The stimulus is working; why the poll numbers are down

via BCGAB

Suck it, Republicans:

Between 600,000 and 1.6 million jobs were created or saved through September as a result of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, according to a Congressional Budget Office report.

The data, released Monday, say the real inflation-adjusted gross domestic product was 1.2 percent to 3.2 percent higher than it would have been had the $787 billion stimulus package not passed in February. Also, the stimulus lowered the unemployment by between 0.3 and 0.9 percentage points, according to the report.

Yeah, 10.2 percent unemployment is awful and the Democrats need to pass another jobs bill right away or else. But this proves that spending equals growth equals jobs equals recovery. It's the ridiculousness of the corporate press and the Republicans that put this very basic economic notion into doubt, but don't hold your breath waiting for a retraction of all the red-baiting and concern-trolling we endured last February/March.

As Matt Yglesias points out, it shouldn't be surprising that Obama's poll numbers aren't that great. In fact, there's historical evidence for this.

One frustrating aspect of “horse race” coverage of the U.S. political system is that the people who insist on covering important policy debates as a kind of game are also pretty bad at analyzing the game.

Nor should it surprise anyone that 11 months of deteriorating economic conditions have taken a toll on Obama’s popularity.

Look at Ronald Reagan’s approval rating:


At the time there were probably lots of clever stories written about why Reagan was doing better or worse on whichever day. But looking back at things from 20 years later, the moral of the story seems to be pretty simple “recessions and giant scandals make presidents unpopular.” And of course they do!

So the next time you hear Doucheborough talking about how the numbers show Obama is tanking, remember he's looking at snapshots and trying to get you to tune in tomorrow for the political equivalent of "How'd the Celtics do last night?"

I'll also remind you of this post from last week, showing that the only place Obama is down is among Republicans. It used to be that a lot of them hated him. Now even more do.

O'Donnell and Scarborough battle over Cheney

Lawrence O'Donnell joined the panel on MSNBC's Morning Joe on Thursday and got into a heated debate with host Joe Scarborough over Dick Cheney's recent remarks accusing the Obama administration of "dithering while America's armed forces are in danger" and "putting politics over security and turning the guns on our own guys."

Scarborough tried to defend Cheney, stating that while he personally disagrees with the former vice president's comments, Cheney "speaks for a large chunk of America who is far more aggressive in foreign policy than those of us that live inside this bubble."

O'Donnell jumped into the conversation, leveling heavy criticism at Cheney:

The dithering thing is great because Cheney, of course, did not dither, did not dither for a minute, when the time came to make a wild guess, an outright crazy wild guess, about are there weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And Cheney sat there in the White House and said, you know what, I've got everything I need to make my wild guess. On the basis of my wild guess I'm going to tell the country it's an actual fact, and then I'm gonna help send American soldiers there to die over a lie. No dithering when it came time to do that.

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Retired General Paul Eaton, senior adviser to the National Security Network, has hit back at Cheney, calling him an incompetent war fighter:

The record is clear: Dick Cheney and the Bush administration were incompetent war fighters. They ignored Afghanistan for 7 years with a crude approach to counter-insurgency warfare best illustrated by: 1. Deny it. 2. Ignore it. 3. Bomb it. While our intelligence agencies called the region the greatest threat to America, the Bush White House under-resourced our military efforts, shifted attention to Iraq, and failed to bring to justice the masterminds of September 11.

The only time Cheney and his cabal of foreign policy 'experts' have anything to say is when they feel compelled to protect this failed legacy. While President Obama is tasked with cleaning up the considerable mess they left behind, they continue to defend torture or rewrite a legacy of indifference on Afghanistan. Simply put, Mr. Cheney sees history throughout extremely myopic and partisan eyes.

Combat television on MSNBC

In the past week, there have been several interesting sparring matches on MSNBC as it seems that liberals are trying to grow a set of balls.

First was Joe Scarborough and Max Bluementhal. Blumenthal's book Republican Gomorrah argues that the Republican party has been hijacked by right-wing evangelical Christians. Scarborough began pressing Blumenthal on why he feels that evangelical Christians have no right to participate in politics, but the conversation quickly shifted to a discussion on extremism.

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Then there's the Dylan Ratigan/Betsy McCaughey feud. Betsy McCaughey is a liar (famously exposed by Jon Stewart over the summer) whom the media keep inviting on their programs to continue to lie about health care. And so, today she ended up on Dylan Ratigan's Morning Meeting with Representative Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.). There was a brief, mad moment where I thought that this might end well, but it didn't.

The tactics McCaughey deploys in situations like this are a heavy-duty pretense that she supports health care reform, the Palin-esque answer-a-question-with-an-answer-to-a-question-of-her-liking technique, the ability to quickly provide information and opinion that's completely beside the point, et cetera. Unfortunately, Ratigan wanted to have a discussion on health care competition and cost containment, and that didn't dovetail too well with what McCaughey prefers to do in such a debate: set aside all substantive issues so that she can fearmonger about seniors being killed by the government.

