How is Obama Doing?

Greg Sargent's Washington Post "Plum Line" column asks, detailing some CNN polling numbers for Obama and the GOP.

But I think all of this stuff will be long-forgotten after the conventions next summer. After that, the two sides will engage in massive media barrages of negative advertising.
Meanwhile, none of our real problems will be meaningfully addressed, because too many of our politicians have lost interest in doing their actual jobs, instead preferring to feather their nests and run for re-election in their gerrymandered districts, using their clout to buy campaign contributions.

What is America About?

Well according to Barack Obama, it is this:

“What’s happened to the bargain? What’s happened to the American deal that says, you know, we are focused on building a strong middle class?”

This is the reason people accuse Obama of not "getting" America.

There never was such a deal. America is (or at least used to be) about providing equal opportunity and treating all citizens equally under the law, i.e., the exact opposite of trying to "build" a "class". The American social strength is that we do not really care about class; we want everybody to be treated equally with respect to their legal rights. Those legal rights do not include, for example, the right to own a house, to achieve academic and economic parity with all other ethnic groups, or to have ones income rise every year while doing the same job.

"the President’s astonishingly shallow reflections on why he ran into trouble "

The smartest president we ever had?

http://www.tnr.com/book/review/confidence-men-ron-suskind

Fascinating.

The President's new tone

By now, we have all become accustomed to condescending lectures from Professor Obama.

But it will take the nation some time to get used to the fact that his insults are delivered in a hoarse yell, with a phony, uneducated veneer to make it sound populist.

What's *Really* Wrong With the Economy?

John Judis, in the New Republic:

"Obama needs to tell people what’s really wrong with the economy, and what needs to be done. Otherwise, he is not doing his job.”

The problem is that he can't say what he really thinks, which is that the government needs to spend a Ton More Money, and that the fair thing to do is just confiscate it from People Who Don't Really Need It.  The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, he probably thinks.

He's Baaaaaack!

(from Politico)

 

Oh, no:

·  Blago: I was 'bamboozled'

He is seeking a new trial, alleging judicial bias and no "presumption of innocence."

Michelle Bachmann, the Pope, and the Antichrist

Good piece on the guffaw-worthiness of journalism at the Atlantic magazine.

http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/surprise-the-reformation-happened.html

Walking the Beach

I spent 90 minutes or so this morning exploring the beach at La Jolla Shores with my daughter and two young boys visiting from Beijing. Normally, we go there to walk a couple brisk miles as we watch the waves roll in. Today, we were beachcombers, stopping to check out any shell, pattern of sand, flora or fauna that looked interesting. I saw several things I have never seen before.

Then it hit me: there are so many things that we "blow right by" as we live our lives. How many wonderful things are we missing because we are trying to get where we are going just a few minutes earlier?

How digital detectives deciphered Stuxnet, the most menacing malware in history

If somebody really, really wants to get you...

...they can:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/07/how-digital-detectives-deciphered-stuxnet-the-most-menacing-malware-in-history.ars/

wow.

 

Somebody, please tell the president what bluffing is.

“Don’t call my bluff.”

-President Barack Obama, July 13, 2011

 

Would someone please tell Obama that if he going to bluff, he is not supposed to announce it?

 

What’s next?

 

Please don’t challenge my lie.

Why aren’t you taking my bait?

Why are you looking at me like I’m nuts?

 

 

A Great Day in the Annals of Cleaning Up the USA

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-blagojevich-jurors-going-into-their-10th-day-20110627,0,620170.story

 

Guilty on 17 counts.

Acquitted on 1.

Deadlocked on 2.

 

Thank you, Patrick Fitzgerald, for getting it right, this time.

 

 

Samuel Johnson

For at least a decade I have been thinking, I have simply GOT to read me some Samuel Johnson, seeing as how everybody thinks he's so durned smart.

Now that I've finished John Wain's bio of him and read Rambler no. 2 and no. 8, I realize what I have been missing.

If I were English, I would make it a point of pride to share Johnson with the world, and claim him as one of the greatest men who ever lived. As I am mostly Irish, German, and -- um -- mixed, I will content myself with saying that he is a damned fine read.