RELATED: Santormentum? Rick Santorum Surges In Iowa

According to the newspaper:

But the four-day results don’t reflect just how quickly momentum is shifting in a race that has remained highly fluid for months. If the final two days of polling are considered separately, Santorum rises to second place, with 21 percent, pushing Paul to third, at 18 percent. Romney remains the same, at 24 percent.

“Momentum’s name is Rick Santorum,” said the Register’s pollster, J. Ann Selzer.

(h/t DMR)

RELATED: Public Policy Polling: Ron Paul Now The Frontrunner In Iowa

Clement notes that in a two-man horserace with President Obama versus Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, the two would tie. However, if Congressman Paul were to launch a independent candidacy, he would play spoiler and would vault Obama to victory by 10 points.

Clement reports:

“Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney ties Obama at 47 percent among registered voters in the poll, but fully 21 percent of all voters say they’d pick Paul as an independent candidate over either Romney or the president. Obama would win such a three-way match-up by 10 percentage points.“

(h/t WaPo)

PPP has more:

Newt Gingrich’s campaign is rapidly imploding, and Ron Paul has now taken the lead in Iowa. He’s at 23% to 20% for Mitt Romney, 14% for Gingrich, 10% each for Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Perry, 4% for Jon Huntsman, and 2% for Gary Johnson.

Gingrich has now seen a big drop in his Iowa standing two weeks in a row. His share of the vote has gone from 27% to 22% to 14%. And there’s been a large drop in his personal favorability numbers as well from +31 (62/31) to +12 (52/40) to now -1 (46/47). Negative ads over the last few weeks have really chipped away at Gingrich’s image as being a strong conservative- now only 36% of voters believe that he has ‘strong principles,’ while 43% think he does not.

Paul’s ascendancy is a sign that perhaps campaigns do matter at least a little, in a year where there has been a lot of discussion about whether they still do in Iowa. 22% of voters think he’s run the best campaign in the state compared to only 8% for Gingrich and 5% for Romney. The only other candidate to hit double digits on that question is Bachmann at 19%. Paul also leads Romney 26-5 (with Gingrich at 13%) with the 22% of voters who say it’s ‘very important’ that a candidate spends a lot of time in Iowa. Finally Paul leads Romney 29-19 among the 26% of likely voters who have seen one of the candidates in person.

Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey is skeptical about the poll’s good news for Paul. “There is no doubt that Paul was picking up some momentum in this race, but the PPP poll seems way too problematic for any conclusions about its current state.”

Unlikely Voter’s Neil Stevens also casts doubt upon the legitimacy of the poll. “Do we really think a horde of Independents who hate the Republican Party will show up at the last minute, register Republican, and caucus for hours with Republicans? I don’t buy it, and neither should Iowa Republicans.”

(h/t Hot Air)

The poll shows some interesting albeit depressing points of unison among Americans– 67% of Democrats and 66% of Republicans want the campaign to be over. Also according to Gallup, “all key subgroups look forward more to the campaign’s end than its beginning, but some slightly less so than others. For example, men (31%) are more likely than women (21%) to say they can’t wait for the campaign to begin.”

Politico also notes that the number of people who can’t wait for the election to be over is even greater in the key swing states of Colorado, Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, and several others. The numbers are particularly surprising given the overwhelming popularity of Republican debates this year– with the Fox News debate this week the highest rated of them all.

But there is a silver lining for newswatchers who are desperately seeking an end to this campaign season: only thirteen months to go before we can start seriously thinking about the 2016 presidential race!

[Photo via]

This means that, compared to this time last month, Gingrich is up 13 points, while Cain — who formerly shot up in popularity to find himself topping polls — has dropped by 5 points. Romney, too, has has experienced a drop of 4 points.

RELATED: Brit Hume: Gingrich’s Debate Performances & ‘Uncle Newt’ Persona Helping Him In Polls

It’s also worth mentioning that the latest CNN/ORC International Poll also has Gingrich in the lead… if you take the margin of error into consideration. According to a CNN/ORC International Poll released today, 24 percent of Republicans and independent voters who lean towards the GOP say that Romney is their most likely choice for their party’s presidential nominee, with 22 percent selecting Gingrich as their favorite. Note that “Romney’s two-point advantage is well within the survey’s sampling error.”