And so, McCaughey unleashed her SENIOR CITIZEN HEALTH CARE APOCALYPSE nonsense, accusing Weiner of being ignorant and telling Ratigan that he wasn't a "fair moderator," to which Ratigan replied, "Well, you're not a fair answerer." Ratigan gamely attempted to get McCaughey to reconcile how she'd continue to provide the current level of unsustainable funding to Medicare without updating the system to address its inefficiencies, to no avail.

McCAUGHEY: This will go down in history as one of the most browbeating interviews in television history.

RATIGAN: I hope that it does, and maybe you'll learn to go on television to answer questions as opposed to casting accusations.

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Scarborough decries Rush cheering U.S. Olympics loss

Referencing voters who see Limbaugh cheering Olympic bid defeat

Middle Americans that swing elections see that and say 'My God, the Republicans have gone off the deep-end'.

Joe Scarborough

Amazingly, Scarborough gets one right

I've been trying to avoid this because it's just too much crazy. But the other day, Glenn beck called President Obama a "racist". Said he had a problem with white people and white culture.

Now, remember, Obama is HALF-WHITE! But why would silly things like facts stop the by-now-clearly-insane Beck?

Today, Morning Joe, sans Joe, weighed in on the subject.


Joe couldn't stay away, taking to his Twitter account:

ARE YOU SERIOUS??? did Glenn Beck really say the president has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture?" Outrageous.

and 7 minutes later:

Conservatives attacked the Dixie Chicks for saying much less about President Bush than what Beck said about President Obama.

Didn't rants like this used to cost the ranters their jobs?

Matthews and Doucheborough go at it on health care

...and my doesn't Joe get pissed when challenged to say "I want health care for every working American".

Joe goes on and on about how we shouldn't just write a check (which I agree with, and he misses Chris' point repeatedly) and rips the Bush administration for endlessly writing checks.

However, there are 2 problems with this: 1) he's doing it hawk his book and 2) it's a lie.

"Joe likes to say that he's opposed to the Bush administration spending, but he supported almost every individual measure along the way. He supported the invasion and occupation of Iraq, he supported the formation of DHS, he supported $1 trillion in tax cuts for the super rich, and, most importantly, he supported the reelection of George W. Bush in 2004." - Bob Cesca

Chris Matthews argues that Mika was also "caught up in all this pussyfooting." His larger point is that "we look at the, we ask the questions and we get it done."

"This kind of argument has been used to defeat health care since Harry Truman". The same tactics are being employed now to defeat health care that were used 40 years ago to try to kill Medicare, that were used against Social Security.

"If you're value judgment is that 'We're gonna find a way to do this and we're going to overcome the obstacles', that's one way to look at it. The other way to look at it is, 'Let's find as many obstacles that we can celebrate so we can have an excuse not to do it'."

"The right wing will fight any war and not look at the costs because they want to fight the war." Matthews says health care for every working American is a "value judgment", do we want it or do we not?

I can't hear you over the sound of Ed Schultz's brass balls clanging

Joe Doucheborough asked Ed Schultz for his opinion on the question: "Does Dick Cheney want Americans to get killed in another attack so he'll be proven right?"

Now, Joe knew the answer, because Ed said it last night on The Ed Show. But Ed stepped up and said "absolutely" and then talked about how he thinks Dick Cheney is a ruthless politician that is all about power.

Joe then does what Joe does: condescendingly sat back and scolded while his myna birds nodded their heads.

Stewart v. Scarborough

So many feuds, so little time.

Jon Stewart has been hammering Morning Joe for flogging Starbucks coffee. Joe Scarborough (or Doucheboro, as Stewart has referred to him) has been feeling the heat. Earlier in the week, he referred to Stewart as an "angry, angry guy" with a Napoleonic complex.

So Stewart has responded. (best line: "His show isn't brewed by Starbucks, it's brewed by Massengill!") This time, a stung and weepy Stewart, smeared with runny mascara, retreated into the bowels of his studio, donned a Napoleon costume, and mounted a horse to retreat in old-timey French emo-sadness. That's when John Oliver, playing tiny Duke of Wellington, taught Stewart to embrace his anger. "Get back in there, and you rage, man. You rage!"

Note to Doucheboro and Palin: don't screw with comics. They're smarter and funnier than you. You're not going to win.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Jon's Napoleonic Complex
www.thedailyshow.com

Jon Stewart takes on Fox News over Obama coverage; Scarborough says Stewart is "angry guy"

(Huff Post)
Last week Jon Stewart took on Fox News for their coverage of Obama's speech in Cairo calling their personalities "extremists" and saying, "What a torture it must be for such pretty people to see such ugly things."

Last night, Stewart continued to pound the cable network for biased insinuations, and showed a clip of Hannity editing Obama's words to unjustly make him sound like a 9/11 apologist. This practice, as our own Jason Linkins has pointed out, is not unique to Hannity, but endemic to Fox as a whole.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
"i" on News
www.thedailyshow.com

Meanwhile, Joe Scarborough insists Jon Stewart is an "angry, angry guy" with a Napoleon complex. Cause he's short. Get it?

BRILLIANT!

