The Obama Over-Exposure Continues

During the SOTU address, President Obama said "I don't quit". I think most people might have thought that he was talking about working to reduce unemployment and end the al-Qaeda threat. Little did we know he was talking about his apparent need to get his mug shown on every form of media known to man......

Obama on hand for Duke-Georgetown

WASHINGTON -- There was a familiar voice behind the microphone during the Duke-Georgetown basketball game -- that of Barack Obama.

The president, attending as a fan, provided about seven minutes of nationally televised hoops commentary in the second half of Saturday's matchup of two top 10 teams at the Verizon Center near the White House.

Please make it stop! I watch sports to forget about other more serious things, so I don't need President Obama showing up front and center to remind me of more serious things I am trying to forget.

The president...enjoyed the game from a front-row seat, not the luxury suites that top government officials sometimes prefer.

This is somehow a better thing? Last I checked, front-row seats were pretty luxurious too.

But sitting in a box would not have offered the public exposure that he apparently craves. If his advisors are telling he needs to get out in public more, I think he might need some new advisors.

Hey Joe how do you like those seats???

Must be nice to have a super cool boss with lots of pull....

Foundation Repair

According to Peggy Noonan, the Obama Administration has a new program for us, called "The New Foundation".

Given the success of the so-called stimulus, I am sure that we will soon see these signs popping up in the DC area....

Of course, the Congress will then nationalize the foundation repair industry and we will start to see these signs popping up instead....

It is the circle of life....

These are Some Nice Bonds We Have Here....

...it would be a shame if someone dumped them.....

The National Security Council has ordered that the intelligence community downgrade China from a first to a second priority. It’s another victory for an American adversary.

Hmmmmmmm.....I am sure this will just as successful as scrapping our missile shield in Europe to make nice with the Russians....

Well, the good thing is that now we can direct more intelligence community resources to combating Global Warming.

Not So Well Endowed

Schadenfreude alert from the Insta-ticker:

FORBES: College Endowments In Jeopardy. “College and university endowments in the United States and Canada collectively lost $93 billion during the 2009 fiscal year, according to a study jointly released Thursday by the National Association of College and University Business Officers and the Commonfund, which manages investments for nonprofit institutions

I fail to see what the problem is. Don't they know they can just print stacks of money to make up the difference?

I am sure China is just waiting for the chance to go long on 'Harvard Bucks'.....

On the other hand...there are a lot of TARP funds that could be looking for a loving owner....

SOTU Word Cloud

Quick word count: Looks like the President maybe be cutting back on the narcissism... "We" - 110 times, "I" - only 83 times.....yes....83 times..."You" - 22 times...just in case you forgot who this speech is really about....

Also, "Jobs" - 23 times, "unemployment"/"unemployed" - 4 times....guess he wanted to avoid those last two words....

"Terrorism" - 0, "Terrorists" - 2, "War"/"Wars" - 7

"Our" - 121, "My" - 10....I guess the speech-writers finally figured out that POTUS needs to speak more about other than himself...

Oh, and what was that thing we did last year to spark the economy and job growth? The thing we are so proud of since it has created/saved "2 million" jobs? Oh, yeah...."Stimulus"...word count....1. 'nuff said!

TOTUS Deserves a Raise!

Apparently TOTUS has been working a lot of overtime recently, from making sure the POTUS didn't flub in front of some 6th-graders, to this instance of ensuring POTUS said just the right scripted thing to a handful of his own advisors....


[Hat Tip: Rich Lowry]

I mean Good Lord (again), he is speaking on his home turf, and he can't even speak extemporaneously ????

Assuming this is not a Photoshop, I am embarrassed, and I am not even a Democrat or someone who who voted for the President. I am embarrassed for our country that we could have elected such an amateur....

I have two words for the President....Dale Carnegie.

Not the Intended Message

From the front in parts of Europe that may soon be called Eurabia....



I cannot imagine that then Candidate Obama ever thought that his message of hope would be used to promote a cult of death...

[Hat Tip: Diana West]

When It Comes To Compassion...

No other country comes close....



One great way that you can help the Haitian people, is by donating to Team Rubicon, a self-financed and self-deployed group of former Marines, soldiers and health care professionals currently providing emergency relief in Haiti.

Obama Teaches Kids About New Technology

Good Lord...there is nothing I can add to this tragically insightful post by Jammie Wearing Fool....

