Barack Obama
gregladen | November 9, 2014Yes, I know, that headline sounds wrong. But I worded it carefully and I assure you it is far more correct than many other headlines we are seeing, about the "historic loss in Congress" with the 2014 election.
The truth is, the party in the White House tends to lose house seats with every midterm election. Over the last half century there have been only two exceptions to that. Also, the second midterm for an 8 year presidency tends to do a bit worse than the first.
In addition to that for the most part, a president's popularity rating drops from the first day of the first term through…
gregladen | November 24, 2009Modally speaking of course. And those are utterly different modes so the title of this post is of course nonsense. But, we do have some interesting data.
This is from the Gallup Pole of weekly job approval by demographic groups. The main thing this poll shows is that Obama has high job approval ratings, and that his job approval ratings are high in relation to other presidents at this moment in their terms.
George Bush's rankings, for his first term, dropped as all President's ratings seem to do, in an almost identical pattern as Obama's. Then, when Cheney/Bush allowed the attack on the…
gregladen | November 4, 2009People deride Americans for being politically sloppy thinkers, and for having short memories. This derision may be well deserved, but the flakiness of American citizens in relation to politics is perhaps easily explained.
We are trained by the press to be airheads.
President Barack Obama donned some of the strongest coat tails of any president in modern history, and despite the manufactured dissent that has been rather well executed by the Incredible Shrinking Party of No, his approval ratings stand at higher than usual for any president one year after election. Despite the expenditure of…
gregladen | October 20, 2009Continuing on with our theme of anti-Obama wackaloonery, including the inherent racism involved in that, there is not additional evidence that there are indeed more death threats against our President than usual.
From the Boston Globe:
The unprecedented number of death threats against President Obama, a rise in racist hate groups, and a new wave of antigovernment fervor threaten to overwhelm the US Secret Service, according to government officials and reports, raising new questions about the 144-year-old agency's overall mission.
This is leading some to consider the possibility that the…
gregladen | October 13, 2009If you don't like Hardball, you won't like this. But Matthews is right.
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gregladen | October 12, 2009Hmmm... Do I go along with Rush Limberger and Faux News? Or do I go along with ... Rachel?
Most people don't get what the Nobel Peace Prize is. I tried to tell you. Some of you didn't get it. Maybe if Rachel tells you you'll get it.
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gregladen | October 9, 2009If you are a right wing Republican conservative Yahoo, this letter is NOT for you. If you are a moderate, progressive, liberal, centrist, or anyone associated with the legitimate (i.e., not FOX News) press, this IS for you.
Dear Disgruntled Sisters and Brothers,
Many people are beside themselves, or at least a little annoyed, or in some cases simply bemused, because Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize but he "seems to have not done anything yet." There are so many misconceptions behind that sentiment that I don't know where to start.
If you are one of the people who does not…
gregladen | September 16, 2009A couple of weeks ago, I published a very controversial post titled "Maybe We Should Have Elected a White President After All" about the ongoing, possibly growing racism in connection with Obama's presidency. The idea that a lot of the anti-Obama, including anti-health care reform, rhetoric and action was racially motivated was understood by some and rejected by others who seem to not want to see any significant racism in the mix. This was parallel to the head in the sand reaction to my earlier post on the the arrest of Skip Gates in Cambridge Massachusetts last July.
There are those of…
gregladen | August 3, 2009It turns out that our president is totally African. How cool is that? No wonder he's so much less stupid than the average American (as you know, Westerners tend to be dumbed down quite a bit by their stupid culture).
Well, OK, the second part of what I just said is true, but the first part isn't and, in fact, it isn't really all that funny. The "Birther" phenomenon that just won't seem to go away is a truly insidious, and indeed racist, and stupid.
But what is really scary about this is the following: A majority (just over fifty percent) of Republicans, when confronted with the…
gregladen | June 11, 2009... had some great moments. This was quite a speech. The Q&A was great as well, but I don't have that for you.
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gregladen | March 20, 2009Here it is:
Obama did very well, got repeated cheers for his policy related statements, told interesting stories about life in the White House (and Life in the Bubble).
He did make one goof that the conservative blogosphere is getting all juicy about. He made the link between his bowling abilities and the Special Olympics. He is being accused of "mocking the Special Olympics." Of course, he was actually mocking himself. At the expense of the Special Olympics.
(If you watch the video, I think at about -3:40 or so, you will see this moment, and you'll see how professional Leno and Obama…