Could the recent wave of sexual harassment and sexual assault allegations lobbed against Cain be playing a role in his recent drop? PPP, for its part, says “there is no doubt they are taking a toll on his image,” reporting that his net favorability is down 25 points from last month, from +51 (66/15) to only +26 (57/31).

RELATED: Gloria Cain Shoots Down Allegations To Greta Van Susteren: ‘[Herman] Would Have To Have A Split Personality’

Also worth taking into account as the campaign continues: Seventy-three percent of Cain’s supporters have a favorable opinion of Gingrich, with only 21 percent purporting to hold a negative opinion of their candidate of choice’s rival.

h/t PPP and CNN

O’Reilly was visibly upset, however, with another poll showing that 66 percent of Americans feel money and wealth are not “distributed fairly” in the United States.

RELATED: Ann Coulter On OWS: They’re Walking Past Soros’ House And Protesting Outside Murdoch’s Apartment

Well, a key word in that question is “distributed,” because wealth is not distributed in America. There’s no central authority that doles out salaries and investment returns. You either earn it, steal it, inherit it, or win the lottery. There’s no distribution. The problem is that many Americans simply don’t understand what’s at stake here. The Occupy Wall Street movement is basically socialistic. It essentially wants the government to control who gets what.

There’s no question that capitalism isn’t perfect or fair. Some people who get wealthy do so by exploiting workers; that’s always happened. But the alternative is Cuba. Or Greece. Do Americans really want that?

Take a look at the segment, via Fox News:

As SF Gate points out, this marks the first time since January 2009 that fewer than half (46 percent, to be precise) of voters in California approve of Obama’s performance, reflecting an eight percent drop over the last three months:

The Field Poll survey has no shortage of bad news for Obama in his once-safe political refuge where he captured 61 percent of the vote during his 2008 victory. Now, 68 percent of California voters believe that “things in the U.S. are seriously off on the wrong track” – up from 47 percent who felt that way shortly after Obama took office in March 2009.

Problems in California don’t stop there: A minority Independent voters — 45 percent — approve of the President’s performance, a drop from 58 percent in June, and support from Democrats has dropped 10 percentage points to 69 percent.

And things aren’t faring well for the President on a national level, either. According to Real Clear Politics, only 43.9 percent of respondents approve of Obama’s job performance and only 12.8 percent approve of the way Congress has been handling its duties (surprise!). The site also features an array of infrographics depicting President Obama’s job approval polling numbers across various networks and organizations — definitely worth perusing.

Just last week, a poll released by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal revealed that the President’s approval rating had fallen to an all-time low, with 51 percent of those polled expressing disapproval. But, hey. Over 70 percent “still find him likable.”

Meanwhile, a recent poll from Transatlantic Trends shows that Obama is still popular overseas, with 75 percent of people surveyed across 12 European countries ultimately approving Obama’s handling of “international policies” — only a slightly drop from 78 percent last year.

h/t SF Gate

The latest Iowa poll–from Public Policy Polling, out today–has some conversation-starting results: behind leader Mitt Romney (in first place with 21 percent), Iowa voters are surging to Sarah Palin and Herman Cain (tied for second with 15 percent).

PPP says Iowa voters who may have flirted with some of the race’s recent dropouts have turned their attention to Palin and Cain:

Cain and Palin have been the biggest beneficiaries in Iowa of Huckabee and Trump’s decisions not to run. Cain is at 15% now despite not even having been included on our last poll. Palin’s gained 7 points in the six weeks

Since the last PPP poll, Romney, Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann have gained five points, and Ron Paul has experienced a two point bump. Of all the Republican names mentioned in the poll, Palin had the highest favorability at 59 percent, followed by Bachmann at 53 percent. Cain’s favorability was among the lowest, at 38 percent.

CNN has just released the results of its latest CNN/WMUR-TV poll of New Hampshire voters ahead of the state’s First in the Nation presidential primary, and among Republicans, Mitt Romney‘s far and away the favorite with 32 percent. No opinion was second, with 17 percent, followed by Ron Paul (9%), Newt Gingrich (6%) and Rudy Giuliani (6%). Tim Pawlenty, who got into the race today, polled at four percent, as did Mitch Daniels, who said he would not run.

The poll, conducted by the University of New Hampshire and involving telephone interviews with 784 adults between May 18-22, found only four percent of Republican primary voters were “definitely decided,” with nine percent “leaning toward someone” and a full 87 percent saying they have “no idea who (they’ll) vote for.”

“The shifting nature of the Republican field and a perception that the ‘perfect candidate’ candidate has not appeared, has led many New Hampshire Republicans to support the best known candidate, Mitt Romney,” said Andrew Smith, director of the UNH Survey Center. “Romney has been the clear favorite among New Hampshire Republicans for more than two years and no other candidate has persuaded voters to move away from Romney.”

Full results of the poll can be found here.

The same poll that showed “undecided” narrowly beating Mitt Romney for the Republican presidential nomination also showed voters are just as divided on political reporters. When asked by pollsters at Suffolk University which political reporter “you trust the most,” respondents (1,070 of them were polled) said “don’t know” (21%) followed by “none” (15%). So take that, Chuck Todd and Jake Tapper (neither of whom was among the names read to respondents in the poll) and John King (0%) and Christiane Amanpour (1%) who were.

So who did the rate well in the poll? Fox’s Bill O’Reilly led named newsers with 9%, followed by CNN’s Anderson Cooper (6%), Fox’s Mike Huckabee (4%) and NBC’s Brian Williams (4%). Yep, Huckabee got more votes as a trusted political reporter than BriWi did.

Campbell Brown, who’s no longer working at CNN, was included in the poll and named most trusted political reporter by five people (0%), which is better than David Gregory, who is working in television as host of one of the most important political shows on TV, Meet the Press, who got 2 votes (0%).

Read the full poll results here.

The split drives home the challenges facing any would-be GOP candidate: Catering to the party’s base without completely alienating those on the fence, and appealing to voters across a wide spectrum without pitting disparate factions within the Republican party against one another.

Romney recently launched an exploratory committee and a dazzlingly fresh new logo in advance of a possible presidential run, but, so far, neither he nor Palin have definitely announced intent to run in 2012. Nor, for that matter, has Mike Huckabee, despite rumors that Fox News would prefer that Huckabee, who hosts his own show on the network, come to a decision sooner rather than later.

Why this (alleged) pressure to decide? Just take a look at the numbers:

When it comes to ideology, Gallup found that self-described conservatives favored ex-Arkansas governor Huckabee over Romney and Palin and found double-digit support among all income levels. Huckabee did the best among people earning $24,000 to $59,000 (22%).

h/t USA Today

Pollsters specifically asked about the president’s handling of the economy, and 57 percent said they disapproved of the way President Obama is handling the economy. “That’s his highest disapproval rating on the economy since he took office,” said Crawford. “That is potentially a real problem for the president.”

Watch it here from CBS News:

CBS pollsters say the solid support includes an unusually strong showing from Republicans:

President Obama receives more support from Republicans on this issue than he has on domestic issues such as the economy and the deficit. Forty-three percent of Republicans say they approve of how the President is handling the crisis in Libya, and 41 percent disapprove. A majority 66 percent of Mr. Obama’s Democratic voters said they approved, along with 43 percent of independents.

CBS News also asked about Japan, and Americans gave the president even higher marks on the handling of that crisis, with 7 in 10 saying they approve of the White House’s handling of the disaster, and just 14 percent disapproving.

The New York Post reports this morning CNN’s Eliot Spitzer–who was part of the network’s coverage of the State of the Union Tuesday night–suggested a CNN poll on reaction to President Obama‘s speech was “totally misleading and should not be aired.”

The Post, citing unnamed sources, suggests an internal email from CNN standards and practices chief Rick Davis, which offered guidance on reporting the results of the poll, set Spitzer off:

Shortly before the poll results aired Tuesday night, Davis advised CNN personnel to preface them with the expectation that there would be a positive reaction because more Democrats tend to watch a speech by a Democratic president than Republicans. But after the poll aired, Spitzer shot back in his own mass e-mail, “This poll is totally misleading and should not be aired as one who has studied these polls I woukd [sic] be embarassed to put these numbers on the air.”

CNN told the Post there’s no internal turf war underway: “Eliot and Rick shared the same concerns, and we made sure to disclose the appropriate information to viewers to give them the full context.”

The lame duck Congress is a hit with Americans. An ABC News/Yahoo! News poll finds 77 percent of Americans approved of the “flurry of legislation” pushed through Congress last month, saying it was good for President Obama and Congress to work together.

The poll–out this morning–finds approval across party lines, with 91 percent of Democrats, 79 percent of independents and 62 percent of Republicans approving of the rush of legislation on tax cuts, unemployment benefits, gays in the military, the START treaty and aid to 9/11 responders:

Whether it lasts is another matter: Whatever the lame-duck session achieved, Americans divide evenly on the chances Obama and the Republicans in Congress will work together on important issues in the year ahead. Forty-eight percent are optimistic about it — just 14 percent “strongly” so — but about as many, 46 percent, are pessimistic about the prospects for political cooperation.

When pollsters asked people who should get the credit for the success of the lame duck Congress, party played a key role. Democrats credited the president’s leadership, and Republicans saw GOP leaders in Congress as largely responsible for getting the legislation pushed through.

It is definitely possible that the rebounding job approval rating accurately reflects a public with increased confidence in their Commander-in-Chief to compromise with political opponents in order to find solutions. However, Gallup also warns the improved number “could reflect a temporary increase in optimism that Gallup sometimes sees at the beginning of a new year.” And to possibly deflate the number further, Gallup also notes the latest numbers “come at a time when the president was on vacation in Hawaii and out of the political spotlight.”

Whether the high job approval rating truly reflects President Obama as the “new comeback kid,” as conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer recently dubbed him, or whether it suggests people just like Obama best when he’s not doing anything and on vacation remains to be seen until Gallup’s next batch of ratings.

Check out Gallup’s report.

News Corp, parent company to Fox News Channel, is attempting to take over the remaining 61 percent of BSkyB shares the company does not already own–a purchase that has led to claims Murdoch will have too much power over media:

Last night a spokesman for the alliance of media groups said: ‘This deal marks a significant change of control and the public is clearly concerned.

‘The public’s concern that no one organisation should control too much of the news – as News Corporation would under the planned deal – is also very striking.’

According to the poll–which was commissioned jointly by a group of U.K. newspapers–84 percent of Brits oppose “any single (media) organization exerting too much influence.”

Kudlow says Romney’s on the wrong side of the tax cut deal struck by Republicans and President Obama, and “I’m not letting him off the hook.”

Kudlow started off a segment with CNBC’s John Harwood with the headline, “sounds like the public likes the tax cuts, John, but they’re not sold on the president’s ability to move us in the right direction. Harwood gracefully adjusts, saying in fact, the new poll shows “Obama’s political temperature is a little bit higher than where I’m standing, which is freezing on the White House lawn.”

Harwood pointed out that Obama’s approval ratings is 45 percent, but 72 percent of Americans “like the president personally.” Further, the poll found that the “shellacking” delivered in the midterm elections seems to have helped the president get the message. 64 percent say Obama’s “gotten the message.”

The poll includes largely meaningless head-to-head matchups between the president and likely GOP candidates, with Obama beating them all, including a 20-point lead over Sarah Palin.

But Kudlow pointed out, Americans support the tax deal (59 percent) and Mitt Romney did not.

Mitt Romney is losing to Obama. The public–six out of ten roughly–support the tax cuts. Mitt Romney opposed the tax cuts package. Mitt Romney would rather see tax rates go up across the board, 600 billion dollars drained from the economy. How big a mistake is that for Mitt Romney? I’m personally not letting him off the hook.

Kudlow concludes: “Romney really bungled this.”

Watch it here, from CNBC:

Huckabee says Republicans shouldn’t start measuring the proverbial drapes in the Oval Office just yet–POTUS will not be a pushover in 2012:

“I think it’s going to be harder to beat Barack Obama than a lot of Republicans are thinking because he is the president, he’s going to have a billion dollars starting out in his war chest, there is an extraordinary advantage of an incumbent,” Huckabee said. “And I’ll tell you something else people don’t think about: a divided government is good for the executive branch.”

He added, “When the executive and the legislative branches fight, the executive always wins,” citing his own experience with a Democratically-controlled Arkansas legislature.

A new poll out Monday will likely encourage the Fox News host to keep talking about a run for the White House–a Quinnipiac survey finds Huckabee trailing the president in a head-to-head matchup by just two points, which is within the margin of error.

Only one presumed Republican candidate beats the president in a head to head, and it’s not Sarah Palin. Mitt Romney edges Obama by one point in the survey.

Watch Huckabee on The View, from ABC:

These results are drastically different from those the Institute found on September 9. In that poll, 49 percent of voters said they were in favor of the war, while just 41 percent were opposed to it.

In fact, throughout 2010, support for Afghanistan has decreased significantly—on January 14, 59 percent of voters said they believed the U.S. was doing the right thing in Afghanistan; just 35 percent told Quinippiac that our nation should not be involved there. What could be behind the shift? Perhaps voters are responding to Senator Lindsay Graham‘s recent admission that American soldiers will probably be in Afghanistan until 2014—not 2011, as the administration has said previously.

Here are some of the poll’s other interesting findings:

- 47 percent of respondents want Congress to repeal the new health care law, while 30 percent want it expanded. 18 percent want to leave it as is. 45 percent of those who answered “expand” are between 18 and 34 years old.

- A large majority of those polled are in favor of repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell: 58 percent, to be exact. 34 percent don’t want it repealed.

- Most people also support a potential national ban on using cell phones while driving. 63 percent of respondents believe such a ban would be a good idea, while 34 percent say it would be a bad idea. 49 percent of respondents also said that prohibiting cell phone use while driving would make roads and highways “a great deal” safer.

Luckily, the Associated Press caught the First Lady’s salutory siege on video. Did Sembiring try to fend off the greeting, or is this just so much hand jive? (h/t Alan Colmes)

Here’s the clip. Watch closely at around the 18 second mark.

He doesn’t look all that reluctant. Maybe she employed a Jedi-whispered “This is the hand you are looking for.”

While this incident is being widely, deservedly mocked all over the internet, there are a few important takeaways. The outsize attention that this trivial encounter is receiving has an American mirror image in the right-of-center media’s idiotic obsession with the bowing customs of US presidents. Or, rather, just one US president.

More importantly, though, the world will be waiting to see if Sembiring can actually pull off this excuse. If he does, this could be a valuable precedent for men everywhere who are “forced” into contact with women, alas, too late to save Tiger Woods.

Beck ceded, reluctantly, that the poll proved his colleague was, “I can’t believe I’m saying this to Bill O’Reilly– you’re a likable guy.” Unfortunately for O’Reilly, however, this momentary victory was rapidly eclipsed by the fact that Beck took complete credit for the fact that people found O’Reilly likable now. “You know what that is?” he asked O’Reilly; “That is my effect. I humanize you.”

O’Reilly interpreted the results differently, citing the fact that he believed he went after liberals when he found what they said to be unfair or “malicious”: “If it’s malicious, I go after it.” Unlike, say, Beck, who he noted had made a few gaffes in his day, though he did apologize for them. This gave Beck an opening to apologize for his comments last year that Barack Obama was a racist: “that wasn’t just wrong to say– it was naive to say.” He chalked it up to not being “born for this” and “thinking out loud a lot,” instead of being more sophisticated about what he says on the air, as he argues O’Reilly is.

Yesterday’s weekly chat via Fox News below:

Two results particularly stand out: the GOP has a “record lead” over the Dems, and Obama’s approval rating has dipped to a new low. From ABC’s analysis of the results:

Two months before the 2010 midterm elections, likely voters now favor the Republican over the Democratic candidate in their congressional district by 53-40 percent, the widest GOP margin on record in ABC News/Washington Post polls since 1981.

It’s just as bad for the President:

A majority, 52 percent, now disapproves of the way Obama is handling his job overall, another first in ABC/Post polls. Intensity increasingly is against him, with those who disapprove “strongly” outnumbering strong approvers by 14 points. A record 57 percent rate him negatively on handling the economy, “strongly” so by an even wider margin, 2-1.

It’s about the economy stupid?

Ninety-two percent of Americans say the economy’s in bad shape. A mere 24 percent believe it’s improving. And for the first time numerically more say Obama’s economic program has made the economy worse, 33 percent, than improved it, 30 percent. Views that he’s helped the economy have dropped by 9 points since spring.

This is good news for Jodie Foster, who directed Gibson’s next film, the dark comedy The Beaver. Ironically, in that film, Gibson plays a crazy person. However, we can only assume that Gibson’s character is the more movie-friendly “quirkily endearing” type of crazy and not the “threaten to burn a house down when you don’t receive oral sex” type of crazy. And still, as Vanity Fair points out, the pollsters only asked people if the scandal would affect their choice. If that choice was already set on skipping Gibson’s films, well, then… At the very least, we’ll have to wait till The Beaver’s release to see if these poll numbers correspond to box office numbers.

In totally unrelated news, Takers, the movie starring Chris Brown of the singing and beating-Rihanna’s-face-into-a-bloody-mess fame was number one at the box office this past weekend.

As we have seen in recent weeks with the growing controversy over the Lower Manhattan Mosque the nation does not feel necessarily comfortable with Muslims. Time‘s cover asks “Does America Have a Muslim Problem?” and all things considered it’s hard not to conclude yes.

However, the larger question here is why the confusion? And more to the point, why the sudden confusion? When polled in March of 2009, shortly after Obama was elected, only 11% said they thought he was a Muslim and 34% said they didn’t know. Over a year later and more than two years after Obama landed squarely in the national spotlight, 18% now think he’s a Muslim and 43% say they don’t know. It should probably be noted that this survey was conducted in July, before the Mosque debacle went national.

Leaving aside the fact that Obama’s religion shouldn’t really matter, it’s hard not to tie in the rise in numbers with the increase in negative campaigning we have seen ahead of November’s midterms. An recent example of that being Florida gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott’s latest campaign ad referring to the Lower Manhattan mosque as ‘Obama’s mosque’ is a good example of the subtle (or not so subtle) innuendo that contributes to this sort of conclusion. At any rate, according to Pew, the media is to blame:

“When asked how they learned about Obama’s religion in an open-ended question, 60% of those who say Obama is a Muslim cite the media. Among specific media sources, television (at 16%) is mentioned most frequently. About one-in-ten (11%) of those who say Obama is a Muslim say they learned of this through Obama’s own words and behavior.”

Alas, the poll does not make clear how many people drew this conclusion via the Internet nor what television in particular those polled are gleaning this information.

Related: Growing Number of Americans Say Obama is a Muslim [Pew]

According to Democracy Corps’ most recent poll, 55 percent of likely voters thinks our president is a socialist. Along the same lines, 52 percent think he isn’t on their side.

And the numbers only get worse:

Right track/wrong track: 31/61

Obama shares/doesn’t share your values: 46/51

Obama is/isn’t on your side: 45/52

Obama is/isn’t too liberal: 57/38

Obama is/isn’t a socialist: 55/39

Obama has/doesn’t have realistic solutions to the country’s problems: 43/55

Follow-up question: how many respondents actually know what socialism is?

And then there’s this:

“The best way to improve our economy and create jobs is to invest more to put people to work, develop new industries, and help businesses grow in expanding, new areas.” OR “The best way to improve our economy and create jobs is to cut government spending and cut taxes so businesses can prosper and the private sector can start creating jobs.”
FIRST STATEMENT: 43
SECOND STATEMENT: 50

Polls are to be taken with a grain of salt, but the numbers trend is undeniable. The chances of being able to reverse these perceptions are difficult, and by now, we all know when it comes to voting, perceptions often trump fact.

Among 18- to 29-year-olds, this number shot up to 40 percent. Thirty-three percent of women were unsure or answered incorrectly – compared to 19 percent of men. So, which country do these people think we had a revolution against? Incorrect answers included France, China, Japan, Mexico, and Spain.

That’s right: at least one person thinks the American Revolution was a revolt against China.

On that note: Happy Independence Day!

They’re seizing on this statement by the President, and interpreting it as an Apple slam:

And with iPods and iPads; and Xboxes and PlayStations — none of which I know how to work — (laughter) — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation.

What they’re missing, of course, is the preceding sentence. Here’s the full quote:

And meanwhile, you’re coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don’t always rank that high on the truth meter.  And with iPods and iPads; and Xboxes and PlayStations — none of which I know how to work — (laughter) — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation.  So all of this is not only putting pressure on you; it’s putting new pressure on our country and on our democracy.

He wasn’t slamming the iPad, but rather the content of dubious truth-metering that is available on it.

Mediaite’s Glynnis MacNicol isolated one valid takeaway, that the President warning college grads about new media signal-to-noise sounded a little bit out of touch. Personally, I’m worried about these people who get their news off of the Xbox. Maybe that explains all the gun rallies, they’re tooling up for the imminent God of War attack.