Pitiful: Obama Needs TelePrompter to Talk to Schoolkids



Here's President TOTUS the other day in Falls Church, VA speaking to a group of sixth graders. You would think this towering intellect could ad lib for five minutes for some kids, but you'd be wrong.

He really is pathetic.

In case you think this is a Photoshop gag, more of the photos are here.

The country is in the best of hands..... Sigh.

Right Wing Kills Stock Market Rally!

Or at least that is the impression you might get if you read this Washington Post bottle-fed spin article. [Hat Tip: Instapundit]

Political push-back stalls stock market rally on Wall Street

NEW YORK -- Washington spent months nursing the financial system back to health after the 2008 economic crisis, stabilizing then reviving battered markets and ultimately restoring trillions of dollars in investor losses. Wall Street's political fortunes have not fared as well.

Now, an aggressive stance against the bankers, financiers and even government officials popularly blamed for causing the crisis is gaining political momentum, and there are signs it is eroding the very financial stability the government championed.

[...]

Moves to rein in the country's biggest banks and talk of blocking the reappointment of Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben S. Bernanke torpedoed confidence in the stock market last week, sending share prices into their steepest decline in nearly a year.

[...]

The anti-Wall Street mood darkened after President Obama's Democratic Party suffered a stunning upset in the Massachusetts Senate race.

Gee, nary a mention of President Obama's broadside to the banking industry on Thursday. You do get an oblique reference to it, but only in paragraph 18 and only in the context that Republicans were being mean to Timothy Geithner.

Yes America, your 401k's are all lower this weekend because of the mean GOP, and an uppity proletarian vanguard. This line of course from the same national leadership that says "There has never been a more open process for any legislation"....

The *Real* Ellie Light...

Who would take the energy to write "powerful paeans in praise of the President" to 47 newspapers in 23 states?

Dear Washington Post, A year ago.....

I suppose we should wait to see if 'Ms. Light' sends letters to newspapers in all 57 states....

UPDATE: Welcome fellow Instapundit disciples.... On a serious note, please visit Team Rubicon (A Milblogger medical team providing much needed services on the ground in Haiti), and help them help the Haitians. Thank You.

UPDATE II: Dan Riehl has some interesting observations...

Right Idea...Wrong Target

After a week of reality injection, you're getting warmer Mr. President, but you have chosen the wrong target for your "help".

Obama May Call for Freeze on Discretionary Spending

Jan. 23 (Bloomberg) -- There is a “fighting chance” President Barack Obama will propose a freeze in most discretionary spending by the federal government in his State of the Union speech next week, Senator Evan Bayh, an Indiana Democrat, said.

Gee, the last time I checked, our Federal spending problem wasn't a discretionary spending problem....



And of course, whenever you hear a democrat calling for a freeze/reduction in 'discretionary spending', you know what that really means....



How about we look at all that entitlement spending....yeah, fat chance, right Mr. President?

Cross Your Fingers

Knock on Wood....



Update: Woo-hoo!

"Zero" Hour

It looks like Crazy Aunt Nancy will try to ram 'health care reform' through 'one way or another'.

"Let's remove all doubt, we will have health care — one way or another," Pelosi said. "Back to the drawing board means a great big zero for the American people."

First, I would like to remind Ms. Pelosi that we already have health care....

Second, if by 'zero' you mean keeping the outstanding, though slightly pricey, instant-access health care that we already enjoy...then I will take that over government supervised, spirit-crushing bureaucracy that you prescribe any time.

And so will a majority of voters in this country....

Bay State's Blue State Blue-Collar Blues

I grew up in Massachusetts. Lived there through HS, then went out of state for college, and subsequently into the military. And while I have not really lived there in over 20 years, I do remember a few things about the place.

Michael Barone has a good look today at some polling in bellweather towns in the Bay State, and if I may, I would like to steal a line from him. He says those towns are "emblematic of blue-collar Massachusetts...despite the prominence of the state’s university communities".

This is a great point, especially how it relates to this election battle between Brown and Coakley. Massachusetts is known as a Democratic stronghold, and most people vote Dem because for a long time, there really weren't other viable alternatives, and 'despite the prominence of the state’s university communities' that doesn't mean it is a liberal stronghold. In fact most of Massachusetts comes from 'hearty stock', or in other words a Catholic, blue-collar background. And while perhaps not as conservative as other places in the country, as a voting block it is certainly more mainstream than the liberal crowd pulled in and retained by the magnet of Harvard/Radcliffe/Brandeis/Tufts.

