News Roundup for 6/18/09

Sec. of State Hillary Clinton

-Headline of the day-
"Hillary Clinton Fractures Her Elbow, Secretary of State Takes a Fall."

Turns out that Republicans mistook her for Sonia Sotomayor and beat her with bats and ax handles for being so racist.

I'm taking bets on how long it'll be before Newt Gingrich accuses her of faking her injury to gain sympathy for health care reform. (ABC News)


-I'll take that as an endorsement-
Some guy who had once been the President of the United States spoke to a business group in Erie, PA and told the crowd that this Obama guy's doing everything wrong. According to the report, "Former President George W. Bush fired a salvo at President Obama on Wednesday, asserting his administration's interrogation policies were within the law, declaring the private sector -- not government -- will fix the economy and rejecting the nationalization of health care."

Yeah, remember him? He's the guy who fucked up the economy, turned his "war on terror" into an executive branch crime wave, and had regular meetings with faith healers.

Bush made it clear he didn't want to criticize Obama, he just wanted to point out a few issues on which he was critical of Obama. "I told you I'm not going to criticize my successor," he said. "I'll just tell you that there are people at Gitmo that will kill American people at a drop of a hat and I don't believe that -- persuasion isn't going to work. Therapy isn't going to cause terrorists to change their mind."

This is a crushing blow to Obama's National Terrorist Therapy program, currently making its way through congress. He also took a shot at Iran.

"Clearly, there's a level of frustration on the Iranian streets," this Dubya guy said. "It looks like it's not a very fair election."

He's the expert on "not very fair" elections, I guess... (Washington Times)


-What a loser!-
The latest polling shows that the public still views President Obama favorably -- around 60% and up, depending on which poll you check. And his policies? Yeah, we like those too. A New York Times/CBS News poll finds that 57% approve of his handling of the economy and the same percentage like his handling of terrorism. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that 54% like his handling of foreign policy and a vast majority -- 75% -- "Like personally and approve" of either many or most of his policies overall.

Think Progress puts together a few headlines reporting these numbers:


"Sticker Shock -- Obama still popular; his policies, not so much" [ABC's The Note]

"Polls find rising concern with Obama on key issues" [Reuters]

"Polls Show Declining Support For Obama Decisions" [U.S. News & World Report's Political Bulletin]

"Obama's popularity: Problems testing it" [Chicago Tribune's The Swamp]

"Is 'Smooth Sailing' Over for Obama?" [Washington Post]


I guess if he were really popular, the polling would be unanimous or something. If his numbers ever slip below 50%, expect headlines like "Americans Agree: Barack Obama is History's Greatest Monster" and "Pollsters Fear Riots, Revolution." (Think Progress)