Thursday, June 28, 2007

Today's Video Link

I thought I'd linked to this before but if I did, I can't find it now. This is a Cheerios commercial produced by the Jay Ward people. June Foray is the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel...and by the way, I'm helping June finish up her autobiography and will soon be announcing some sort of publication date, I hope. The other two voices you'll hear in this one — Bullwinkle and a surprise guest — were both done by Bill Scott. Here ya go...

• Posted at 2:22 PM · LINK

Today's Political Thought

I was reading a column by Jonah Goldberg about Dick Cheney and the following chunk leaped out at me. I've seen others say things like this, both about Cheney and also about George W. Bush...

Why do I like Dick Cheney? Because at a time when everybody talks a big game about how they don’t like people-pleasing politicians who live by the polls, Cheney is pretty much the only guy out there who walks the walk. He truly doesn’t care what people think about him. I love that.

Forget for just this paragraph that we're discussing Cheney or Bush. Why is this such a great thing to say about anybody? I mean, the homeless guy down on Fairfax who's always pissing in the gutter doesn't care what people think about him. I have a hunch that when Tim McVeigh decided it would be a dandy idea to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, he didn't care a whole lot what most people thought about him. Just being popular doesn't mean you're doing the right thing in life but it sure doesn't mean the opposite. It is theoretically possible — is it not? — that a politician could please people and go up in the polls because he was doing the right things.

Actually, I don't believe any politician doesn't pay attention to the polls. Not one. Most of them are running for office again and even when — like Bush and Cheney — they aren't, they have to deal with people who are if they're going to get anything accomplished. Bush seems pretty unhappy that the Immigration Bill he backed went down to defeat. Some of that had to do with his own low standing in the polls and some of it had to do with various members of Congress who are up for re-election and looking at their numbers. When I hear people say of a politico, "He doesn't follow polls," I don't believe it. I believe that's being mistaken for someone's conscious decision that it's better for them and their immediate goals to cater to a minority or fringe viewpoint. Or sometimes, they've just dug themselves so far into a hole in one direction that they don't know how to dig their way out. That's not particularly admirable, either.

I could understand liking a guy who's down in the polls if you're part of that minority position and you think he's getting you what you want. For some reason, Goldberg is a fan of Cheney's despite the fact that he thinks the Great White Hunter is "ultimately counterproductive." So I guess I'm stumped here. What is there to like?

• Posted at 1:12 PM · LINK

Posted Without Comment...

According to the Gallup Poll...

Public approval of the job Congress is doing has dipped to its lowest level of 2006, and is now the worst Gallup has recorded since the closing days of the Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994. The current approval rating for Congress is a near-record low according to Gallup survey trending.

Meanwhile, from the Associated Press...

Despite low approval ratings and hard feelings from last year's elections, Democrats and Republicans in the House are reaching out for an approximately $4,400 pay raise that would increase their salaries to almost $170,000.

• Posted at 11:11 AM · LINK