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November 19, 2009 CBS David Letterman

Dean Baker makes an astute observation:

Okay, I'm not on vacation, but this is a BTP flashback. My original write-up of this NYT news article was way too positive. This article was essentially a diatribe against Germany's welfare state. To make its case, it turned an incredible success story -- Germany's relatively low unemployment rate -- into a failure.

The basic deal is that Germany adopted an explicit policy of encouraging employers to shorten work hours rather than lay off workers. The government allows unemployment benefits to be used to pay workers to cover most of the loss in wages due to the shorter workweek.

As a result, Germany's unemployment rate has barely changed in the downturn. Its unemployment rate at present is 7.7 percent. This is down from 7.8 percent earlier in the year. Germany's unemployment rate in 2007 was 8.4 percent, 0.7 percentage points higher than the current level.

This is an incredible success story. Imagine Barack Obama's approval rating if the unemployment rate today was anywhere close to its 4.7 percent average for 2007. Think of the millions of unemployed workers who would not be struggling to pay their rent or mortgages or meet other bills if only our leaders were as smart as Germany's leaders. We could do something along the same lines in the U.S.

But NYT readers will be spared such thoughts because the article described the policy as a complete failure. To make its case, the NYT even used the German government's measurement of unemployment (which counts part-time workers as being unemployed) rather than the harmonized OECD measure that is directly comparable to the unemployment data in the United States.

This was not news reporting.

Dean is one of the best economists we have.

Bob Dole was told to keep his trap shut by non other than the odious Mitch McConnell, the man who has as an approval rating as low as Dick Cheney's.

The GOP’s 1996 candidate for president said he was asked by current Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., not to issue a bipartisan statement calling for passage of health care reform legislation.

“We’re already hearing from some high-ranking Republicans that we shouldn’t do that — that’s helping the president,” Dole said. He later specified that the people he referred to included one “very prominent Republican, who happens to be the Republican leader of the Senate,” according to The Kansas City Star .Dole was also quoted as saying that partisanship by his own GOP was behind the delay in reaching agreement on a final health care bill..

I don't expect Dole to suddenly go on the air and rip into his party, but the fact that this much got out says a lot. The republicans have no plan for health care reform so any words that come from older republicans on the hot topic carries a sting to it.

Mitch will be on Face the Nation today and I wonder if Bob Schieffer will bring it up or read a David Brooks column. Maybe they'll just want to talk about the Nobel Peace prize. What do you think?

We constantly are seeing polling down from the major news services that follow President Obama's approval ratings and it is an important stat to keep track of, but can you tell me what the media is not covering? How low the Republicans have been polling ever since they became the party of "Waterloo."

The Democratic leaders do have terrible polling numbers, Nancy Pelosi has a 34% approval rating in DKOS's new poll and Harry Reid has a 31% approval rating, but let's take a look at the Republican leadership, shall we?

Mitch McConnell is polling at an 18% approval rating. That's eighteen percent. John Boehner is polling at 12% approval rating. Just think about that one. And it doesn't take much to make him cry. Mitch and Boehner are viewed less favorably than Dick Cheney was during the dark days of the Bush administration. Why don't we hear about that on teevee?

The overall approval ratings of Congressional Republicans is 17% as a party! The Dems are taking their lumps over this chaotic time, but nowhere near the kinds of wounds the GOP are suffering. The media make it appear that all these teabaggers are rallying around the RNC and the country just loves the Beltway elites' favorite party, but that's not true at all.

Let's see if we hear any of this on the Sunday talk Shows. But I won't hold my breath.

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Bill O'Reilly likes to use Bill Maher as a symbol of the "far left," though in reality Maher is only definably "left" if by that you mean "not a movement conservative". Still, O'Reilly on his Fox News show last night couldn't resist using Maher's insistence that Americans are "stupid" as proof positive of his own favorite narrative -- that "the left" loves to look down their noses at ordinary, working-class Americans.

His proof of this: The disparate way that liberals treat Sarah Palin and Deval Patrick. While liberal icon Patrick has struggled to get Massachusetts' massive economic problems under control, Palin, he argues, has been a smashing success as Alaska's governor:

Gov. Palin is obviously a fuse on this. The left despises her. But the truth is the governor did a pretty good job in Alaska. Her approval rating when she left office was 54 percent, despite spending a lot of time outside the state. Mrs. Palin is portrayed by the left as dumb, but how does that square with her solid performance in office? No, she did not study at an Ivy League college, graduating from the University of Idaho. But again, she did the job she was elected to do.

Oh, really? Quitting two and a half years into a four-year term is "doing the job she was elected to do"? On what planet?

Why, Planet O'Reilly -- one of the moons of Planet Wingnuttia -- of course. It's a planet made of falafel, festooned with loofah trees, and populated by nubile blonde bimbettes who wanna do threesomes with Bill. And from this planet one can get a clear view of venal liberals who see everyone else as "stupid."

O'Reilly invited Marc Lamont Hill and Naomi Wolf onto the show to discuss it, and both actually did a credible job of responding. (My favorite moment came when the two of them begin having a direct conversation uncontrolled by O'Reilly, who nearly explodes in apoplexy at being sidelined.) And Wolf gets it exactly right:

Wolf: I think that what is important is to go back the Founders and think, well, what -- when Jefferson was imagining that the people were going to run this Republic, he imagined that it would be ordinary people but they would be educated, that they would have --

O'Reilly: Sarah Palin's educated, she has a University of Idaho degree.

