions of people, odds are that eventually some nutjob is going to take you seriously enough to go out and kill someone.
History celebrates the battlefields whereon we meet our death, but scorns to speak of the plowed fields whereby we thrive; it knows the names of kings’ bastards but cannot tell us the origin of wheat. This is the way of human folly. --- Henry Fabre
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Re: Idaho issues Cease and Desist order... against Congress

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Part of the problem is that the assumption behind the article you quote is that in order to feel that the government is becoming very unresponsive and unreasonable, you have to be some radical nutcase firebrand. The article is viewing anyone who feels that way with alarm.

President Obama entered office with a 68% aproval rating, the second highest ever held by a President on their inaguration. He had a 12% disapproval rating. 20% of the country didn't feel one way or the other. His current approval rating three months later is at 63%. Not bad. Except that now his disapproval rating is up to 27%. 10% of the country doesn't have an opinion. He hasn't even been in office three months, and he's losing the "neutrals."

But that's not the important thing.

Congress is the important thing. Approval for Congress spiked after the inauguration. By spiked I mean that 39% of the nation... only a little more than 1/3rd of the country, approves of the way the actual law creating organ of the government is doing its job. And that spike is due to the fact that only a little over half (59%) of the Democrats approve, up from 17% prior to their take over. Nearly half of the DEMOCRATS can't muster up feelings of support for the government that they control. Some might argue that the low number of approval is the fault of Republicans being bitchy that they no longer are in power. That argument fails in the fact that the approval rating amongst Republicans during this time period has only dropped... 1%. 22% approval instead of 23%.

Traditionally, when a political party takes over from another there's a honeymoon period where that party radically approves the new administration before they wake up, the honeymoon is over, and things go back to normal. The Democratic response is shockingly lackluster. For a comparison, after Bush II was elected, the Republican support for Congress topped 70%. Today's Dems are 11% LOWER, and we saw where THAT government went... If the BUSH Congress mustered stronger initial support than the Obama Congress... Not good news for Congress or President Obama (or the rest of us, for that matter, dude.

These are NOT encouraging numbers.

But in order for the clear underlying assumptions of the article you quoted to be true, the disgust shown is coming from radical elements out of touch with the rest of America. While people calling for open revolt are the extreme end of things, these numbers show that they're less out of touch than we should be comfortable with.

Let me make my personal position clear. Congress (and the rest of the government) should NOT change it's course based on the radicals calling for open revolt. However, it SHOULD take not of the fact that the percentage of the country that supports its course of action is in the minority, and that it has been shrinking.

(Numbers taken from the Gallup website.)
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Re: Idaho issues Cease and Desist order... against Congress

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Sareth wrote:Let me make my personal position clear. Congress (and the rest of the government) should NOT change it's course based on the radicals calling for open revolt. However, it SHOULD take not of the fact that the percentage of the country that supports its course of action is in the minority, and that it has been shrinking.
Lots of interesting stuff in your last post, but I want to home in on one subtle point in this final paragraph.

In my opinion, it's worth the time to consider whether the public views Congress negatively because of what they're doing, or how they're behaving. The two things are not the same. As far as I can tell, Congress hasn't really been "doing" much of anything related to the economic crisis, besides passing the predictably pork-laden legislation with the predictable riders, some of which are predictably passed while others as predictably fail. Their behavior, however, has been as vocal, and childish, as ever.

Here's an example, lifted from a blog dedicated to radio stations that broadcast classical music -- a subject that, as a performing classical musician, I care quite a bit about. (The comment on this blog entry is mine, in fact.) The classical-music community was up in arms about an amendment proposed to one of the stimulus acts that proposed to prevent use of stimulus funding for any "museum, theater, arts center," or various other things. Now you can have a perfectly sensible and reasoned debate about whether expending stimulus money on these areas is an appropriate use of the money; I happen to think that it is, but the idea is open to discussion on its merits. But then read the rest of the text of the amendment, which is given in that blog entry, and ask yourself: why on earth would this language be packaged in an amendment that also forbids spending stimulus money on zero-gravity chairs?

The only possible explanation is that the whole thing was a legislative maneuver that was never intended as a point of law, but rather to make some completely incomprehensible political/journalistic point. That's the "behavior" part. However, the amendment didn't make it into law, but as far as I can tell, died without a vote; that's the "doing" part, or depending on how you look at it, non-doing. I am personally disgusted that the atmosphere in Congress is such that this kind of buffoonish behavior is tolerated -- even as I am reassured that, when push came to shove, an amendment this silly was not part of the final act. And I say this without having a clear opinion in my mind as to whether the act as passed was a good thing.