What this really means is that a mildly conservative, blue-collar candidate has a lot of unrecognized and untapped reserve to draw upon when running to tweak the nose of Massachusetts' limousine-liberal elite. Call them the 'Will Hunting' voters.

Unlike the past when a liberal who lives in Beacon Hill, and the plumber who fixes his sinks and lives in Somerville could generally be relied upon to both vote for Ted Kennedy, this year the plumber from Somerville has a choice that easily appeals to *him* and will stick it to all those Ha-vahd snobs who have always looked down at him.

Scott Brown can win, because he authentically appeals to a voting block that has been taken for granted in the Bay State for a long, long time.....

Certification for Me, But Not for Thee!

Just last week, the Democratic Party Machine in Massachusetts threatened to delay the certification of Scott Brown (if he wins) as long as possible to prevent him from casting votes in the U.S. Senate. Most importantly, one of those votes could be on Obamacare.

However just today, one of the most powerful members of that Machine, Rep. Ed Markey, stated:

“We’re all waiting for Wednesday morning when we have Martha Coakley joining us down there."

Did you get that? Wednesday. The day after the special election. I guess Markey doesn't forsee any issues with getting Coakley certified. As they say in my former home state...what a wicked shockah!

But as it turns out, if he wins, Brown would not have to wait for ceritfication in order to take his place as the Bay State's new Senator....

Massachusetts law says that an appointed senator remains in office “until election and qualification of the person duly elected to fill the vacancy.” The vacancy occurred when Senator Edward Kennedy died in August. Kirk was picked as interim senator by Governor Deval Patrick.

[...]

But based on Massachusetts law, Senate precedent, and the U.S. Constitution, Republican attorneys said Kirk will no longer be a senator after election day, period. Brown meets the age, citizenship, and residency requirements in the Constitution to qualify for the Senate. “Qualification” does not require state “certification,” the lawyers said.

So I guess somebody new will be voting in the Senate starting Wednesday....

The Tin-Eared Donkey v. The Pick-Up Truck

From the same elite crowd that looked down their noses and made fun of those Americans who "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them", we now have them trying to swing a Senate election because their opponent drives a pick-up truck.



Using the pick-up truck as a laugh line might be OK when you amongst a few comrades at a cocktail party, but when the line is televised across the state, and the nation, you might just end up driving away more voters with your elitist guffaws. The Dems are so used to getting top-cover from the media, that they forget that their snide remarks might wrinkle some noses.

I suppose we should expect anything less from a bunch of Limousine Liberals.

I wonder what Martha really drives....

UPDATE: Truck count scoreboard

Contempt is in the Eye of the Beholder

This cool quote popped up on the Instapundit ticker today....

“If only the media had as much contempt for lying, thieving, corrupt politicians as they do for sports stars who use steroids.”

Given today's roiling political environment, and the media that abets the Democrats that run the political machine and ignores their vices and scandals, it seems like a very apt quote.

But if you track the links all the way back to its inspiration, the lying, thieving, corrupt politicians that aren't held in contempt by the media are not Rangel, Dodd, Pelosi, geithner, and the Chicago Machine, but...George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin, and Rudy Giuliani.

Apparently Duncan Black, writer of the Eschaton blog, must have been hitting the Ambien a little too hard over the last several years. The media didn't show contempt for W, Cheney and Palin? YGTSM.....

Of course the explanation for all this lies in the disclaimer at the bottom of his posts:

Disclaimer:
This is a personal web site. It is not a production of Media Matters for America (MMFA). Statements on this site do not represent the views or policies of MMFA. Preferences for electoral candidates posted on this site have not been expressed using any MMFA resources

I am glad we cleared that up....

UPDATE: Forgive for not knowing that Duncan Black was actually 'Atrios'....I never read his stuff...for good reason....

Commies Aren't Cool Redux

It was almost two years ago, when we first saw the Obama-Ché connection, thanks to a campaign worker in Houston.



At that time my response was:



But now the whole Obama-Che thing has gone too far!



To that, provocation, I can only respond....Viva La Revolucion!



But if red isn't your color, you could always go green....



And just remember, all those authentically obnoxious lefty Ché shirts were brought to you by....capitalism.



[Hat Tip: Instapundit]

Obama the Newsweek Scribe

Lede: "Obama to Pen Cover Story on Haiti and the Earthquake for Newsweek"

My first thought: At least we will know what Bill Ayers thinks about the tragedy in Haiti....

