Someone decided to poll Obama and Bush in Ohio:

From Tom Jensen at Public Policy Polling on Tuesday: “We’ll start rolling out our Ohio poll results tomorrow but there’s one finding on the poll that pretty much sums it up: by a 50-42 margin voters there say they’d rather have George W. Bush in the White House right now than Barack Obama.”…

I guess we can certainly say that the bloom is off the Obama rose. This is what happens when you hide your past and pretend to be something you aren’t – once you get found out, people turn pretty swiftly on you.

From the Wall Street Journal:

The Obama administration is considering a range of new measures to boost economic growth, including tax cuts and a new nationwide infrastructure program, according to people familiar with the discussions…

…in the mix: a possible payroll tax cut for businesses and individuals, as well as other business tax breaks, according to people familiar with the discussions…

A payroll tax cut would be the most useful thing Obama could do immediately for the economy – and for the people. But this also shows the level of desperation Democrats are reduced to – facing big losses in the fall, they are looking for expedients to just hold the line. Their thinking might be that a tax cut with a flourish enacted shortly before election day might give them a boost…might, that is, save the Senate for them, and prevent a complete blow out in the House.

If it works – I’m not so sure it will; given the attitude of the American people, such a move could backfire and be seen for a cynical, political ploy.

But, my fellow Americans, we’ve got them on the ropes – they are considering a dose of Reaganism two months in front of an election to boost their popularity!

From CNS News:

…When Obama was inaugurated last year, Americans who said they never or seldom go to church were more likely to approve of the job he was doing as president than Americans who said they attended church every week or Americans who said they attended church nearly weekly or monthly…

…In the week of Aug. 23-29, according to Gallup, only 48 percent of those who never or seldom go to church said they approved of the job Obama was doing. Meanwhile, 49 percent of those who go to church nearly weekly or monthly said they approved, and 34 percent of those who attend church weekly said they approved…

One does wonder, a bit, just why this should be. After all, Obama is pretty much being what every intelligent observer expected – and the unbelievers claim they are much, much smarter than we believers. You’d have expected such smart people to have looked carefully in to Obama’s views and background and only come to support him as the result of rational thought.

Unless, of course, the old saw is true – people who don’t believe in God don’t believe nothing, they believe anything.

Here is the news report. I didn’t watch it – from what I understand, President Obama did not admit he was flat and quite foolishly wrong about the surge.

Our magnificent soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines secured a big victory for America, Iraq and the whole world. It is not to be seen whether or not Obama will use this victory, or fritter it away.

Discuss the speech, if you’ve a mind to.

Isn’t the Obama T shirts which sold so well last year:

…One barometer of the plunge in excitement has been the sale of Obama-themed T-shirts, which designers had been banking on after the craze of last year. Clothing labeled with the president’s name sold by the thousands, helping to salvage a tough economic year for the island.

But this year’s T-shirt sales are much less brisk, merchants say.

“Last year, Obama gave you goose bumps, but I don’t think you’re going to see that this year,’’ said Alex McCluskey, co-owner of the Locker Room, who sold more than 4,000 “I vacationed with Obama’’ T-shirts last year. But so far this year, he said, his hot item is T-shirts of former President Bush asking, “Miss me yet?’’…(emphasis added)

Stick that in your pipes and smoke it, liberals.

Why? Here’s why:

…To be blunt, Obama suffers from a lifetime of others excessively praising his intellect. It insulates him from ideas and facts that conflict with his pre-existing liberal rubric (so “every economist” believed his stimulus would work). It leaves him unprepared to engage in real debate with informed opponents (e.g. the health-care summit). It skews his understanding of how geopolitics works, as he imagines that his own wonderfulness can sway adversaries and override nations’ fundamental interests (the Middle East). Is he as well read as George W. Bush? As intellectually creative as Bill Clinton? As grounded in history as Harry Truman? Let’s get some perspective here…

I have to agree that Obama was much oversold as a smart guy – I mean, he may have a great deal of intellectual ability, but he doesn’t have any real world knowledge, no sense of humility and a complete inability to see the other side. As far as a leader goes, he’s as dumb as a box of rocks because of this.

This is why we see him making incredibly stupid statements like getting in to the Ground Zero mosque issue when he could have just stayed out of it (as a smart politician – Hillary Clinton – is). All of his mistakes are traceable to this lack of political intelligence – he might have an IQ of 140, but his political IQ is about 80.

Let’s hope he smarts up a bit before he entirely wrecks the nation…

By pissing everyone off – from the LA Times:

We have one word for you, Mr. President, the next time you want to sweep into Los Angeles late on a weekday afternoon: Helicopter. That way, you can avoid the streets the rest of us mere residents must use to get around…

…A Brentwood resident’s two-mile jaunt took 45 minutes. An Echo Park couple who left home at 5:30 p.m. found their usual 20-minute drive west to Olympic and Rimpau boulevards took a whopping hour and 15 minutes. An attorney left his Miracle Mile-area office at 5:45 p.m. and sat unmoving in traffic for 45 minutes.