Wolf: Well, Sarah Palin -- there is a fascinating clip that went viral on YouTube that showed Katie Couric asking her, well what kind of magazines and newspapers do you actually read? And she couldn't answer the question.

O'Reilly: Well, what does that mean?

Wolf: So I don't think a smart American cares if the leader of the nation went to the University of Idaho or to Harvard or Yale, or just graduated from high school. I think we the people care that our leaders know what's going on in the world and are making sensible decisions on our behalf.

Now, for what it's worth, your humble editor is also a graduate of the University of Idaho. Obviously I don't think Sarah Palin is "stupid" for having a degree from a lesser school. However, I don't think she's qualified to be president -- not because she has a UI degree, but because she's demonstrated clearly a lack of the requisite intellectual capacity. That has nothing to do with where she comes from, and everything to do with what she has said and done.

Incidentally, that 54 percent approval rating among Alaskans for Palin that O'Reilly cites is not the positive thing he thinks: It actually represents a 30-point drop in approval over the course of a single year.

It was inevitable Obama's numbers would drop, and although Ohio is typically a bellwether state, it remains to be seen whether this is a trend. (Download complete poll here.)

The fact that the most high-profile administration efforts went to save banks instead of homeowners probably didn't help. People all over the country are barely hanging on, and it will take something like a successful health care plan - or another stimulus package - to win back their confidence:

July 7 (Bloomberg) -- A new poll found that President Barack Obama’s approval rating has dropped by 13 percentage points from two months ago in Ohio, traditionally a critical swing state in presidential elections.

The survey by Quinnipiac University released today showed 49 percent of Ohio voters approved of Obama’s job performance, down from 62 percent in a May 6 poll. The disapproval figure for Obama in the new poll was 44 percent, up from 31 percent in the May survey.

The pollsters termed Obama’s ratings “lackluster” in a release, and said the numbers were his lowest marks “in any national or statewide Quinnipiac University poll since he was inaugurated.”

The White House announced late today that Vice President Joe Biden will travel to Cincinnati on July 9, where he will tout progress being made by the $787 billion economic stimulus Measure passed in February.

“The economy in Ohio is as bad as anywhere in America,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. The poll numbers “indicate that for the first time voters have decided that President Barack Obama bears some responsibility for their problems.”

Maybe this is why Obama economic adviser Laura Tyson said this yesterday:

"We should be planning on a contingency basis for a second round of stimulus. ... The stimulus is performing close to expectations but not in timing." Reuters: "Addressing a seminar in Singapore, Tyson said she felt the first round of stimulus aimed to prop up the economy had been slightly smaller than she would have liked and that a possible second round should be directed at infrastructure investment."

Also, Biden will head to Ohio Thursday to talk up the stimulus plan.

Well, folks, they've done it again. Cable news has now elevated Dick Cheney to a place as high as our new commander in chief.

WTF is wrong with these people? When Al Gore gave speeches after a few years, they would be broadcast on CSPAN because the Bushies were in charge, but obviously the networks want this to be the tale of the Duel Between Dick Cheney and Barack Obama. One is a disgraced former vice president, a torture lover who lied us into two wars and has a lower approval rating than people who identify as Republicans, vs. President Barack Obama, one of the most popular leaders of the free world and the man in charge of cleaning up the mess Cheney and Bush left in their wake.

Greg Sargent:

Looks like Dick Cheney’s big national security speech at the American Enterprise Institute tomorrow is going to get wall-to-wall cable coverage — giving a major assist to those who hope that his speech will be seen as “dueling” with the one that Obama is planning to give on the same topic tomorrow.

Both CNN and MSNBC will be carrying Cheney’s speech live tomorrow, in addition to carrying Obama’s, spokespeople for both networks confirm to me, barring the intrusion of some major news event. Fox News will certainly be all over the Cheney speech tomorrow — a major cataclysm couldn’t tear them away from such a big moment. So that means roadblocked cable coverage for Cheney.

Obama is set to deliver his big speech on national security at 10 A.M. Cheney’s is set to follow at 10:45. Politico framed the story of tomorrow’s speeches in advance in a piece called: “Barack Obama, Dick Cheney plan dueling speeches.”
This, naturally, raised some hackles on the left, where people pointed out that Obama is the Commander in Chief, meaning his national security views have real-world significance, while Dick Cheney is a private citizen who only has his reputation at stake.

In other words, goes this argument, their speeches will only be “dueling” if folks in the media make the decision to present them that way. Republicans, meanwhile, hope that coverage does proceed along these lines, helping to elevate Cheney and taking down Obama a peg or two.

Greg Sargent does a wonderful job as usual. Looks like the cable newsmen have already made the call.

Cheney's speech is a side show at a carnival act because the Republicans would rather try to rebrand the Democratic party as socialists while President Obama's words impact the entire world, but the media heads are only looking for their favorite selling point: "Conflict"
Yes, that sounds about equal. They want this to be Frazier and Ali, but it's about a liar and a sadist getting free airtime to attack a president who is trying to restore the country's footing after eight years of "compassionate conservatism." Wars, death, torture, wiretapping, loyalty oaths and moles planted in every department of the government which includes the OLC (the arm of the government that the Bushies used to try and give them legal cover for the crimes they committed) are part of Cheney's legacy. Isn't this just what the country needs? To hear a man trying to repair a record of death and destruction with blood dripping from his hands. To be continued....