House of Eratosthenes

President Obama’s media cheerleaders are hailing how loved he is. But at the 100-day mark of his presidency, Mr. Obama is the second-least-popular president in 40 years.

According to Gallup’s April survey, Americans have a lower approval of Mr. Obama at this point than all but one president since Gallup began tracking this in 1969. The only new president less popular was Bill Clinton, who got off to a notoriously bad start after trying to force homosexuals on the military and a federal raid in Waco, Texas, that killed 86. Mr. Obama’s current approval rating of 56 percent is only one tick higher than the 55-percent approval Mr. Clinton had during those crises.

Perhaps, now, we learn the real reason why the 100-day benchmark is so artificially important: It affords the media a high zenith of latitude in massaging truth. I’ve watched a lot of Presidents take the oath now, and never once have I ever heard any official news agency say anything even similar to: “Okay, on Day One Hundred, we’re going to go after this poll, over here, look at this statistic, and read it this way…” Nope. The 100-day thing, itself, is most often phrased as a question. Or a bunch of questions. What’s The Boss worried about for His second hundred days? What’s He learned? How does it make Him feel when people say nasty things about Him? The approval ratings He has or hasn’t earned…that really was never anything more than one more bludgeon to use against Republicans.

His policies, at a thirty thousand-foot level? Some Americans feel obliged to murmur empty words of support, having bragged just a few weeks earlier about having voted Him in. But our country is generally not too enthused.

Sixty percent (60%) of Americans say the federal government has too much power and too much money, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Just nine percent (9%) say the government has too little power and money. Twenty-four percent (24%) believe the government has about the right amount of both.

Not surprisingly, the Political Class sees things a lot differently. While 85% of Mainstream Americans say the government has too much power and money, just two percent (2%) of the Political Class agree. Nearly one-ou[t]-of-four members (24%) of the Political Class, in fact, believe the government has too little money and power, but 68% say it has about the right amount of each.

While slightly more than half of those working for both the government and private industry say the government is too big, 79% of entrepreneurs feel that way.

Republicans and adults not affiliated with either major political party are far more concerned about the government’s size and wealth than Democrats are. Eighty-eight percent (88%) of Republicans and 62% of unaffiliateds say the federal government has too much power and money. Among Democrats, however, just 35% agree, while 44% think the size of government is about right.

The Republican campaign slogans for 2010 and 2012, they write themselves. I can see the lawn signs now: “Forty-four percent of democrats think government is the right size!” Hey, waitaminnit…what’s a hundred minus 35 minus 44? That means 21% of democrats want more?

Back to the President: Blogger friend Daniel Summers gives the President a charitable D- overall, having failed Him in all the “courses” save for national security. (The pirate head-shot thing…saved His Holy Ass.)

Blogger friend Buck and I have a disagreement about the failed photo op in NYC, the one with the 747 scaring the bejeezus out of Manhattan folks still shell-shocked from the 9/11 attacks all these years later. Buck, and folks like him, are in the “not a news item, move along” camp. They all forget: This was a stupid, sub-rookie, albeit honest mistake — made by folks who are actually pretty smart — and not an isolated incident. So you can’t blame stupidity, you can’t blame insincerity and you can’t even blame chance. How is it that this stupid, stupid thing was done? The political climate. And I’m not talking out here where we’re fighting about conservatives and liberals all week every week. I’m talking about inside the White House…where no mistakes can be made…ever…because the guy at the tippy top is just so wonderful, He has that shimmering halo over His head.

In government as well as outside of it, such a situation leads to brains in the lower echelons that aren’t shut off or dulled down, quite so much as shifted into idle and left there. The Boss has this immunity from criticism, you see, and you’ve inherited some of that. Besides, you aren’t actually owning any one of the chores you’re doing. If it works out great, Mister Wonderful will be there to take all the credit…refer back to the Somali pirate situation, above…and if it goes to crap, some scapegoat will be found somewhere — maybe you, maybe not. Scapegoat-searches are random by nature. They’re just avalanches of crap. They can hit anything or anybody, and there’s nothing deliberate about them.

So the incentive to do a job well, or even adequately, disappears entirely. What vestigial amounts of accountability remain, don’t even match what pulses through your noggin as you make a batch of spaghetti sauce on the stove. You have the presence of mind to say “I’d better not leave the saucepan handle sticking out over the edge of the stove, or someone might come by and knock it off.” Scapegoat Calderon — if, indeed, he really is the poor stupid bastard who should’ve taken the fall for this debacle — didn’t even have that much happening. Check out that film clip one more time. Look at those people. That was happening inside all the buildings, as well. It’s amazing no one got killed, let alone hurt.

And it isn’t an isolated incident. It will happen again and again. If I prepared one of these detailed report cards, that would definitely go in…because to even be on par with our historical barely-adequate presidents, President Obama needs to get a radical new culture-shift going in His White House. And at this point, I doubt it can be done. The problem is inextricably connected to His Greatness. It’s a weakness against which His predecessors have not had to struggle — but it’s also been a campaign asset they haven’t been able to enjoy. And He’s never been shy about exploiting it to the hilt when it suited His purposes.

How else can we gauge His success, or lack thereof, after the first one hundred days? Blogger friend Cassy embeds a video from The NRSC that spells out an important issue: Accountability. On this particular point, student Obama requires some specialized instruction. He simply cannot be relied-upon to perform on this metric independently.

BBC UK embeds a graphic that highlights something interesting: The words used to describe President Obama, upon Inauguration, and in the month of April. “Intelligent”: Down three points. “Honest”: Down four points. “Confident”: Holding steady. “Hope/Hopeful”: Fourteen points before, no longer there. And one particular word I would personally find the most embarrassing, for it’s got “moving goalpost” written all over it. “Trying”: Non-existent in January, now earning twelve points!

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Bring Out Some More Fake Greek ColumnsThursday, April 30th, 2009

Bring Out Some More Fake Greek Columns
Thursday, April 30th, 2009