No matter their politics, Los Angeles residents found themselves united. “It was a beautiful thing,” said Brentwood resident Myles Berkowitz, commiserating with his neighbors on Montana Avenue. “Young, old, black, white — everyone was pissed off.”…

Who is in charge of Obama’s political team these days? “Tin ear” doesn’t even begin to describe it…

…besides his ego.

After the Senate passed that $600 million Border Security Bill yesterday, President Obama issued a statement asserting that securing the southwest border has been “a top priority” since he took office.
But if you think Mr. Obama can have but a single “top priority,” you’d be wrong. He’s got a load of them.

In an Address to the Nation two months ago, Mr. Obama declared “our top priority is to recover and rebuild from a recession that has touched the lives of nearly every American.”

More than any other issue, he has used the phrase “top priority” about digging the economy out of the recession and creating jobs. And on this issue, he drew a distinction between “a” top priority and “the” top priority.

And they go through a whole bunch of examples. It’s all bull, if you think about it. Obama spends a lot of energy pretending to care about this or that, without any real attempt of being engaged. The gulf oil spill being a prime example. Obama talks the talk, but time and time again doesn’t walk the walk. I have never believed a word he said ever, but I wonder how much people who did vote for him believe him anymore.

I at least can say I never believed that Obama would close Gitmo or get us out of Iraq. But a lot of people who voted for him did. How many are gonna fall for his lies again in 2012? Not nearly as many.

UPDATE: Reviewing the video, I have this to add – Albion does not need to reinvent itself; it needs to start making the things it used to make. Whatever it was which caused the factories to shut down needs to be undone. I don’t like the idea of a town or region trying to be something it didn’t organically become – it smacks too much of grafting politicians who want to turn hard working down town areas in to gentrified, yuppie enclaves…all with kickbacks from the developers who, of course, are given the property of poor people to build on.

What we need to do is get back to work – and to do that, we need to get rid of all the things we’ve placed in the way of doing just that.

Change we can believe in:

President Obama has abolished the position in his White House dedicated to transparency and shunted those duties into the portfolio of a partisan ex-lobbyist who is openly antagonistic to the notion of disclosure by government and politicians…

The whole “transparency” thing was never more than a dodge, anyway – but it is still very revealing that Obama is not even pretending anymore. The arrogance of power seems to have completely over taken him. It might be that he really doesn’t understand just how unpopular he has become – convinced of his own righteousness, he’s just going to blunder ahead to complete destruction.

With Obama’s support pretty much left to the Democratic base, how much longer will they be able to ignore how his policies are making things worse before he loses them too? And things look worse than we thought.

June’s trade deficit swelled 18.8% to $49.9 billion, the highest since October 2008. That was much worse than Wall Street predicted — or what the Commerce Department estimated in the recent Q2 GDP report. The new report, along with recent inventory data, suggest Commerce will revise down Q2 economic growth from the already-sluggish 2.4% annual rate to about 1%, according to Action Economics. Action Economics is looking for stronger retail inventory figures later this week that would imply a 1.4% GDP pace.

More Americans are already blaming Obama for the economy, so things really don’t look good for Obama this November, or for 2012.

UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: And growth forecasts have been cut as economists finally start admitting reality.

Matching his worst poll result to date:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 24% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-six percent (46%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -22…

And an overall total of 56% disapprove of the President’s job performance – small wonder Obama is going to be scarce on the campaign trail this fall.

Treat people with disrespect, and this is what can result.

GAG ME–NOW.

Chevy Volt Dance.

Yep folks, your tax dollars at work. How’s that hopenchange working for you. 40 miles of ‘clean energy,’ courtesy of electricity supplied from a local coal-fired plant. How environmentally…err..friendly.

When Iowahawk uploaded this video in December of 2008, little did he know how prescient he would be.

The Pelosi GTXi

(h/t Legal In-sur-rec-tion)

From Atlanta’s channel 11 news:

…The President will fly into town Monday morning.

If you think this will be a time for Democrats running for office to rally around the chief executive- -you probably haven’t been following the campaigns this summer.

Former Governor Roy Barnes will not be available to meet Mr. Obama. The Democratic gubernatorial candidate will be somewhere in Georgia- – far from Atlanta…

Two years ago it was August of 2008 and Democrats around the nation would beg for even the least Obama appearance – now, they don’t want to be within a country mile of him. Fellow Republicans, we do actually owe Obama a vote of thanks here: due to his diligent liberalism, we on the right now have more hope for more change than we ever thought possible.