How Obama Could Help Haiti

SusanAnne Hiller wants to know what has happened with the $1.4 million President Obama was awarded when he won the Nobel Peace Prize.

The other day I pointed out the fact that President Obama has yet to donate the money he was awarded as the Nobel recipient. Obama stated he would donate the $1.4 million prize to charity. It’s been several weeks since he received the money and no one knows what’s happened to it.

This is an intriguing question....but one that I think has an easy answer for the President, especially if he wants to live up to the stature of being a Peace Prize recipient.

He needs to donate the whole stash to charities providing relief in Haiti.

I for one would think it would be a great example of selfless philanthropy that should epitomize his office, and the idea of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Please do it, sir. Do it now.

Doomsday Clock Confusion

Apparently the 'Doomsday Clock' will be getting an update tomorrow...

The timepiece in New York conveys how close humanity is to catastrophic destruction, which is represented by midnight.

In order to keep the suspense going, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is not telling which direction the clock will move.....closer to midnight (Doomsday) or further away (Utopia?).

However, given the immediate calming presence of President Obama on all things bad in the world, I am sure it will be moving backward towards nirvana.

However I am confused about one small thing. The 'time' on the clock of doom is determined by several things, including the recent addition, Global Warming.

A spokesman said: 'Factors influencing the latest Doomsday Clock change include international negotiations on nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation, expansion of civilian nuclear power, the possibilities of nuclear terrorism, and climate change.'

So, the 'expansion of civilian nuclear power' and 'climate change' are both a negative? I thought one was supposed to help solve the other?

To be fair, BAS looks at the civilian nuclear power as an illicit source for nuclear weapons production.

But with the world's "immense and growing demand for electricity", if the BAS is serious about climate change, they would support the 'expansion of civilian nuclear power'. Especially when that expansion doesn't have to mean the proliferation of the bad things they seek to combat.

The expansion of new civilian nuclear technology can help save the planet! But it is hard to convince the devout that they need to adjust their religious beliefs.....

[Hat Tip on Green Nukes: Instapundit]

Pretty Please, Mr. Terrorist

Why wouldn't they help us?????

All Your Votes Are Belong to Us

Dan Riehl points us to David Freddoso's revelation of the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy's planning documents.

"What it offers is a rare look at how left-wing organizations are working together and plotting a progressive future."

What it offers is a little unnerving.

Amongst other things slide (11) says that this VLWC has:
- "A national database of all voting age individuals..."
- "A robust and enhanced file, with models and specialty data and a comprehensive vote history"
- "A data warehouse that holds all voter contact records and results"



So the Left knows who you are, has 'specialty data' on you including how you voted, and knows when and what you have told to pollsters. Gee, with organizations like these, who needs to worry about bogeymen like the NSA or CIA?!?

And I wonder how that data might be used in the future... I am sorry you need that operation Mr. Smith, but we show here that you expressed opinions against, and voted against Health Care Reform, so I don't think we can help you.

Perhaps a little grandiose, but what exactly will the Left use these databases/data warehouses for after they have used them to win elections? You know they won't go away....

More Thoughts on Brown v. Coakley Polls

Somewhere yesterday I read the thought that polls like the PPP poll that showed Scott Brown leading his Democratic opponent by 1-point might motivate Democratic voters to actually come out to the polls, thus negating the enthusiasm of the Brown voters.

This is certainly something to worry about. But if that is possible, then so is the opposite reaction.

It is entirely possible that today's Boston Globe poll showing Coakley up by 15-points, may in fact discourage semi-likely Democratic voters from heading to the polls on January 19th. If those who are luke-warm and not very enthusiastic think that Coakley leads by a country mile has it sewn up (like Dems usually do in MA), then they are going probably less likely to head to the polls, and the Brown enthusiasm could in fact carry the day.

So.....let's have some more of those Globe polls!

UPDATE: Move Along...Nothing to see here!

Boston Globe: Coakley Up Big

The big banner above-the-fold headline in today's Boston Globe:

Senate Poll: Coakley up 15 Points

Its like they were trying to send a message...

Of course this contrasts greatly with the just released PPP poll that showed Scott Brown to be leading by 1-point.

Why the difference? Well the Globe poll is a poll of 554 likely-voters, but was conducted from 2-6 January. The PPP poll was made up of 774 likely-voters, and conducted from 7-9 January. Perhaps the PPP poll is more updated due to the very recent phone-bank ops conducted by the Brown campaign.