What’s funny is that I was just wondering if President Obama has some kind of apple obsession. I mean the fruit, not the iStuff producers. When the White House released this photo of the POTUS and Elena Kagan this morning, with a bowl of what appear to be McIntoshes in the foreground, it reminded me of the towers of green apples that adorned every table at last year’s Father’s Day barbecue. Note to Sarah Palin: Is this all part of his plan to “keep the doctor away?” Wheels within wheels, man. Wheels within wheels.

From the BBC article:

“Nearly 30,000 people in 28 countries were interviewed for the poll, between November 2009 and February 2010.
Fifteen of the countries have been surveyed every year since 2005, allowing long-term trends to be discerned.
In these nations – or 14 of them, not including the US itself – positive views of the US fell to a low of 28% on average in 2007, from 38% in 2005, but recovered to 35% in 2009 and 40% in this year’s poll.”

The rest of the results weren’t particularly surprising. Iran and Pakistan were considered the most negative while China continued the slow downward trend its been making the past few years. Germany, a country who has had to overcome a much larger PR problem than an unpopular Bush administration, remains the highest viewed country. But the enormous upswing for America is the real story here and Steve Krup, the director of one of the groups who conducted the poll, gives all the credit to the new president.

“‘After a year, it appears the ‘Obama effect’ is real. Its influence on people’s views worldwide, though, is to soften the negative aspects of the United States’ image, while positive aspects are not yet coming into strong focus.’
He added: ‘While China’s image is stuck in neutral, America has motored past it in the global soft-power competition.’”

Critics of Obama will assuredly read these results as a negative, claiming them proof that the read of the world views Obama as weak and only like him as such. However, both these people and their opponents on the left will be missing the real variable that could have affected the poll. When people were asked about their feelings on Obama, they might have accidentally been thinking of the Obama Entertainment Club. That would have definitely skewed their answers. Who doesn’t like a swinging Shanghai nightclub?

Blogger “Angry Mouse” has given Palin what reads as one of the most ringing, brutally honest endorsements for her 2012 presidential campaign to come out so far. And yes, that first sentence is the way (s)he begins the endorsement. It only gets better from there:

If this is the war the party of stupid wants, let them have it. Let us see what their rightwing insanity has sown. Let us watch Sarah debate President Obama, crib notes and all. Because even though the entire Republican Congress was outmatched in a battle of wits only a few weeks ago, Sarah, being Sarah, will strut into any debate thinking she has the upper hand. And America needs to watch that, the arrogance of someone so hopelessly out of her league that she doesn’t even realize she’s out of her league, daring to take on President Obama, daring to claim that she could do his job better as she spouts meaningless platitudes about budget tax cuts and energy and lifting American spirit. It doesn’t matter that she knows nothing. It doesn’t matter that she’s an embarrassment to herself every time she speaks. We need to have our options so obviously spelled out for us that there can be no mistake. We need to have that fight -– the fight of thoughtfulness and reason versus also too also.

It’s biting, it’s vicious, it’s backhanded, and, most of all, it’s fair. “Mouse” goes issue-by-issue, with links and quotes, before concluding that it is necessary for Americans to see Palin compete with Obama on every level required of a presidential candidate. Incendiary rhetoric aside, the partisan divide the country is facing might require that competition to occur. And hearing someone on Kos actually welcome spirited debate and competition is precisely what its detractors are constantly demanding of it. There is no wish to keep Palin hushed, no pleading to close the case on the Tea Parties. Rather, they are so certain that their politicial beliefs are superior that they want to see them debated publicly. And that’s a good thing.

But while the Daily Kos’ endorsement of Palin is as good as good behavior is going to get on the site, the post immediately following it sinks them right back down to the ridiculous. Predictably, the Fox News poll showing that most (81% at last login) Fox News site visitors considered the Tea Party movement to be rooted in a “fruitless mix of racism, conspiracy theories” caught their attention. Also predictably, they completely missed the point, peeved by the fact that the world “socialism” appears in a poll on the Tea Party movement. How can a piece on the Tea Partiers not have the world “socialism” in it somewhere? It is petty to slam Fox News for this when they are publicly showing that most Americans, according to their study, consider a movement they are accused of supporting to be ridiculous. And it’s missing the big picture: even Fox News fans– 81% of them!– have no respect for the Tea Parties. Of course, pointing that out would mean acknowledging that the radical minority that represents the Tea Partiers is not commonly accepted by the mainstream, and that level of maturity is apparently too much to ask from the Kos crew, commendable as their piece on Palin may be.