Roger L. Simon: And they're off and running in Hialeah!

President Bush (33%) is leading the Congress (29%) by a nose in the latest (un)popularity derby from Gallup.

Why these lousy numbers over all? The DOW is at record high, unemployment low, global warming hasn't really set in yet (if it's coming), air pollution's a whole lot better, water pollution too, no one's taking a buzz saw to our forests and our national park system is actually being extended (that giant protected area in the Pacific). I haven't seen rioting in the streets, although the traffic's worse and road rage may have increased. But we're all enjoying the fruits of technology as never before (you may hate cellphones, but imagine life without them now). Even our cars seem to break down less.

If you ask me - and you're probably not - I think it comes down to two things: 1. The media's unremitting desire to tell us things are bad. 2. That innate part of human nature that can't stand prosperity.

HOWEVER, and it's a deliberately all caps big "however," the spectre of expansionist Islamofascism hangs over our daily lives, no matter how pleasant the surface of our daily lives may be. So erase everything I have said above. Those low poll numbers may be with us for a long time to come.

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If people have been standing outside your house for seven years yelling "doom, doom, doom" into a microphone, it's natural that you'd start to think "doom, doom, doom."

The press has been at war with GWB since the fall of 2000. There is very little they would not do to take him down, which task they apparently consider a moral imperative.

That said, I'm not sure the press will get its way in the next opinion poll that actually counts: the '08 elections.

If people have been standing outside your house for seven years yelling "doom, doom, doom" into a microphone,

More like 150 years, going back to Marx at least. Why can't these guys find another joyless cult to join?

The price of gas, Islamism, the war, the constant bitching about everything from the press. Take your pick.

The war is the biggest problem although few are directly affected. The dynamic is a bit like Korea, a war that I barely remember. I was in grammar school and had a map of Korea posted on my bedroom wall so I could follow the front lines. Eventually, everybody got tired of the stalemate. That pulled Truman's numbers down to the level where Bush is now. Finally, Eisenhower said "I will go to Korea !" and that was enough to win the election. Then he did exactly the same thing Truman would have done.

The difference now is that the Democrats are in full surrender mode. I don't see how they split the difference with the netroots who are in full cry to impeach Bush and run home from Iraq, and the senior party leaders who know what a disaster that would be. It may be that Arabs cannot rule themselves without tyrants. Except, how do you explain the Kurds ? Answer ? Nobody knows about the Kurds except those of us who actually study this stuff. And we don't count. Only the people who watch The View on daytime TV count.

The best way that I know to test your theory, Roger, is to take two polls and to compare the numbers:

Typically, people are a lot more optimistic about their own future than about the world in general, which is a tipoff that their anxiety comes secondhand from the media.

Rather, people are sick and tired of the palace intrigue BS that our legislators are so married to. And the voters feelings have devolved into a sort of impotent disgust because there doesn't seem to be much we can do about it--both parties are corrupt and those they have put so many obstacles in the way of a third party run that we are stuck with the two we have.

Is it any wonder people feel this way when every time they throw the bums out, they just get a new set of bums?

We live in a new world of instant communication, where bloggers, pundits, researchers and analysts can immediately present their information to the public. In this world, the smoke filled rooms of Washington Politics have been opened, the fans engaged and the "No Smoking Indoors" has gone into full effect.

I think that many people have begun to realize that neither party has their interests in mind. The Republican Congress had corrupt members and spent most of its time trying to pass laws to score political points, rather than work towards a better nation for Everyone. The Democratic Congress, wailing at the unfair position for the minority, swept into Congress and are acting exactly the same as the previous bunch of fools. Bush, at this point, appears to be in Full Defense Mode, unable to do anything other than retreat from the Democratic Onslaught. Democrats and Republicans both have failed their primary duty... serving the American People. The recent Republicans in power have cared only to serve those who elected them, or filled their coffers. The current Democratic Congress is following suit. Further, the DOW and Unemployment count only so far. I have a large number of friends that once held high paying salary positions. Now they hold low paying hourly positions. Sure Unemployment is low and if you have money to invest in Stocks, things may be ok... but thats not MOST of America.

My Dad has worked at the same company for 35 years. He's highly skilled and is one of only a few left in this country that can design and build molds for high-pressure or high-heat ceramics. At this point, the only competition left is from Mexico. Currently they're losing contracts because the customers can purchase the product in Mexico for less that my Dad's company can buy the raw materials. A friend of mine had a $40k job for AOL. He dealt with quality control over their phone service. Now someone in India does that job and he works as a human answering machine. He gets about $8 an hour. My finance held a job three years ago that paid almost double her current pay. The job she had is gone out of the country.

Mark Twain once said that there were three kinds of lies. Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics. The Stock Market, Unemployment, and Less Pollution are all important factors, but they don't necessarily mean what we might think. When we add a self-absorbed political environment and gasoline that's over $3 per gallon (at least here in Ohio), people may well be unhappy.

So yeah, the media causes unnecessary unrest, but things aren't exactly Oz here either. Maybe politics will be this terrible until our nation falls, maybe only till the end of this war, or maybe its always been this way and now its just more visible...

