Legislatin’ From Beyond the Grave: Dems rally on health care following Ted Kennedy’s death.
The Future Is So Bright, I Need Shades: Reflective roofs, artificial trees could be keys to fighting climate change. Meanwhile, solar panels are getting cheaper.
Light Reading: A play-by-play of the CIA’s torture tactics.
Zoooombie Computers: Read this fascinating New York Times story on the losing battle against the Conficker computer virus. Do it!
I Can’t Wait Til John Walsh Goes Off the Deep End: TV crime show host accused of plotting to kill judge to boost ratings.
Soaked: Cash-strapped King County may need $35 million for flood preparation.
You Can Find Anything on the Internet: Like fake job references to go with your fake degree.
I’ve been watching The State on DVD. You should, too.
I love the fact that people are up in arms over the CIA just now. Really, the CIA is corporate America’s tax funded terrorist organization that has been overthrowing governments and murdering people by the thousands since the start of the cold war.
Frankly, the stuff that is coming out now is frankly child’s play compared to the bigger crimes they’ve been committing for generations.
Hmm — that video. If it recycled all the racial stereotypes about black people, would people call it funny? What about all the racial stereotypes about dumb polish people? That would be funny?
So it’s ok to take all the misleading stereotypes of rural Appalachia? Sorry, but I’m offended, not amused.
Over the course of this summer, President Obama’s approval ratings have plummeted among independent voters — to 49 percent in August, down from 66 percent of independents approving of Obama’s job performance in May, according to the Gallup Poll.
That collapse during the health care debate that reflects independents’ dislike of deficit spending, the growth of big government and one-party control of Washington.
It’s a particular problem for Obama because post-honeymoon perceptions are hardening in ways that are counter to his core campaign promise to bridge partisan divides. He is presiding over a period of increased partisan polarization, with nearly 90 percent of Democrats supporting his efforts and 5 percent of Republicans doing so.
Independents hold the balance of power in American politics. Their ranks have rocketed during the Obama presidency as the two parties have become more polarized, hitting an unprecedented 41 percent of the electorate in July, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll. At the same time, identification with both Democrats and Republicans has declined.
All this is evidence that Obama’s election did not represent a liberal ideological mandate, as House Democrats and their partisan cheerleaders might wish. More than 70 percent of independents now disapprove of Congress.
Independent voters are decidedly closer to Republicans when it comes to economic issues, where they are fiscally conservative. And it’s on fiscal issues that independents are putting Obama on notice.
Obama has consistently spoken about the need to return to fiscal responsibility but he’s presided over an unprecedented growth in government spending — from bailouts to the stimulus bill. There is a gap between his rhetoric and his record – and that’s contributing to the fact that only 35 percent of independents support his efforts on health care to date.
That’s why liberals’ increasingly strident insistence that Obama abandon bipartisan outreach is terrible advice for the president and the nation. In a burst of triumphalism, they seem to be echoing former House Majority Leader Dick Armey’s advice to Republicans in the past — “bipartisanship is another name for date rape” — despite the fact that it is exactly this hyper-partisan, play-to-the-base approach to politics that caused independent voters to abandon President Bush.
Health care reform is one of the most demonstrably difficult issues in American politics. It has been attempted by presidents since Harry Truman, and in each case a combination of fear-mongering from the right and all-or-nothing insistence from the left has derailed any hope of real progress.
In contrast, every major successful social reform — from Social Security to Medicare to welfare reform — has earned broad bipartisan support. For health care to pass in a durable form it must build on this tradition. Pushing through a party-line vote will backfire badly.
To regain his footing with independents, Obama needs to depolarize the debate over health care reform. He can do so by endorsing a bipartisan Senate bill that offers increased competition and coverage through nonprofit co-ops rather than the $500 billion to $1 trillion public option.
This will not be a retreat but real leadership toward uniting the country. Obama also needs to start addressing out-of-control costs by pursuing promised entitlement reforms for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security in the name of generational responsibility. It would be a bipartisan effort based on fiscal responsibility — and a courageous bit of political judo that would help him close the growing credibility gap with independents.
Washington’s professional partisans have an interest in perpetuating play-to-the-base politics. They view the inspirational post-partisanship of Obama’s 2008 campaign as a necessary ploy that should be abandoned once entering Washington.
What they don’t appreciate is that for his independent supporters, the hope and change that Obama represented was a break from the hyper-polarized politics of the past. It’s not too late for the president to regain this lost ground, but it is getting later than some in the White House might like to think.
The culture of hyper-partisanship persists, but a leader’s responsibility is to change a culture. This will require reinforcing Obama’s strained centrist credentials — a clear commitment to moving our nation not left or right, but forward.
2
Slog hates blacks.
A U.S. service member was killed while on patrol in southern Afghanistan Thursday.
The death brings the total of U.S. service members killed this month to 44, coming close to July’s total of 45, according to CNN.
July was the deadliest month for U.S. troops since the war in Afghanistan started in 2001.
where are all the registered Sloggers at these days?
You Can Find Anything on the Internet: Like fake sex advice columnists.
@Cato — The CIA is now almost mainstream it’s been around so long, so the shadow government uses their private Blackwater Army for the really dirty stuff.
You must read this article:
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/kgb-l…
If this is true, then Ted Kennedy was a treasonous traitor of the highest order. It is disgusting that he will be buried at Arlington.
I wish I could be there to spit on his grave!
I wish I could be there to kick you in the balls, Bored Weasel.
@9 Oh, boo hoo hoo… nice internet evidence! Aren’t you the fuck that’s always falling back on the “well, I’ve got guns so I’m going to shoot you when my idiotic arguments are torn apart by truth, logic and reason”?
Are you going to shoot me? Are you going to start shooting up your neighbors and co-workers? Is that the best you can bring to the table?
I’d gladly spit in your face… and Let me tell you something else, pendejo. You pull any of your crazy shit with us, you flash a piece out on the lanes, I’ll take it away from you, stick it up your ass and pull the fucking trigger till it goes “click.”
@11 Typical liberal response. The fact is that the Lion of the Senate was a treasonous traitor, as liberals ultimately end up being, because liberals always seek to destroy America.
Liberals could care less about the truth, it’s the ideology and the agenda that trumps everything.
Look how these liberal scum cheat in elections, remember the election that was blatantly stolen for Gregoire. In the past half century there is good evidence for one and only one president to have been illegitimate, elected by fraudulent votes, and that was JFK (as well as Barack Hussein Obama, who has spent millions of dollars to prevent his birth certificate from being released, so he must be a foreigner).
Truth will win out. The backlash is coming, starting in 2010, when loyal Americans will once again grace our halls of government.
Kennedy Option: sorry, my bad.
I knew the news would be obsessing over him for the next week, so I figured why not push the meme onto the circuit and light a fire under everyone’s butt.
@12 – What’s typical about that, the Lebowksi quote?
9
I’m planning a nighttime run to Arlington to piss on the grave as soon as Teddy is planted, Your Lordship. (one of the Libruls on Slog gave me the idea)
We could carpool…
Good lord, Basil. I didn’t realize stupid came in that size.
fuck yeah i’m watching the state
Vid: Is it supposed to be funny? Clearly, whoever made it thought so, but did whoever posted it here think so? ‘Cause it ain’t.