Link: http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/30/borger.obama.independents/index.html

Gloria Borger, another MSM reporter who doesn’t know how to analyze squat … BTW, a focus group with a sample size of 12 (heavily tilted to Obama) versus a dozen polls with a sample size of 10,000: which would you think is more useful evidence of how the public feels about the President? Yeah, well that makes you a better political analyst than either Balz or Borger …

Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/30/AR2009073001490_pf.html

Dan Balz of the Washington Post put together this article where he offers his hope that recent polls (of his job approval and policy initiatives) showing erosion of support for the president “don’t entirely capture the dynamic of this moment in the Obama presidency,” whatever that means. Balz goes on to say that he witnessed a focus group of “independent” voters on Wednesday, and they really love the guy despite public dissatisfaction of late. Balz talks about how these seven Obama, four McCain, and one Nader voters were uniformly excited by Obama’s victory on election night (even the McCain voters!) and that they all have positive words to say about his future. In summary, Balz says that “people often have a more nuanced impression of their leaders than suggested … by the raw numbers in a poll” and Obama “has created a strong bond with the public and a fair amount of goodwill as he battles for his agenda.”

Balz is learning all the wrong lessons here, and thinks that what he thinks he has learned is something the rest of us should know too. This is so much wishful thinking.

Balz figures that Obama’s high personal popularity and “goodwill” (which I admit), mixed with his low approval ratings of late, really translate into a middle ground which gives him more leeway than the polls suggest. That’s not the way I see it. I fugre that his high personal popularity, mixed with people’s distaste for his socialist policies, results in his (comparatively) low approval ratings. In other words, if it weren’t for people willing to give him a break because of his … unique status … his job approval ratings would be much lower than they are. Why wouldn’t people’s response to his job approval include the goodwill factor? Of course, it does. This can be seen in polls that ask about policies, rather than personalities, in which the Obama agenda is sagging miserably.

The end result may be not so bad for Obama, who I believe will always have a certain “goodwill” premium, but very bad for Congressional Democrats, who will suffer at the polls as voters attempt to rein in Obama policies. So for Democrats, while Balz thinks it’s not as bad as it looks, it’s actually worse.

In Modern America, some black leaders are too quick to label the arrest or apprehension of a black man (or woman) as “racial profiling” or “racial discrimination” by police officers, without looking at the facts. In effect, these leaders are using their own prejudices, some based on historical facts, some based on myth, and maybe even some based on personal experience. It is a shame that this prejudice also afflicts our supposedly post-racial president, Barack Obama.

Obama Defends Criticism of Cambridge Police - Khan & McPhee, ABC News
Police Unions Call for Apology From Obama - Andrew Ryan, Boston Globe
Obama Walks Back Police Criticism - Alexander Burns & Carol Lee, Politico
The President vs. the Police Officer - Peter Wehner, Commentary
Promoting Racial Paranoia - Heather Mac Donald, National Review

On June 3rd, “Obama Sets ‘Make-or-Break’ Deadline on Health Care” for August.

On Wednesday, Obama said:

If you don’t set deadlines in this town, things don’t happen … The default position is inertia. And the deadline isn’t being set by me, it’s being set by the American people.

And then yesterday, Obama said:

We just heard today that, well, we may not be able to get the bill out of the Senate by the end of August, or the beginning of August … That’s OK. I just want people to keep on working. Just keep working … I want it done this year. I want it done by the fall.

Well. Isn’t this just one giant metaphor for how the government will manage your health care?

You really don’t want to count on the political process for anything in life. Oh, except your health.