I think ras is onto it. *Way* back in the Clinton years a sharpee named Robert Samuelson called it "the age of entitlement": at least since WW2 we've been promised nirvana by our political, business, and media elites: we would solve inequality, racism, unemployment, inflation, job security, retirement pensions, you name it -- in a matter of years.

Of course they couldn't do it with the institutions at hand (and probably never will), but we (well, the Royal We) bought it and have been doomed to near-constant disappointment. Of course, in our *own* lives we've enjoyed luxuries our grandparents couldn't even dream about ... but "the big problems" persist and yes, the glories of the Internet make us aware of this instantly, and on a worldwide basis.

And Samuelson was writing pre-9/11, which added a rather immense new problem to the stack. Seems we just need to realize this and get over it; previous generations had problems that make ours look like hangnails.

I tend to sympathize with dclydew. The problem is that we are in I teach mediclaglobal economy whether we choose to be or not. Your dad needs to figure out a way to start his own business and make high quality the attraction for his product. It's not easy and it can be pretty frustrating but we all have to do it. I teach medical students and they have to go out into a world that is entirely different with school loans of $250,000 each.

As a country we often go through periods of prosperity accompanied by numerous complaints. Tocqueville captured it well when he said that Americans believe in the infinite perfectability of man or even more to the point he said,

�Among democratic peoples men easily obtain a certain equality, but they will never get the sort of equality they long for. That is the equality which ever retreats from them without getting quite out of sight and as it retreats beckons them on to pursue. Every instant they think they will catch it and each time it slips through their fingers. They see it close enough to know its charms but they do not get near enough to enjoy it and they will be dead before they fully relish its delights....That is the reason for the strong melancholy often haunting inhabitants of democracies in the midst of abundance and of that disgust with life sometimes gripping them in calm and easy circumstances. Men hold onto equality not because it is precious to them but because they think it will last forever.�

In addition to Samuelson's take, I think many believed that the Iraq war would be "easier" than it is and that we would have it all wrapped up by now. I think that it casts a large shadow over current times. Of course it is hard and grueling, but too many contemporary Americans believe that hard things are signs of defects. One of the major parties is already talking "defeat". It suggests a greater vulnerability than people care to admit.

We are supposed to be "perfect", perhaps god-like. We should be strong enough to effortlessly subdue a vicious enemy but not hurt anybody. We're supposed to make peace between Sunni and Shia in the desert but not work up a sweat. We give ourselves tall orders like fighting but wanting everybody to like us at the same time. I think this is a continuation of something I wrote about in Tantalizing Times (pardon the shameless self promotion).

Most people will never start their own businesses, nor do they have any desire to. They just want to be left alone and have a decent retirement. I think that sometimes we forget most people are not that damn ambitious. They have other concerns, like their families.

dclydew, sorry, i don't mean to make light of a serious subject, but that's gotta be the top alltime typo of the year! Yes, them finances are expensive, alright--
:-D

Maybe some people are rather disgusted with their votes, when they went around before November saying things like, "the Dems can't be any worse, can they?" :-)

You'd think all the people that were grateful in 2000, that they didn't vote for Gore (at the last minute), or sorry that they did, would have learned that lesson. I seem to dimly recall mentioning that some people were going to have voters remorse. :)

I seem to dimly recall mentioning that some people were going to have voters remorse.

Yeah, but not voter's remorse as in "Wish I'd voted for the other political assh*les", rather it seems like voters remorse in the sense that they're sad that we only have political assh*les to choose from. Things wouldn't be any better if the incompetent buffoons from the last Congress were still in Washington.

The Democrats have been no worse that the Republicans and at least they've slowed down the Administrations wild ride. I'd rather have two incompetent branches of government in gridlock, than two incompetent branches of government blindly stumbling around together.

The Republicans could have kept their hold on Congress, if they had kept their hold on the Power given to them by the Constitution, if they had treated the Administration as an Administration and not as their Bestest Friend and if they had kept their Contract With America. I don't regret that I helped fire incompetent employees. I'm only sorry that our only replacements were equally incompetent.

Short-sighted, imho. pork/corruption was only one of the issues. the new crew is magnitudes more awful on most of the others--including the big one of recognizing we're in a world of doo doo with this jihad biz.

In your perception, than may be true. In my perception, pork/corruption/partisan lack of oversight etc. is just as dangerous to the health of our nation as the most fanatical jihadist. If we cannot trust our government to be responsible and to manage our affairs in a fair and balanced manner, then what the hell does it matter if someone blows up a few more buildings?

Further, I find corruption and partisan glad handing to be a insidious attack on the foundation of this nation. If a jihadist destroys a building, we can mourn the lost and rebuild (and kill a few of the fu*kers if we're lucky). If corrupt politicians destroy the trust of the American people, their faith in government and our standing on the world stage... we get to mourn and rebuild a new nation.

I still disagree, tho. The nation has a long history of surviving bad doings in DC --in fact scandals are almost regular, every few years we have a major one, then we clean house, and are better for awhile. All in the family so to speak.