What is interesting is the political make-up of the Globe Poll. PPP breaks out its respondents as 44% Dem, 39% IND, and 17% GOP. The Globe is 55% Dem, 15% IND, and 28% GOP.

So the Globe immediately has a heavier disposition towards the Dems. Now perhaps their weighting is better than that of PPP, only time will tell.

But the bottom line is that with widely disparate polls like this, one side is going to be extremely dissapointed on Jan 19th....

UPDATE: Jammie Wearing Fool has some related thoughts and a reminder about PPP's last prediction in NY-23.

UPDATE II: Another item I forgot to add originally....the PPP poll does not address an Independent candidate with coincidental name recognition, Joe Kennedy. He gets 5% in the Globe poll....

UPDATE III: William Jacobson of Legal Insurrection calls the Globe Poll "an outlier", and he has been working the phones at Brown HQ, so he has good feel of the pulse in the race...

Google v. Intelligence

The London Telegraph asks the question "So Google is better than US intelligence?"...

So this means that the US government’s computers apparently don’t have an equivalent of Google’s “Did You Mean?” tool that picks up misspellings and finds results for similar words.

If it had been realised immediately that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab has a valid US visa then presumably the alarm bells would have begun to ring weeks before he actually flew – but they believed he had no visa because the State Department database or whatever database it was could only recognise a particular version of an Arabic name.

Of course, had the Telegraph used Google they could have discovered the following:

1) The FBI's Upgrade That Wasn't: $170 Million Bought an Unusable Computer System

"The nation's premier law enforcement and counterterrorism agency, burdened with one of the government's most archaic computer systems, would have to start from scratch."

2) Lawmaker: Terrorism info database troubled

"Severe technical troubles, poor management of contractors and weak government oversight have put the federal government’s efforts to enhance and upgrade its primary terrorist identity database at risk..."

3) Pink Slips, Spyblogs, and More New Year’s Resolutions for the Intelligence Community

"There is no practical reason why the IC could not immediately adopt a “living intelligence” model that gets vetted and valid intelligence into the hands of consumers in near-real-time — not weeks or months after-the-fact. Such a model would actually allow analysts more time to think about the problems at hand, rather than following dated, time-wasting protocols. What hinders progress in this area is Intelligence Community management that is more concerned with getting credit than serving the intelligence needs of consumers."

4) Credit Where It's Due

2010: The United States Government revokes Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's visa a mere 12 days after he tries to kill 300 people.

2002: The United States Government approves Mohammed Atta's visa six months after he's actually killed 3,000 people - and is, in fact, himself deceased.

So, is Google better than US Intelligence? I think a quick search of Google would point to the fact that has been public for a long time. Many of the agencies in question have had major problems using and improving new technologies to make their jobs easier. Free market internet companies will always have greater ability to out-perform government bureaucracies when it comes to these technologies.

So the answer to the semi-rhetorical quesiton is....YES!

Sand in The Gears

Instapundit offered commentary on people's opinion of the big government bailout for GM (or just bailouts in general):

"Lots of people have decided to be sand in the gears."

But I would remind everyone, there is no need to be the sands in gears that won't even mesh with each other.....

Opposition = Transparency?

In my previous post, I poked fun at Nancy Pelosi's absurd statement "There has never been a more open process for any legislation" in the drafting of the Healthcare Refrom bills.

What is extremely interesting is that both she and Rep Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) point out in this video that transparency has occurred in part because "...tens of thousands of people participated in our Town Meetings..."

Yes, tens of thousands of people participated, and tens of thousands of those participants told you that they wanted nothing to do with this push towards socialized medicine. Many of those tens of thousands went to the Town Meetings because there had been no transparency.

Yet they still push forward....

It really tells you what their agenda is when they tout the opposition of a majority of the country to what they are doing as transparency, but they are willing to ignore that majority to impose their desire of government controlled health care upon us.

Nancy Pelosi Channels Baghdad Bob

Nancy and Bob....separated at birth??


"They're not even [within] 100 miles [of Baghdad]. They are not in any place. They hold no place in Iraq. This is an illusion ... they are trying to sell to the others an illusion." [2003]


"There has never been a more open process for any legislation," Pelosi said at a press conference concerning Healthcare Reform [2010]

Does Yemen Really Distract from Pakistan?

From Instapundit:

ADVICE TO OBAMA FROM TUNKU VARADARAJAN: Don’t get distracted by Yemen. The real threat is elsewhere.

Well, with all due respect to Mr. Varadarajan, the 'War On Terror' (as the Obama Administration is quickly finding out) is not a zero-sum game when it comes to focus.

