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As opposed to, say, the process that Senator Dianne Feinstein's Presidential Inauguration Committee (PIC) used, which led to a multi-layered fiasco of epic proportions.
It really is a bit early to focus on President Obama's approval ratings in the polls, I know. But, rather than looking at the overall picture of how he's doing, I have been noticing something interesting which I don't believe others have picked up on -- Obama's numbers dramatically improve depending on the sample used by the pollsters. When "likely voters" (LV) are polled, the numbers they give are different from when either "registered voters" (RV) or "all adults" (A) are polled. Obama's LV approval rating is about five points lower than the RV/A numbers. The difference is more pronounced in the disapproval ratings, where LV numbers are fully ten points higher than RV/A numbers.
In today's main event we will discuss the idiocy of the most recent Republican talking point -- "Obama's trying to do too much, too fast" (which is weak, to be sure, but then they had to kind of scramble after their last talking point "Obama is killing the stock market" became inoperative due to a rally). But before we get to that, we have some housecleaning to do. Call it "old business" -- a few new developments in things that I've commented on previously.
So where was the reporting on the improvement of those numbers with the votes on the 2009 budget bill? Where were the stories on the nightly news shows praising Obama for getting about a tenth of Republican House members to vote for the 2009 budget, and almost one in five Republican senators? It's pretty hard to call this anything other than "bipartisan," especially since we lost a few of our own Democrats on the votes as well. Where were the headlines screaming "bipartisan budget passes!" Where were the followup stories to your "sky is falling" theme from a few weeks ago, telling the public that Obama was making definite progress in reaching out to Republicans, and Republicans were responding to do what is best for the country rather than blindly following partisan demands? I must have missed those stories, since you obviously are all such good journalists that you followed up on your previous "Obama is a failure" stories with some "Obama makes bipartisan progress" stories, right?
Barack Obama is our first post-baby-boom president. He was supposed to usher in a new era, where we wouldn't have to fight the social battles of the 1960s all over again. Instead, we are now apparently going to fight the battles of the 1930s.
Howard Dean is a man of many titles. You can call him Governor Dean, or Chairman Dean, or even ex-presidential candidate Dean. But the one title which qualifies him to be named as Secretary of Health and Human Services is Doctor Dean. Now that Tom Daschle has withdrawn from consideration (due to a few tax problems), Howard Dean should be first on the list of possible appointees.
While I think a growing populist rage is indeed possible in this country at this point, I don't quite think we're there yet -- and I really don't think most Washington politicians would know how to ride that wave even if it did appear. Because, from Obama on down, Democrats know how to stoke the fires of populist rage, but what they propose doing about it usually falls far, far short of what I would call "populism."
Sarah Palin is the goose that just keeps laying golden eggs, so to speak, and the Republican National Committee seems astonishingly clueless when it comes to capitalizing on Palin's star power. I mean, this is supposed to be the party of free enterprise, making lots of money, and fatcats in general. And yet, a little girl has to show them how to make money? In an Obama-esque spirit of reaching across the aisle, I would like to rub their noses in it.
The swearing-in ceremony itself, and the opening acts which proceeded it were the best thing, capped by Barack Obama's oath of office.
[Note: This page is nothing but my photos of the Inauguration and our trip to see it. For those with slow connections or slow browsers, be warned it may take a while to load. Part 5 of the Inauguration story will be posted later today. Thank you for your patience.]