And truly, the current scandals are pretty minor, compared to things like Teapot Dome, exposes such as Tammany Hall, Mafia in gov't & unions, Watergate, the S&L Crisis, several of Clinton's scandals, and a dozen or three sprinkled in between and among. Yes, pork and earmarks and K Street are problems, but the deficit is under 2% and falling, so, tho absolute pork numbers are big, relative numbers are small (the economy has grown enormously, adding a "China" since 2003).

Yes, Abramoffs & Duke Cunninghams are bad, but the press is making us all feel like we're in scandal hell, when a great deal of the 'wrongdoing' is artificial political crappola like the Gitmo, Plame Affair, and Abu Grabe scandals.

Will you deny there has been a seven year concerted, deliberate, planned effort, on the part of a half dozen major media organizations, to demoralize the voters?

And at any rate, the scandals are not existential threats either way--just sad, tragic, and lamentable, and yes, damn the perps AND the false accusers.

But then on the other hand we have this jihad going on, it IS an existential threat, in that it already very nearly decapitated the American governmental, military, and financial systems back on 911 and is by many accounts bigger and more dangerous now than then.

It has us by the short hairs over the world energy needs, is but a step & fetch away from a powerful influence over OPEC and nuclear weapons (Paki or Iran).

Yet the one party apparently, as far as anyone can tell, has no plan, nor even any plan to have a plan, to cope with it, other than to assert that it's just a trifle, and that those who think otherwise are vile, crooked, evil, stupid, haliburton, richard burton, whatever.

When the MSM convinces the public to punish the officeholders for certain things--some of them even deserving of punishment--it has the effect of training the politicians to act in certain ways.

To wit, any politician who acts corrupt will do OK for himself, unless he actually breaks a law. This has the effect of traning policitians to be legalistic--something they need no incentive to do, since most of them are lawyers. Or the MSM manages to convince the public that the politician is corrupt or guilty. Since this latter group are confined to people the MSM wants "publically convicted", this has the effect of training politicians to worry more about appearance than substance. Take a stateman-like position on Social Security reform? You'll be buried alive. Bring home the pork for a new school? You'll be lauded.

Easy it is to blame, say, Clintonism for culturally-internalizing an ethos that is all letter-of-the-law, and has difficulty even acknowledging that there IS anything called the 'spirit' of the law.

The enforcing mechanism for the spirit of the law, is (or was) "shame" --and we the people are responsible for the decline of that bad old Victorian guilt-inducing standard.

Well, some examples certainly do appear worse... however, they weren't ubiquitous... in today's world any scandal hits the media, the Internet, the blogs, etc etc etc. People spend how much time debating these things online now (which didn't happen 10 or 20 years ago)?

I think too, that even in the topics you dismiss... there are still serious points of unease, bad things did happen at AG, GitMo does have some constitutional questions and in the Plame affair, there was rather scandalous crap on both sides.

Will you deny there has been a seven year concerted, deliberate, planned effort, on the part of a half dozen major media organizations, to demoralize the voters?

I would say that the media has been irresponsible in their drive to run stories that sell. I would agree that due to the type of education that they have, most of the media has a slight liberal bias in their views. I would not agree that it was necessarily an intentional act to hurt the voters or the Republican party... that concept seems to depend on the disposition of the observer. (There may or may not be some truth about some individuals like Dan Rather, but I don't think the evidence points to some 4th estate Conspiracy).

In the end, Bin Laden and his crew have been at war with us for a long time. I personally think that Mr. Bush's plan to democratize Iraq as a buffer for the GWoT was a badly formed plan. I think the buy in from congress (all congress) was absolutely wrong... they should have challenged the administration, that's their job. The issues with wiretapping, GitMo, AG etc may all be less that the headlines read, but the Congress should have been forthright in their investigations, rather than dismissive.

The fact that some Republicans, even recently, made comments like "Thank you for your informative answers and candor, Mr. Gonzales" when all he said was "I don't know", is a very bad thing. Even if Mr. Gonzales and the Administration are entirely innocent, the members of Congress should be focused on getting the actual facts, rather than being friendly to their party members from the administration.

Further, acknowledging the threat of jihad is one thing. The Republicans get full marks for it. However, they have only come up with bad plans in order to deal with it. Bad plans are as bad, if not worse than no plans. So good job on not sticking their heads in the sand, but they've not exactly made us safer... I'm not yet convinced its done anything even close.

Okay, dclydew, buy that narrative if it's worth the price to you. I guess that's what makes markets & horse races!

...but really, I can't resist a word about Gonzales & his interlocuters: Why, when his guilt amounts to clumsy handling of a false accusation, do you berate congresspersons for their habit of being polite to sympathetic witnesses, when the real problem in this case (among others) is that the entire case is nothing but congressional Dems putting on a huge expensive show trial --because they can?

Like the Plame case--one side conspires to pull-off a memogate-style set-up, then the other side fights back --and the story becomes "both sides are dirty". Feh.

May 15, 2007: And they're off and running in Hialeah!

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