I think the new Administration, as opposed to the Obama campaign rhetoric, has discovered that there are lots of terrorist rat nests around the world, many of which require focus. If you do focus your priority of effort on only one, then those others will fester to the point that they will require attention later on.

I am not a big fan of the current administration, but I am pretty sure that the nation's national security administration can follow more than one rat nest at a time.

Yes, Yemen is the current rat nest dejour, and yes Pakistan is even more important in the overall scheme of things, but that doesn't mean they necessarily distract from each other. And just because Yemen is getting more mention in the Washington Post that is delivered to Mr. Varadarajan's doorstep doesn't mean we aren't focusing adequately on Pakistan.

Scott Rasmussen, Enemy of the Media State

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

That is the sound you hear nowadays whenever you might mention the name Scott Rasmussen to any thumbsucking lefty politico.

Democrats are turning their fire on Scott Rasmussen, the prolific independent pollster whose surveys on elections, President Obama’s popularity and a host of other issues are surfacing in the media with increasing frequency.

The pointed attacks reflect a hardening conventional wisdom among prominent liberal bloggers and many Democrats that Rasmussen Reports polls are, at best, the result of a flawed polling model and, at worst, designed to undermine Democratic politicians and the party’s national agenda.

Well, if this isn't a good case of the pot calling the kettle....err...well you know.

“I don’t think there are Republican polling firms that get as good a result as Rasmussen does,” said Eric Boehlert, a senior fellow with Media Matters, a progressive research center. “His data looks like it all comes out of the RNC [Republican National Committee].”

Once again...waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! One of my personal political axioms is that if the Lebs are accusing the conservatives of doing something dastardly and untoward, then you can pretty sure that it is something that they are actually doing, and they are just trying to distract from that.

Again, from the left...

It’s not just the data that Rasmussen’s critics object to — they also have a problem with the way the firm frames questions in its automated polls....

[...]

Democratic pollster Mark Mellman believes Rasmussen designs its polling questions to elicit negative responses about Obama and Democrats — a sentiment that is widely shared in the liberal blogosphere.

“I think they write their questions in a way that supports a conservative interpretation of the world,” said Mellman. “In general, they tend to be among the worst polls for Democrats, and they phrase questions in ways that elicit less support for the Democratic point of view.”

Now, does Rasmussen write his questions in a certain way that might be advantageous to one result over another. Perhaps. But the left should not get it's panties in a bunch pretending that this some newly invented idea from the angry right. Methinks they doth protest too much. Slanted questions have been a staple of MSM (i.e. Liberal) polls for a long time now. Or even worse slanted news coverage, which can then drive that opinion data.

Then there is the issue of sampling and screening...

Rasmussen, for his part, explained that his numbers are trending Republican simply because he is screening for only those voters most likely to head to the polls — a pool of respondents, he argues, that just so happens to bend more conservative this election cycle.

Polling all adults — a method used by Gallup, another polling firm that conducts a daily tracking poll of Obama — Rasmussen acknowledged, is “always going to yield a better result for Democrats.”

But critics note that the practice of screening for only those voters regarded as most likely to head to the polls potentially weeds out younger and minority voters — who would be more likely to favor Democrats than Republicans.

Alan Abramowitz, an Emory University political scientist, said there was “huge concern right now” that Rasmussen was polling a universe of largely conservative-minded voters.

Now sampling can be handled in a number of ways. If you want to know what President Obama's pure popularity is, then go to People Magazine for a poll that includes everyone and their kids. But if you want to know how President Obama might fare in the next election, then you (the DNC in particular) should only want to pay attention to those opinions of those who will actually go out and vote. This will give you the most realistic look at what might occur.

However in thesetimes, MSM polls are not used to inform reader/viewer on public opinion, but rather shape that reader/viewer's opinion. Create a poll through slanted questions and desired over/undersampling, and you can present the public with the reality that you want them to have.

This is why Rasmussen is so upsetting. He is presenting something that differs from the approved MSM story line.

But then again...maybe. he. isn't.

UPDATE: Similar thoughts at the American Thinker...

Rasmussen also weights his results by party more realistically than most other pollsters, giving the GOP numbers in the upper 20's compared to other pollsters who peg GOP support in the low 20's.

Regardless of how you slice it, the president's numbers are falling dramatically. And complaining about the guy bringing you that bad news won't change the dynamics of the situation.

I believe that this whole liberal line of argument is similar to this: