Either I'm on LSD or these 2 "reporters" are

[PocketProtector]

Oh yeah....It's an AP POLL LOL

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090423/D97O490O0.html
AP Poll: Americans high on Obama, direction of US
Email this Story

Apr 23, 6:35 AM (ET)

By RON FOURNIER and TREVOR TOMPSON


WASHINGTON (AP) - For the first time in years, more Americans than not say the country is headed in the right direction, a sign that Barack Obama has used the first 100 days of his presidency to lift the public's mood and inspire hopes for a brighter future.

Intensely worried about their personal finances and medical expenses, Americans nonetheless appear realistic about the time Obama might need to turn things around, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll. It shows most Americans consider their new president to be a strong, ethical and empathetic leader who is working to change Washington.

Nobody knows how long the honeymoon will last, but Obama has clearly transformed the yes-we-can spirit of his candidacy into a tool of governance. His ability to inspire confidence - Obama's second book is titled "The Audacity of Hope" - has thus far buffered the president against the harsh political realities of two wars, a global economic meltdown and countless domestic challenges.

"He presents a very positive outlook," said Cheryl Wetherington, 35, an independent voter who runs a chocolate shop in Gardner, Kan. "He's very well-spoken and very vocal about what direction should be taken."

Other AP-GfK findings could signal trouble for Obama:

_While there is evidence that people feel more optimistic about the economy, 65 percent said it's difficult for them and their families to get ahead. More than one-third know of a family member who recently lost a job.

_More than 90 percent of Americans consider the economy an important issue, the highest ever in AP polling.

_Nearly 80 percent believe that the rising federal debt will hurt future generations, and Obama is getting mixed reviews at best for his handling of the issue.

And yet, the percentage of Americans saying the country is headed in the right direction rose to 48 percent, up from 40 percent in February. Forty-four percent say the nation is on the wrong track.

Not since January 2004, shortly after the capture of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, has an AP survey found more "right direction" than "wrong direction" respondents. The burst of optimism didn't last long in 2004.

And it doesn't happen much.

Other than that blip five years ago, pessimism has trumped optimism in media polls since shortly after the invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003.

The "right track" number topped "wrong direction" for a few months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to non-AP media polls, and for several months late in the Clinton administration.

So far, Obama has defied the odds by producing a sustained trend toward optimism. It began with his election.

In October 2008, just 17 percent said the country was headed in the right direction. After his victory, that jumped to 36 percent. It dipped a bit in December but returned to 35 percent around the time of his inauguration and has headed upward since.

Obama is keenly aware that his political prospects are directly linked to such numbers. If at the end of his term the public is no more assured that Washington is competent and accountable and that the nation is at least on the right track, his re-election prospects will be doubtful.

Obama himself has conceded as much.

"I will be held accountable," he said a few weeks into his presidency. "You know, I've got four years. ... If I don't have this done in three years, then there's going to be a one-term proposition."

The AP-GfK poll suggests that 64 percent of the public approves of Obama's job performance, down just slightly from 67 percent in February. President George W. Bush's approval ratings hovered in the high 50s after his first 100 days in office.

But Obama has become a polarizing figure, with just 24 percent of Republicans approving of his performance - down from 33 percent in February. Obama campaigned on a promise to end the party-first mind-set that breeds gridlock in Washington.

Most Americans say it's too soon to tell whether he's delivered on his promise to change Washington. But twice as many say Obama is living up to his promises as those who say he's not (30 percent to 15 percent).

Worries about losing their jobs, facing major medical expenses, seeing investments dive and paying their bills remain high among Americans, the poll shows, just slightly lower than two months ago.

Still, seven in 10 Americans say it is reasonable to expect it to take longer than a year to see the results of Obama's economic policies.

Just as many people say Obama understands the concerns of ordinary Americans and cares about "people like you."

That's a sharp contrast to Bush, who won re-election in 2004 despite the fact that 54 percent of voters on that Election Day said he cared more about large corporations than ordinary Americans.

A majority of Americans believe the Obama administration is following higher ethical standards than the Bush administration.

Most also say he's changing things about the right amount and at the right speed. But nearly a third say he's trying to change too many things too quickly.

Obama is not the first president who sought to tap the deep well of American optimism - the never-say-die spirit that Americans like to see in themselves.

Even as he briefly closed the nation's banks, Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke in the first days of his presidency of the "confidence and courage" needed to fix the U.S. economy. "Together we cannot fail," he declared.

In the malaise following Jimmy Carter's presidency, Ronald Reagan reminded people that America has always seen itself as a "shining city upon a hill," as one of its earliest leaders, John Winthrop, put it.

Obama started his presidency on a dour note, describing the U.S. economy in nearly apocalyptic terms for weeks as he pushed his $787 billion stimulus plan through Congress.

He turned the page in late February, telling a joint session of Congress and a television audience of millions: "We will rebuild. We will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before."

Of those who say the country is on the right track in the AP-GfK poll, 73 percent are Democrats, 17 percent are independents and 10 percent are Republicans.

"When Obama came in," said D.T. Brown, 39, a Mount Vernon, Ill., radio show host who voted against Obama, "it was just a breath of fresh air."

Others said their newfound optimism had nothing to do with Obama, but rather with an era of personal responsibility they believe has come with the economic meltdown.

"I think people are beginning to turn in that direction and realize that there's not always going to be somebody to catch them when things fall down," said Dwight Hageman, 66, a retired welder from Newberg, Ore., who voted against Obama.

The AP-GfK Poll was conducted April 16-20 by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Media. It involved telephone interviews on landline and cell phones with 1,000 adults nationwide. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

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[Paradigm]

- For the first time in years, more Americans than not say the country is headed in the right direction, a sign that Barack Obama has used the first 100 days of his presidency to lift the public's mood and inspire hopes for a brighter future.

Is this a news story or an opinion piece?

Egads.

Journalism 101 FAIL.

[69chevy]

Wow.... this dude is busy making speeches about how great shit is going to be while the banksters who put him in office rob us blind.

[PocketProtector]

Propaganda disguised as news. Lib playbook page 1.

[ReconLdr]

Are there really that many stupid people in this country? Wait, they elected him. (damn it I answered my own question again)

[PocketProtector]

Wait til you see the "journalism" regarding the first 100 days. Greatest president ever they say. It is me that's "trippin"

[PocketProtector]

Here, gag on this LOL

http://www.time.com/time/politics/ar...893277,00.html



Sizing Up Obama's First 100 Days
By Joe Klein Thursday, Apr. 23, 2009


The President almost seemed apologetic. "This may be a slightly longer speech than I usually give," he told his audience at Georgetown University on April 14. "This is going to be prose and not poetry." What followed, as promised, was not poetry. Barack Obama doesn't do much poetry anymore. But in prose that was spare and clear and compelling, the President proceeded to describe how his Administration had responded to the financial crisis, the overriding challenge of his first 100 days in office. He had covered this ground before, nearly as well, in his budget message to Congress. But now Obama went further, using a parable from the Sermon on the Mount — the need for a house built on rock rather than on sand — to describe a future that was nothing less than an overhaul of the nature of American capitalism. "It is simply not sustainable," he said, "to have an economy where, in one year, 40% of our corporate profits came from a financial sector that was based on inflated home prices, maxed-out credit cards, overleveraged banks and overvalued assets."

That was the house built on sand. His house built on rock had five pillars — new rules for Wall Street, new initiatives in education, alternative energy and health care, and eventually budget savings that would bring down the national debt — which did sound a bit prosaic. Democratic politicians have been promising one or another, if not all, of the above since Franklin Roosevelt reinvented American government in the 1930s. But Obama was making his case in the midst of a national crisis, at a moment when it seemed possible that he might enact much of what he was seeking. And he was talking about far more than a new set of policies: he was implying a new set of national values. "There's also an impatience that characterizes [Washington]," he said, "that insists on instant gratification in the form of immediate results or higher poll numbers. When a crisis hits, there is all too often a lurch from shock to trance, with everyone responding to the tempest of the moment until the furor has died down ... instead of confronting major challenges that will shape our future in a sustained and focused way." (See who's in Obama's White House.)

The combination of candor and vision and the patient explanation of complex issues was Obama at his best — and more than any other moment of his first 100 days in office, it summed up the purpose of his presidency: a radical change of course not just from his predecessor, not just from the 30-year Reagan era but also from the quick-fix, sugar-rush, attention-deficit society of the postmodern age. The speech received ho-hum coverage on the evening news and in print — because, I suspect, it was more of a summation than the announcement of new initiatives. Quickly, public attention turned to new "tempests of the moment" — an obscene amount of attention was paid to the new Obama family dog and then, more appropriately, to the Bush Administration's torture policy and the probably futile attempt to prosecute those who authorized the practices. And then to a handshake and a smile that the President bestowed on the Venezuelan demagogue Hugo Chávez. These are the soap bubbles of our public life. They have become the hasty, capricious, bite-size way that we experience the world. It has made for slovenly, sandy citizenship.

The most important thing we now know about Barack Obama, after nearly 100 days in office, is that he means to confront that way of life directly and profoundly, to exchange sand for rock if he can. Whether you agree with him or not — whether you think he is too ambitious or just plain wrong — his is as serious and challenging a presidency as we have had in quite some time.

The idea that a President can be assessed in a mere 100 days is a journalistic conceit. Most presidencies evolve too slowly to be judged so quickly. Roosevelt set the initial standard in 1933, overpowering Congress and passing a slew of legislation to confront the Great Depression during his first three months in office. "Lyndon Johnson had two 100-days periods," says historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, "one after the Kennedy assassination and another after he was elected in 1964." Indeed, Johnson's legislative haul dwarfs anything before or since; he quickly got Congress on track to pass landmark civil rights bills and create Medicare, among other things. "And you have to say that Reagan had a significant 100 days," Goodwin adds, "because he represented a clear break from the policies of the past, even if his signature legislation — the tax cuts — didn't pass until after the 100 days were over. But I don't think we've ever seen anything like Obama since Roosevelt."

The legislative achievements have been stupendous — the $789 billion stimulus bill, the budget plan that is still being hammered out (and may, ultimately, include the next landmark safety-net program, universal health insurance). There has also been a cascade of new policies to address the financial crisis — massive interventions in the housing and credit markets, a market-based plan to buy the toxic assets that many banks have on their books, a plan to bail out the auto industry and a strict new regulatory regime proposed for Wall Street. Obama has also completely overhauled foreign policy, from Cuba to Afghanistan. "In a way, Obama's 100 days is even more dramatic than Roosevelt's," says Elaine Kamarck of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "Roosevelt only had to deal with a domestic crisis. Obama has had to overhaul foreign policy as well, including two wars. And that's really the secret of why this has seemed so spectacular.

To be sure, the historic unpopularity of the Bush Administration has been a convenient foil for Obama. He has also been lucky in his enemies, a reeling Republican Party that lurches from gimmicks to hissy fits, including frequent, unbidden appearances by such unpopular characters as Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich, whose rants about everything from Obama's decision to repudiate the torture of enemy combatants to his handshake with Chávez seem both ungracious and unhinged. "We obviously haven't found our voice yet," says Senator Lamar Alexander, one of the more thoughtful GOP leaders. "The American people sent us to the woodshed. And when you go to the woodshed, the best course of action is to sit there, be quiet, figure out why you're there and what you can do about it."

[Guns4Fun]

Wait til you see the "journalism" regarding the first 100 days. Greatest president ever they say. It is me that's "trippin"

Yeah but it think we all must be trippn if we believe that dog and pony show to be the truth. I wonder if that paper comes with an acid tab when you buy it.

It's time to do some research on Joe Klein, RON FOURNIER and TREVOR TOMPSON.

[PocketProtector]

and from Dick Morris

Dick Morris
Obama’s leap to socialism
By Dick Morris
Posted: 04/21/09 05:21 PM [ET]
President Obama showed his hand this week when The New York Times wrote that he is considering converting the stock the government owns in our country’s banks from preferred stock, which it now holds, to common stock.

This seemingly insignificant change is momentous. It means that the federal government will control all of the major banks and financial institutions in the nation. It means socialism.

The Times dutifully dressed up the Obama plan as a way to avoid asking Congress for more money for failing banks. But the implications of the proposal are obvious to anyone who cares to look.

When the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) intervention was first outlined by the Bush administration, it did not call for any transfer of stock, of any sort, to the government. The Democrats demanded, as a price for their support, that the taxpayers “get something back” for the money they were lending to the banks. House Republicans, wise to what was going on, rejected the administration’s proposal and sought, instead, to provide insurance to banks, rather than outright cash. Their plan would, of course, not involve any transfer of stock. But Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) undercut his own party’s conservatives and went along with the Democratic plan, ensuring its passage.

But to avoid the issue of a potential for government control of the banks, everybody agreed that the stock the feds would take back in return for their money would be preferred stock, not common stock. “Preferred” means that these stockholders get the first crack at dividends, but only common stockholders can actually vote on company management or policy. Now, by changing this fundamental element of the TARP plan, Obama will give Washington a voting majority among the common stockholders of these banks and other financial institutions. The almost 500 companies receiving TARP money will be, in effect, run by Washington.

And whoever controls the banks controls the credit and, therefore, the economy. That’s called socialism.

Obama is dressing up the idea of the switch to common stock by noting that the conversion would provide the banks with capital they could use without a further taxpayer appropriation. While this is true, it flies in the face of the fact that an increasing number of big banks and brokerage houses are clamoring to give back the TARP money. Goldman-Sachs, for example, wants to buy back its freedom, as do many banks. Even AIG is selling off assets to dig its way out from under federal control. The reason, of course, is that company executives do not like the restrictions on executive pay and compensation that come with TARP money. It is for this reason that Chrysler Motors refused TARP funds.

With bank profits up and financial institutions trying to give back their money, there is no need for the conversion of the government stock from preferred to common — except to advance the political socialist agenda of this administration.

Meanwhile, to keep its leverage over the economy intact, the Obama administration is refusing to let banks and other companies give back the TARP money until they pass a financial “stress test.” Nominally, the government justifies this procedure by saying that it does not want companies to become fully private prematurely and then need more help later on. But don’t believe it. They want to keep the TARP money in the banks so they can have a reason and rationale to control them.

The Times story did not influence the dialogue of the day. People were much more concerned with the death of 21 horses at a polo match. Much as we will miss these noble animals, we will miss our economic freedom more.