American Confusion

**President Obama ended May with his highest polling in months. Gallup had him at a 16 month high and CNN had his approval rating at 54% with his negatives now below 40%.

**And then the economic numbers came out and the economy only generated 54,000 jobs last month, the housing market experienced another setback with prices losing the most since the Great Recession hit. Immediately, everyone jumped on Obama and his policies. Robert Reich said we are going into a double dip recession , Paul Krugman thinks worse, and Alan Greenspan worried about the debt ceiling and the national debt, for the first time in his life.

**How much of the expert reaction to the economy is because they totally missed the economic collapse in 2008? Now we will be treated to overcompensation through the 2012 election.

**In May both Republicans and Democrats claimed Obama was unbeatable in 2012. Now this past week the punditry claims he is highly vulnerable and Republicans sense an opening. I heard Rush Limbaugh claim that Pat Caddell,a democratic pollster, says that the White House's internal polls show Obama's re-election bid is in serious trouble. Take the source but I could conceive of this. But the PPP polls of swing states don't show this--yet.

**I also heard on the radio during my travels to the Midwest that businesses are hiring more MBAs and the analyst said that this shows that businesses will be hiring soon. One major factor is that they have doubled the work load on present employees and that while this has increased productivity--as government figures show--businesses are about to drop alot of cash from their surpluses to alleviate the problem by hiring. And this analyst went on to list all the indicators that businesses are building up inventories ,etc.

**I get another sense here. I think we are back into the old" Will Obama fail?" syndrome. Notice how his European trip got little coverage in the States because basically he accomplished everything he sought to. None of the major networks covered the extensive discussion by Tony Blair and the British of the Palestinian issue nor did they cover the discussions at the G-20. The only news clip was that Obama muffed a toast to the Queen and the First Lady stood in front of a pointed plant that made her look like she had a huge Afro.

**But Ha-Ha we have him now. John Boehner won't raise the debt ceiling until the whole safety net is destroyed. I have no idea anymore whether the GOP really believes that not raising the debt ceiling will not cause troubles as they say in public or whether it is a giant game of chicken. Objective economists say that refusing to do so could drop the GDP by 2.3%, which would be greater than the drop in the Great Recession. It would in effect wipe out the recovery and Republicans claim it would doom the Obama presidency. Democratic-leaning websites believe that Republicans would be blamed. I'm not so sure. It's always the buck stops at the Oval Office.
Obama has to learn to negotiate with the GOP as if they are like the Soviet Union. They have become ideologues.

**In the Beltway, you can tell the Republicans are dictating the terms of the debate and framing the issues since no one talks abut jobs anymore, only the national debt. The same is not true in states where the Ryan Budget is generating outrage and real pushback. Nancy Pelosi told Jon Karl this week that the Democrats have a real chance to take back the House next election. Anecdotal evidence indicates the whole freshmen class in the House is seriously exposed because of voting for the elimination of Medicare. Right now there is no polling to suggest that the wizards of the GOP can turn the Ryan Plan into a plus.

**President Obama had a joyous moment at the Chrysler plant in Toledo, Ohio celebrating the auto recovery program. He was at his Explainer-in-Chief best concerning the implications of an auto industry collapse and the ripple effect it would have on the economy. He said if the auto industry had gone under, 1 million jobs would have been lost. Even his Administration admits that this is a conservative number. He also kept up his talk about rebuilding the nation's infrastructure to much applause. But here in Washington, the AFL-CIO and the Chamber of Commerce have run into a stonewall on the Hill in their rare joint efforts to lobby Congress for more infrastructure spending. One wonders if Obama has any cards up his sleeves for any more job creation efforts before the election. He talks about it but the political reality here doesn't look likely.

**The GOP cries that they are the only ones who have produced a budget. Well, not true. Does anyone remember the State of the Union and Obama's budget? Obama's budget would cut the deficit by $4 trillion over several years and Paul Ryan claims, with mirrors, to cut in by $6 trillion. Pundits are saying that the Senate's Gang of Six will have to ready a bipartisan plan.Tan Man Boehner says that President Obama must lead the budget talks, not Joe Biden, to resolve this.

**Big news in D.C. John Boehner and President Obama will play a round of golf. Inquiring minds want to know whether Fox News will add this round to the number they keep projecting about Obama's golf playing. I remember they neglected to record the 100 rounds Boehner played in 2010.

**I have no opinion about the indictment of John Edwards. It isn't even interesting.

** The lesson from Weinergate is "Don't Let Your Wallace Flop Out." The various background noises to this have absolutely gone unnoticed. First, Anthony Weiner investigated Glenn Beck's sponsor Goldfine for being a racket. Then Anthony Weiner zeroes in on Judge Thomas' manifold conflicts of interests in the Citizens United case and any deliberations on health reform because of his wife's sources of income, which he had not recorded for twenty years. And of course Anthony Weiner has taken the spot of Allan Grayson in denouncing Republican policies from the House floor and getting YouTube notoriety for it. Further on background, he married Hillary Clinton's top aide, whom the Right claimed was Hillary's lesbian lover. So to neutralize Anthony Weiner you hack his tweeter account and send or not send a photo of a man's package to a college student. And make sure Glenn Beck's friend Andrew Breibart knows and you have a scandal. None of this has been helped out by Weiner not being able to say the photo was of him or not, raising endless speculations about whether he is in the habit. But like Lenin, I don't believe in coincidences. It also helped stop the press coverage about the GOP losing Jack Kemp's district in New York State.

**Well, Newt's campaign is one of a lifetime as he promised. Newt and his lovely bride Callista got a little tired after three weeks and have gone on vacation. The hustling was a bit much for the aging Newt and he had to recharge his batteries. Talking about stamina, check out Romney's eyes and face these days. He looks gaunt and already fatigued. Are any of the GOP contenders going to last the whole race?

**If you want to see Ralph Reed,former creator of the Christian Coalition, don't go to the Faith and Freedom Conference. Instead rent Casino Jack, with Kevin Spacey as Jack Abramoff and watch how Ralph plays the Indians. The Grover Norquist character is perfect also. No one stayed for Frothy Mix Santorum's speech today at the Christian Right slugfest. Knowing the inner KKK of his audience, Santorum said,"President Obama, America was a great country before 1965." An allusion to the hated Civil Rights Act and the fact Obama is of a different hue. Despite a lengthy speech before the British Parliament about America's exceptionalism, Santorum also argued that Obama doesn't believe in American exceptionalism. This is sort of like his previous statement that McCain doesn't understand the wonders of torture.

**With all these fundamentalist inquisitions, why don't real Christian denominations have candidates speak about concerns of social justice? The blast by Catholic professors against John Boehner hardly got any attention in the press but Allan Keyes with his Spongebob Squarepants stroller with a doll as a fetus got plenty of attention during the pro-life protest against President Obama speaking at Notre Dame. Jim Wallis's recent conference here in Washington hardly had an audience.

**On the radio I heard the most lengthy explanation of Social Security as a ponzi scheme, the new meme from conservatives. I've heard the various soundbites from Repubican house members and Rand Paul about this. But this was a spokesperson for a new libertarian foundation. And he actually raised an interesting issue--not about Social Security, but about Ponzi schemes. He said that if everyone in America is required to pay into social security, then the ponzi scheme would last 75 years as it has. So my question is whether you could design a ponzi scheme that lasted indefinitely. And then would it be a ponzi scheme?