From Huffington Post:

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell predicted on Tuesday that if the president escalates America’s military involvement in Afghanistan he could very well face a primary challenger in 2012…

Which is both typical of liberal Democrat politics, and a continuing reminder of just how pathetic liberals are. Boiled down, what Rendell is saying is that if Obama responds to changing circumstances in Afghanistan and sends more troops (or, presumptively, if he just refuses to draw down after July of 2011), then there could be a primary challenger to him. Shades of Bobby Kennedy against LBJ in 1968!

While it should be kept in mind that Rendell was a Hillary backer in 2008, it cannot be ignored that he represents a significant portion of the Democrat coalition on this. And the fact that he’s airing this in public shows the level of dismay Obama is generating on the left. There is clearly a growing level of anger out there over the fact that the new, liberal dawn hasn’t come about as expected on election night, 2008.

I will have to rate the emergence of a serious primary challenger to Obama as a 1-100 shot. But this is still vastly different from “absolutely impossible”, which would have been my judgment even a couple weeks ago. Its still not at all likely because, quite simply, any Democrat who did challenge Obama would be doomed politically, even if they snatched the nomination away from him – there is no way that the broad mass of African-Americans would forgive the Democrat who ousted Obama;come November after that, black voters would stay home in droves, thus assuring not just a GOP Presidential win, but also a massive win in House, Senate and other down-ballot contests (Democrats are extraordinarily dependent upon high black turnout voting 90% Democrat). The Democrat who brought this about would be utterly finished in politics.

And so, I don’t think any of the potential serious challengers would do it. For instance, Hillary ages, but she is also in good health and 2016 is not too long from now. Why end all chances of it in 2012 when a mere four years later she’d have a chance of grabbing the brass ring?

On the other hand, if 2010 turns out badly for the Democrats and the economy slips deep in to recession/depression in 2011, then the choice for the Democrats may come down to figuring out how to save the party. Staying loyal to Obama won’t be much worth if by January 2013 they’re facing a GOP President backed by 300 House and 60 Senate Republicans. With that, in just two years all of Obamunism can be undone and great strides made in dismantling the entire Democrat power structure.

We’ll have to see how it comes out – but clearly things are not rosy in Democrat-land at the moment.

From Gay Patriot:

The latest RealClearPolitics average has President Obama’s approval dropping to 46.4. (Gallup has the Democrat at 46.) Julie Mason reports that “Former President George W. Bush has a 45 percent favorability rating … 10 percentage points higher than last year.”

Vindication is a wonderful thing.

Inevitable that this connection would come out – from Legal Insurrection:

…The “Chief Economist to Vice President Joe Biden” was none other than Journalista Jared Bernstein, who — thanks to a post at Volokh Conspiracy (via Instapundit)– I just learned was an adviser to the Obama campaign in 2008 when he was active on the Journolist:

One question that has arisen in the last week is how closely JournoList members, not only discussed how to shape the news to advance the fortunes of Barack Obama, but coordinated with the Obama campaign. Jared Bernstein’s position as an unpaid adviser and surrogate shows that there was at least one direct link between JournoList and the Obama campaign.

In attendance for the meeting at the White House were fellow Journolistas Matthew Yglesias (Think Progress), Tim Fernholz (American Prospect) and Chris Hayes (The Nation). One of the other bloggers in attendance was Oliver Willis, whose name has not surfaced on the Journolist, but who works for Media Matters, so he is practically an Honorary Journolista…

I used to think, “well, we know there was coordination between the Obama people and the MSM, but its not like they’re stupid enough to have anything we can use as proof”. Well, whom the gods would destroy they do, indeed, make mad…and incredibly stupid.

I guess they got sloppy – also, I figure they thought that once they won, they had won forever. No going back from another 60 years of liberal dominance, as it were. The scam only had to last until election day – and then the glories of liberalism would finally convince those idiot, bitter bible- and gun-clingers to give up their allegiance to the GOP. It hasn’t quite worked out like that.

The lesson here is that nothing coming out of the MSM as it relates to anything political (in the remotest sense) can be considered reliable. This is not to say that no truth will come out, but that anything reported or commented in the MSM needs to be taken as provisional until confirmed by at least one non-MSM source. In the MSM, they want liberals to win – all the time and everywhere. They will lie and cheat to achieve liberal victory. Only when liberal victory is not at stake can their reports be taken at face value.

No more moratoriums. No more outsiders telling the people of Louisiana what to do. No more welfare check. Governor Jindal and his people want to get back to work – and Obama stands in their way.

This is gonna leave a mark:

A year after President Barack Obama’s political honeymoon ended, his job approval rating has dropped to a negative 44 – 48 percent, his worst net score ever, and American voters say by a narrow 39 – 36 percent margin that they would vote for an unnamed Republican rather than President Obama in 2012, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today…

Ouch! That that’s a sharp slap to the face – and quite gratifying to see it happen. The people are fully awake, now, to the terrible error we made in November of 2008.