Oh, good, another opportunity for us to examine and calibrate our measurements of the crazification factor.
Hint: we know this value cannot sink more than one standard deviation below George W. Bush’s lowest polling average.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Why, oh, why did I follow that link? Now my IQ has dropped by the Alan Keyes constant and my laptop has WND cooties.
Thanks a lot, Boo!
I aim to please.
what is the Alan Keyes constant? I assume it has something to do with 27% and 47%
It is to IQ what Kelvin is to Centigrade and Fahrenheit.
He uselessness is a constant.
In the fall of 1973, right after the Saturday Night Massacre, Nixon’s public approval ratings fell to, you guessed it, 27%. And stayed within a handful of points of 27% right up until he resigned the following August.
Can we call it the Nixon Constant?
Must be an election season coming up. They’re rolling out Allen Keys once again.
But on the freak-out over Iran…
Make. It. Stop. Please. Before. I. Start. Digging. A. 1960s. Style. Bomb. Shelter.
I have never in my 69 years seen such lust for war. It is so blessed by the media that a rerun of the “Daisy” ad from the LBJ campaign would have the response, “Fuck, yeah. Let’s do it.” And the Democrats who’ve joined the loon parade! Last November after the election, I said that the donkey is dead. There is not surer sign of the death of the Democratic Party than Chuck Schumer and his gang plumping to keep nuclear proliferation going.
Which means that the sidelined pols are clear that the crazy is selling and campaign contributors are buying. Allen Keyes is likely to get a few million out of this media blitz. That will keep him and his family going until the next election.
Citizens United above all else means – moar primary candidates.
Yes, the Iran freak-out is frightening. Obama has broken the anti-Cuba and anti-Iran spells which have played big parts in defining US politics over the past 30-50 years. In this, he has progressed, given the country the opportunity to progress, even if it doesn’t listen. The anti-Russia spell, however, has turned up to supplant those and is going full-speed ahead. Here Obama is a throw back. Where is the putative next Democratic president in all this? My hunch is that she resigned as Secretary of State more because she knew of Obama’s two foreign police initiatives, which she disagreed with, than because she was thinking of running for president. Obama was a breath of fresh air which turned out to be less exhilarating than hoped for, despite accomplishments. Clinton is retro to the core and living in the world of somewhere around 1960 where the US reigned supreme and was all sweetness and light to the world. She offers no prospect of an improved future, not at all.
Obama is blundering and sleepwalking into a real hot war disaster with Russia. Tough talk and boasting about the effectiveness of sanctions. This is likely to not go over well in Moscow. He needs to wise up to what’s happening, else we could be looking at the beginning stages of actual war with a country that has and would use wad’s.
As for Hillary on Russia, not much better, judging from some unfortunate past comments, such as comparing Putin with Hitler. A false, toxic comparison which doesn’t bode well for how she would deal with Russia as president. But let’s give her a little time to roll out her campaign first and after an interval, she’ll be talking some FP. I’m hoping she’ll moderate her stance, but it’s very possible she’ll decide to follow the Obama lead of toughness, sanctions and stubborn stupidity.
But, again, where the eff is the liberal antiwar left on the growing tensions and crisis w/Russia? It seems like all the progressive energy has gone into domestic economic concerns.
boasting about effectiveness of sanctions not necessarily a bad thing, since it seems to be his reason/ cover for not escalating involvement. Hillary went Godwin? that does not bode well, though Hillary in charge of our foreign policy is something definitely to be avoided imo and pretty much my basis for looking/ hoping for an alternative. isn’t Victoria Nuland one of Hillary’s ppl?
I think it was Obama bluster — a serious gaffe and insult to Moscow — to go along with his admin’s aggressive stance towards Russia. And we have been quietly escalating militarily in the Baltic States by sending over military combat equipment and by increased war games exercises near the Russia border. The Russians of course have responded by ramping up their military exercises in the area, as well as the Arctic region near Scandinavia and in Siberia.
Imagine if one of our military fighter jets, or theirs, makes a mistake and strays too far …
As for Nuland, Obama should have fired her/arranged for her transfer to a less sensitive post once that tape came out early last year. The fact that he hasn’t would tend to suggest he’s on board with all that meddling last year with the gov’t in Kiev. To date, I’ve heard nothing that would signal an Obama rethinking of our dangerously aggressive policy towards Ukraine/Russia.
The situation seems to be getting worse even with the Minsk II ceasefire still in place. The slowly building crisis that few Americans are aware of. The one being covered in the MSM almost solely from the hawkish perspective.
Well since Obama is overall in favor of diplomatic solutions to international crises and, my words I guess, opposed to military intervention for its own sake, I assume he’s also against escalating the situation militarily. I agree with you about the MSM coverage, hence difficult to find out what is really going on. I read somewhere that Poroshenko is trying to rein in Kolomoisky, a good thing since Kolomoisky is evidently a candidate for who is responsible for shooting down the passenger plane.
Well, who did shoot down the Malaysian plane? Isn’t it odd that after close to a year no one has been officially accused? Apparently a lot of scientific and unscientific discussions are going on? No one seems to complain. The lawsuits are piling up but have no where to go until a perpetrator is identified. Was it really the Ukrainian air force as Russia suggests? Lots of questions which have probably already been answered in secret, something like the negotiating and corporate court system of the Trans Pacific Partnership treaty which Obama is all hot about.
Where is the antiwar liberal left on Iran and Russia? Largely absent, quiet. Boxer has offered a compromise proposal, but other than that? And will Obama and his admin do more publicly and privately to sell and persuade on the Iran agreement? They seem rather quiet too.
IOW, the pro-war factions, including on Russia most/all of Obama’s national security team, largely have the field to themselves, aided and abetted by the MSM.
By contrast, in 1964 most major senators were opposed or very skeptical of further US military involvement in VN, left and right. Even Lyndon’s former senate mentor, the ultra conservative Dem Richard Russell, was against escalation. In the late 70s, there was a sizable vocal group of leaders in favor of detente with the Soviets. Ditto for the nuclear freeze movement of the early 80s. In 2002 half the Dem Party was against the AUMF.
I fear this agreement on Iran could fizzle out or get watered down such that it is rejected in Teheran. Obama and the Dems need to step up their game and get out there and sell it.
That was 27% in Illinois. I’ve been told, and have no special reason to disbelieve, that outside Chicago, Illinois is West Indiana.
So what happens if you take Chicago out of the equation?