Incidentally, the conflict among competence, availability, and ethics seems to be surfacing again today, because of something the New York Times turned up on one of Obama's economic advisors. The facts on this one aren't sufficient yet for me to have an informed opinion on it, but it's clear that the same set of issues are going to just keep coming up over and over and over again.
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Re: Idaho issues Cease and Desist order... against Congress

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DIU – Different Information Universes. People not only have different sets of facts, they read things in entirely different ways.

As an example, a comment I’ve seen made frequently Hilary-phobes is that our current Secretary of State has a shrill, screechy voice. I invite anyone to listen to listen to her speeches and compare them with clips of a random selection of a dozen other women in public life. If anything, Hilary Clinton’s voice is lower in pitch then most women making political speeches, her cadence is slower and less emotional then the average. It is one of the advantages Barack Obama had over her in their primary contest.

Actually, that is an advantage Obama has over just about anyone he’s run against. But that’s a digression.
Sareth wrote:Part of the problem is that the assumption behind the article you quote is that in order to feel that the government is becoming very unresponsive and unreasonable, you have to be some radical nutcase firebrand. The article is viewing anyone who feels that way with alarm.
I think you are reading this way too broadly. On a given day, I would estimate that about 8 out of 10 Americans think that our government is “unresponsive and unreasonable.” The people referred to in the article are the ones who think an appropriate reaction to this circumstance is violence, rebellion, and treason. That is a very substantial difference. Traditional American middle class standards for polite political argument since 1865 do not include threats to shoot people. Because of what happened over the thirty or so years prior to 1865, and the million or so Americans who died because we could not find a way to disagree peacefully on the important issues of the time.
Sareth wrote:President Obama entered office with a 68% approval rating, the second highest ever held by a President on their inauguration. He had a 12% disapproval rating. 20% of the country didn't feel one way or the other. His current approval rating three months later is at 63%. Not bad. Except that now his disapproval rating is up to 27%.
Again, we can look at those numbers from the opposite direction. Obama had approval ratings in the sixties all through the winter, the “high” from the inauguration give him a minor spike, and he’s held to the sixties ever since. The 12% disapproval was statistically dubious and easily discountable as an inauguration day fluke. For any president, keeping up a 70/30 approval ratio for any period of time is a major accomplishment. Hanging onto it in such a viciously divisive political climate, through the uproar of near-constant political scandals, and right through a catastrophic economic collapse is near-miraculous.
Sareth wrote:He hasn't even been in office three months, and he's losing the "neutrals."
Huh? In general, the voting population has been breaking Democratic/Independent/Republican about 40/20/40 over the last few decades. I’m being generous, here. Professional pols tend to assume that only about 10% of the votes are actually in play in most elections. The independent voters in last November’s election broke (IIRC) about 80/20 for Obama; McCain kissed most of them off when Palin turned out to be such a flop as a VP candidate.

A president with a 70/30 approval ratio isn’t "losing the 'neutrals,'” he’s winning them overwhelmingly!
Sareth wrote:Congress is the important thing. Approval for Congress spiked after the inauguration. By spiked I mean that 39% of the nation... only a little more than 1/3rd of the country, approves of the way the actual law creating organ of the government is doing its job. And that spike is due to the fact that only a little over half (59%) of the Democrats approve, up from 17% prior to their take over. Nearly half of the DEMOCRATS can't muster up feelings of support for the government that they control.
You are leaving out an important point, here, that was a consistent part of polling research over the last few years: the reason the Democrats in Congress were so disapproved of after the 2006 elections was because the electorate wanted them to actively oppose Bush and the Republicans and they failed to do so. The current polling reflects the same frustration. The voters want the Democrats to take charge of the congress and pass laws to support the president and the platform they all ran on in 2006 and 2008. How can this possibly be bad news for President Obama?
Sareth wrote:But in order for the clear underlying assumptions of the article you quoted to be true, the disgust shown is coming from radical elements out of touch with the rest of America.
Which is quite true. The talking points consistently spouted by the pro-revolution crowd tend to fall into three categories: resentments too broad to counter-argue, Right-wing causes supported by only a tenth to a third, at best, of the populace, and, particularly in the case of Congresswoman Bachmann, fantasies and urban legends. If you can list some that are not, I would be interested in hearing them.