Good move, Starbucks. Associate your brand with a self-absorbed torture sadist.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Corporate SynerJoe
thedailyshow.com

Scarborough mixes it up on Twitter, ends up looking like a Twat

(The Political Carnival)
Joe starts off with the idea, via a Pew Poll that he's misread, that Obama is the most divisive president in history.

Then Tweeter Cody jumps in:

The key to judging whether a president is polarizing is how the middle, or Independents, are seeing him. The reason is simple. A president might be as open to engagement as possible, but if his opposition is determined to destroy and demonize him from Day One, he can't do much about that. But independents give a better sense of whether the president is forcing the center to divide into two poles.

Joe:

I get it. All Bush's fault. Great. Forget all those Dems who knew about waterboarding in 2002 and loved it because they were scared.

Cody:

Answer the question Joe..... Did we prosecute the Japanese for doing the same exact thing to our POWs... or did we not?

Another poster, Shoq, reacted like this:

So Joe, let's understand . All that polarizing just started in January, right? 15 years of Fox, and you, had no influence, right?

Joe finally responded to Cody:

Americans did the "exact thing" as Japanese troops in WWII? That's just not so. The Japanese technique was far more savage.

Joe, responding to nobody in particular:

I will be back soon, but I'm wasting my time with people who call anyone who disagrees with them racists and rednecks. Wake up.

Jake Tapper came in out of nowhere, hat in hand, begging for conservative Tweeters to follow Joe's Tweet, 

"My God. Do no conservatives or moderate Democrats Twitter? I am Custer at Little Big Horn. As goes Twitter, so goes France":
conservatives -- @joeNBC is crying out for you to follow him ...he feels alone in the twuniverse

Joe ended with this:

Have a great weekend and try to have a long conversation with someone with whom you genuinely disagree. Show respect and learn something.

Lawrence O'Donnell Reduces Eric Cantor To Babbling

(Huff Post)
Media Monitor Brian Cohoon drew our attention to this clip from MSNBC's Morning Joe, where Lawrence O'Donnell subjects Eric Cantor to some sort of reporting-like substance, effortlessly reducing Cantor to nonsense.

Basically, O'Donnell asks Cantor a straight question: "Are you going to vote for the 'tax seizure bill'?" That's the bill introduced by Charles Rangel that would recover these AIG bonuses that threaten to bring civilization to its knees. Cantor's basic answer is no, but the roundabout evasions are a heaven-sent melange of tongue-tripping malarkey: "LISTEN," Cantor purrs, "I am for whatever we can do right now to get that money back into the Treasury." Except that "whatever we can do right now" isn't, as it turns out, a PLAN. What follows, roughly paraphrased from the original Cantorese, is this: "But uhm, WHY ARE WE HERE TO BEGIN WITH ... and the Rangel bill is terrible tax policy ... but I will get those bonus payments back, with NECROMANCY, or I'll pass a bill that requires Tim Geithner to figure all of this out, on pain of death or something."

O'Donnell summarizes: "What you're telling us today is that you have no idea how to get the money back, we'd like to ask the Treasury Secretary to do it. We will not vote for Charlie Rangel's tax proposal." Then they argue some more. Finally, out of nowhere, you hear Joe Scarborough say, "He's going to vote FOR it!" But Scarborough has nothing in all the world upon which to base this conclusion.

Anyway, Eric Cantor, the guy just oozes leadership. Probably from a weepy pustule.

Start at 2:45 right after Doucheborough finishes fellating Cantor.

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Republican desperation and lies

One of the new talking points for the GOP is to demonize the $8 billion in the Recovery Act to build high-speed rail lines. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal trots out the line on the Sunday talkers, criticizing the "Disneyland to Las Vegas" line.

Chris Matthews rightly dismisses it as "cartoon talk", "stupid talk".

MSNBC's David Schuster confronts Republican Congressman Darrell Issa when Issa tries to slip the lie in. Forward to 4:20 for the clip. Ironically.


As reported by Steve Benen at Washington Monthly:

...as negotiations on the package wrapped up, Rahm Emanuel secured an extra $8 billion for high-speed rail. The Maine and Pennsylvania Republican "centrists" approved, and the bill progressed. The $8 billion is not directed at any specific state or project.

Meanwhile, Newt Ginrich sees this bill as his party's ticket back to power in 2010.  He's been leading the cry against pork-barrel spending such as a project for marsh-mouse preservation.

Here's the problem: there is NO project. It's another lie. In some more great reporting, Benen notes:

MSNBC's "Morning Joe" has been repeating the marsh-mouse claim quite a bit lately, and to its credit, the show invited PolitiFact.com's Bill Adair on to the show this morning to scrutinize the story. Asked if MSNBC was "unfair" to go after this story, Adair said, "You were.... This one gets a 'false' on the Truth-o-Meter.... The reality is, the money is just not in the bill to do this the way that they said."

Joe Scarborough said he'd talked to a Republican House member about this, who defended the claim. Adair said the GOP lawmaker "lied to you."

Go to the :45 mark and watch how simply flabbergasted the crew is that they miht have *gasp* reported a lie as true.

How disingenuous. How awful.