Flotsam and Jetsam
By Jennifer Rubin on Contentions
A Franklin & Marshall poll has bad news for Governor Ed Rendell, Senator Arlen Specter and the president. "[B]ut the change in ratings for Senator Specter is startling. Senator Specter's positive job approval rating dropped from 52% in March to 34% in June. Even more troubling for the senator is that the proportion of state residents who believe he deserves re-election has declined from 40% to 28%." Looks like that party-switching thing didn't help any.
By a 49-27% margin Americans don't believe the CIA misled Pelosi.
Minority Whip Eric Cantor wants hearings on Iran. Good for him. While Hillary Clinton is up there someone can ask about her rewriting of the factual record on Israel's settlements.
Fox News matches the viewership of CNN and MSNBC combined. Could it be there is a market for non-slobbering coverage of the White House? Maybe the president is so sensitive about Fox because its independent and critical coverage has more viewers than its rivals whose cheerleading doesn't have the market it once did.
Marc Ambinder looks at what Mitt Romney is doing right. The short version: behaving like a grown-up. Hey, that's better than his potential 2012 competition.
The Wall Street Journaleditors suggest we take a look at the fate of California, New Jersey and New York: "So goes the real-life experience of progressive governance, with heavy tax burdens financing huge welfare states, and state capitals dominated by public-employee unions. Formerly rich states, they are now known for job losses, booming deficits and debt, wage stagnation, out-migration and laughing-stock legislatures. At least Americans have the ability to flee these ill-governed states for places that still welcome wealth creators. The debate in Washington now is whether to spread this antigrowth model across the entire country."
Joe-mentum for new legislation to increase funding for Radio Farda, Voice of America, a new Farsi news website, and "'the spread of technologies that would make it harder for the Iranian regime to crackdown' on the transmission of information over cellphones." Why didn't the administration come up with this?
The latest on the most ethical Congress ever: "Already embroiled in an ethics probe now entering its tenth month, Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, received more bad news Wednesday night as the House ethics committee announced it would look into Caribbean trips taken by the veteran lawmaker and four other Democrats."
I was hoping for a change: "President Obama on Thursday tapped two more campaign donors to head U.S. embassies overseas. Announcing six new ambassadors, some headed to cushy European posts and others set for more difficult climes, Obama again turned to those who helped fund his campaign, bringing the number of major donors and supporters appointed to ambassadorships to 18 out of his 40 nominees."
A Supreme Court win on bilingual education for Roger Clegg and the Center for Equal Opportunity.
Where's PETA when you need them? "Wallabies snacking in Tasmania's legally grown opium poppy fields are getting 'high as a kite' and hopping around in circles, trampling the crops, a state official said."
Charles Krauthammer wonders if Mousavi can be Iran's Yeltsin: "For all our sentimental belief in the ultimate triumph of those on the 'right side of history,' nothing is inevitable. This second Iranian revolution is on the defensive, even in retreat. . .The opposition needs a general strike and major rallies in the major cities — but this time with someone who stands up and points out the road ahead." So what happens? "Unless Mousavi rises to it, or another rises in his place, Iran's democratic uprising will end not as Russia 1991, but as China 1989." |