The program actually being put through by the Obama administration is pretty much the same as the one he ran on in the primaries and the general election. Most of its elements including important ones, like an active anti-recession program and health reform, had the approval of a solid majority of the voters last year and are still popular this year.
History celebrates the battlefields whereon we meet our death, but scorns to speak of the plowed fields whereby we thrive; it knows the names of kings’ bastards but cannot tell us the origin of wheat. This is the way of human folly. --- Henry Fabre
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Re: Idaho issues Cease and Desist order... against Congress

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You deserve an answer, but I haven't slept right in a week (damn Senior Project...) Consider this a promissory note.
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Re: Idaho issues Cease and Desist order... against Congress

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Boss Out of Town wrote:DIU – Different Information Universes. People not only have different sets of facts, they read things in entirely different ways.
Agreed. People bring their own personal experiences and values to everything they view, interpretting things through that. No where is this more true than in the areas of Politics and Religion, and no where is there a greater need for understanding.
As an example, a comment I’ve seen made frequently Hilary-phobes is that our current Secretary of State has a shrill, screechy voice. I invite anyone to listen to listen to her speeches and compare them with clips of a random selection of a dozen other women in public life. If anything, Hilary Clinton’s voice is lower in pitch then most women making political speeches, her cadence is slower and less emotional then the average. It is one of the advantages Barack Obama had over her in their primary contest.

Actually, that is an advantage Obama has over just about anyone he’s run against. But that’s a digression.
He is an inspiring speaker, that is true. People should be judged by the content of what they say, not how they say it. Unfortunately, we have a habit of losing the message to the presentation. Obama, Hillary... let's judge their message, not their delivery.
Sareth wrote:Part of the problem is that the assumption behind the article you quote is that in order to feel that the government is becoming very unresponsive and unreasonable, you have to be some radical nutcase firebrand. The article is viewing anyone who feels that way with alarm.
I think you are reading this way too broadly. On a given day, I would estimate that about 8 out of 10 Americans think that our government is “unresponsive and unreasonable.” The people referred to in the article are the ones who think an appropriate reaction to this circumstance is violence, rebellion, and treason. That is a very substantial difference. Traditional American middle class standards for polite political argument since 1865 do not include threats to shoot people. Because of what happened over the thirty or so years prior to 1865, and the million or so Americans who died because we could not find a way to disagree peacefully on the important issues of the time.
It’s quite possible I am reading overmuch into it. To give you some credit, it does say that “some of their ‘leaders’ seem to be trying to mold them into militias.” However, it does this right after referring to “the right” (not “some of the right,” or “elements of the right” but “the right,” implying a solidarity) as “apocalyptic.”

To my mind, the writer you were quoting is attempting to portray conservatives as a whole as being rampant, drooling revolutionaries readying themselves to tear apart the country. To my mind, that makes the author in question no less disreputable and muck raking than the people he or she highlighted in the article. (I was assuming that you had a similar interpretation, given your follow up commentary?)

Regardless, you yourself estimate that 8 out of 10 Americans consider their government unresponsive and unreasonable. You further point out this does not mean that they are rebels readying their swords. I agree. However, the question becomes “What is to be done about this?” Do we just shrug our shoulders and continue on with this situation? Or do we do something about it. To my mind, the fact that so many state legislatures are sending Congress these Cease and Desist orders is a reasonable act. It is (for the most part) not a call for open revolt. Rather, it is a very legal and reasoning call for Congress to return to its constitutional limitations. Should Congress not comply, and continue to be “unreasonable and unresponsive” then further efforts need to be made, such as seeking to impeach the elected members of the government, or calling for constitutional conventions to re-phrase the Constitution to further emphasis what powers the Federal Government does NOT possess, etc. These are a far cry from calling for an open revolt, but the article you quote does not distinguish enough between these actions and “[urging] her fellow Minnesotans to be ‘armed and dangerous,’ ready to bust caps.”

Honesty does compel me to state that I do believe that, ultimately, people do have the right to replace a government that no longer is responsive to it, by force if necessary. HOWEVER, that should always be an act of desperate last resort. All other options should be exhausted first, and only if it is truly worth the widespread death and destruction that is liable to cause. As a man who has BEEN to war, I really don’t recommend it as a solution to minor disagreements over Social Security policy...
Sareth wrote:President Obama entered office with a 68% approval rating, the second highest ever held by a President on their inauguration. He had a 12% disapproval rating. 20% of the country didn't feel one way or the other. His current approval rating three months later is at 63%. Not bad. Except that now his disapproval rating is up to 27%.
Again, we can look at those numbers from the opposite direction. Obama had approval ratings in the sixties all through the winter, the “high” from the inauguration give him a minor spike, and he’s held to the sixties ever since. The 12% disapproval was statistically dubious and easily discountable as an inauguration day fluke. For any president, keeping up a 70/30 approval ratio for any period of time is a major accomplishment. Hanging onto it in such a viciously divisive political climate, through the uproar of near-constant political scandals, and right through a catastrophic economic collapse is near-miraculous.
Which brings us back to your opening statement: Different Information Universes. In my neck of the woods, people aren’t seeing a continually maintained high approval rating, they are seeing a climbing disapproval rating. In your neck of the woods, what is seen is the high approval rating, and the growing discontent is overlooked. What’s the truth? It’s probably somewhere in the middle. Only time will tell.
Sareth wrote:He hasn't even been in office three months, and he's losing the "neutrals."
Huh? In general, the voting population has been breaking Democratic/Independent/Republican about 40/20/40 over the last few decades. I’m being generous, here. Professional pols tend to assume that only about 10% of the votes are actually in play in most elections. The independent voters in last November’s election broke (IIRC) about 80/20 for Obama; McCain kissed most of them off when Palin turned out to be such a flop as a VP candidate.
McCain himself wasn’t exactly a winning proposition either. Frankly, I saw far too little difference between Obama and McCain to really find a vote for either to be worth beans. I voted third party knowing it would NOT get someone elected, but specifically as a way of stating “There are voters out there that BOTH parties are driving away with disgust. Rethink your approach.”
A president with a 70/30 approval ratio isn’t "losing the 'neutrals,'” he’s winning them overwhelmingly!
Apparently we are using different definitions of “neutral” here. I was referring to the fact that at the time of his election 20% of the country was neutral on the question of whether he was doing a good job or a bad job. Those are the neutrals I was referring to, not the moderates who sit between Conservative and Liberal. Since then, that 20% has almost disappeared, but his approval rating has not climbed by 20%, it’s dropped by 5%. To me, this means that those who were neutral on how he was doing have decided… in the negative. Further, a small percentage of those approving of him initially no longer do. He’s losing these people, not gaining them.
Sareth wrote:Congress is the important thing. Approval for Congress spiked after the inauguration. By spiked I mean that 39% of the nation... only a little more than 1/3rd of the country, approves of the way the actual law creating organ of the government is doing its job. And that spike is due to the fact that only a little over half (59%) of the Democrats approve, up from 17% prior to their take over. Nearly half of the DEMOCRATS can't muster up feelings of support for the government that they control.
You are leaving out an important point, here, that was a consistent part of polling research over the last few years: the reason the Democrats in Congress were so disapproved of after the 2006 elections was because the electorate wanted them to actively oppose Bush and the Republicans and they failed to do so. The current polling reflects the same frustration. The voters want the Democrats to take charge of the congress and pass laws to support the president and the platform they all ran on in 2006 and 2008. How can this possibly be bad news for President Obama?
Because there should be wide spread, overwhelming support and celebration. As you say, the voters (Well, a sufficient percentage of the voters) desire the Democrats to take charge of congress and fix things. But they haven’t. They have failed to do so. It could be argued that they had to try to overcome resistance on the part of an administration they were opposed to, and couldn’t quite do it, but now people are waking up to the fact that Congress and the President are on the same sheet of music. They have nothing to stop them. So if they are still perceived as failing to get the job done, then it is because they are failing to live up to the electorate that gave them the job.

If, as you say, people were disappointed by Congress failing to stand up to Bush and the Republicans, why are they still failing to support Congress? Bush and the Republicans are no longer able to stand in their way. Something else is to blame.
Sareth wrote:But in order for the clear underlying assumptions of the article you quoted to be true, the disgust shown is coming from radical elements out of touch with the rest of America.
Which is quite true. The talking points consistently spouted by the pro-revolution crowd tend to fall into three categories: resentments too broad to counter-argue, Right-wing causes supported by only a tenth to a third, at best, of the populace, and, particularly in the case of Congresswoman Bachmann, fantasies and urban legends. If you can list some that are not, I would be interested in hearing them.
I think I mis-spoke there. I was trying to point out that the article treats conservatism as a whole as being out of touch radicals, and that this is incorrect. My fault there.
The program actually being put through by the Obama administration is pretty much the same as the one he ran on in the primaries and the general election. Most of its elements including important ones, like an active anti-recession program and health reform, had the approval of a solid majority of the voters last year and are still popular this year.
True. Which confuses the hell out of me. Because the electorate put President Obama in office, put Congress in the Capital based on those promises. But when Congress is putting those policies out there, and President Obama is signing them into law, why is support for the government so low? People should be singing the praises of the success of the democratic system. They are, instead, convinced that the government is messing up by the numbers. Makes no sense to me.

(By the way, this whole argument is driving me insane. Not because of you, BOoT. These sorts of debates are what the system is about. No, it’s because I’m having to defend the conservative base, who I dislike just as much as I dislike the liberal base. Well, at least I’m getting to piss off a different group than I was pissing off before the election… It’s hard being a libertarian.)
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